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blacknighterrant

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Everything posted by blacknighterrant

  1. blacknighterrant
    I'm going to GA Tech for ECE Masters too. I'm not an international student though.
  2. blacknighterrant
    Just go to UCSD. Your reasoning is flawed. You do not have a TA position or a gra at either school, choosing a school based on the possibility that you might get one is foolish, you may end up going to UCSB and not getting anything at all. Then you would end up not even having the 5k fellowship. At least UCSD gave you something, UCSB gave you nothing, never go with unguaranteed funding. The fact that you emailed someone and they didn't respond means absolutely nothing and shouldn't be discouraging and says nothing about your chances of getting a gra. For all you know your email went in their junk folder and they never saw it, why not try calling and talking to them on the phone?
  3. blacknighterrant
    GA Tech's brand would be worth a lot more in cs than Yale. Honestly though in cs it won't really make much of a difference where you went to school unless you were trying for rather specialized positions. It'll be your projects/experience etc that are more important.
  4. blacknighterrant
    Go to UCSD. The money makes it a no brainer. USCD has an excellent reputation in the field and is ranked almost the same as USC. USC is definitely a cash cow program and masters students are not treated as well/have it slightly harder in terms of getting the research opportunities you want (Btw, you know you can already start trying to get a gra and reaching out to professors right? You should maybe email them and see what your chances are.). To say that UCSD has no social life sounds a bit ridiculous, it is a big school, I'm sure there's plenty of opportunities to socialize and plenty of people to connect with. The faculty at UCSD is also better and UCSD has the newest engineering program among the top tier programs and has been trending upwards over the years, so it wouldn't be surprising if it overtakes USC in the rankings in the upcoming years. Finally USC gives an MS degree in EE, while UCSD give the MS for ECE. It doesn't make that much of a difference, but an ECE degree is slightly better.
  5. blacknighterrant
    Which school would it be better to attend for an ms in electrical and computer engineering (specifically systems and control)?
  6. blacknighterrant
    I care more about the weather in terms of location than I do about things like beaches. The weather in Texas is awful, San Diego gets hot too, but it is nicer. Honestly, it is nice if companies go to career fairs, but career fairs aren't all that big a deal, going to either one of the schools would be good enough for them to seriously look at your resume regardless of what company you apply to, after that your gpa and experience will be a far bigger deal. Even if they don't go to UCSD's career fair major companies still recruit at UCSD look here: http://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/external/external_cap/cap_careers/index.sfe . There are plenty of major engineering companies on that list.
  7. blacknighterrant
    Go with UCLA EE PHD. An EE PhD is far more useful than a Physics PhD in the field (physics is a bit too broad for what most employers look for, they prefer EE, for instance if you check listings for companies such as raytheon, they actively search for those with ee degrees, but the only physics degrees they want are physical engineering and even then there are far fewer job listings and the ee degree would allow you to apply for any of them. Even outside of engineering an ee degree is actively looked for in fields like consulting, investment banking, and finance.). People are also right in saying that you can teach and do physics research as an EE PhD (for instance, the head of undergrad physics in my undergrad school was an EE PhD. Even MIT has a subcategory of applied physics within their EE school and honestly, there is plenty of overlapping research that you could do and in addition there are many EE departments that do quantum information and devices research (like Purdue), so even if a specific school won't let you be a Physics professor you can do the research you want. In addition, a PhD takes a very long time, do you really want to live in Maryland over Los Angeles?
  8. blacknighterrant
    People over-emphasize the importance of location for grad schools. It doesn't really matter much that the school is near the companies, you can just move for the summer and come back during the school year, working at one of these companies while being in school is unrealistic and could do more harm than good. You could also do a co-op which would let you work a semester and go to school a semester in cycles and even then it wouldn't really matter that much where you are unless you really need to stay put. Your kidding when you say that TAMU has a worse reputation and isn't as selective as UCSD right? While it is true that UCSD is ranked higher in electrical engineering the ranking difference is minuscule and TAMU's average gre's are only slightly lower than UCSD, they are both very selective (TAMU actually has a higher overall engineering ranking). Living in Texas would suck compared to living in San Diego. In terms of relations with companies, all top ee schools are usually actively recruited from most major companies, so you will have no trouble getting jobs in the same companies regardless of which school you attend, you can't just automatically say TAMU has better relations. Honestly, they are both great schools and you'll be fine regardless of where you go, I would personally go with UCSD.
  9. blacknighterrant
    UCSB is the worst program and is considerably worse than the others. Purdue and Rice and USC are the best three programs (all equally ranked @ 20 if that is what you care about, UCSB is 34) and duke is slightly worse. Purdue is the best at systems. Honestly though why live in Indiana when you can live in LA? I would just go with USC unless you have different levels of funding for each of the schools, if UCSB is cheaper going there would not be detrimental.
  10. blacknighterrant
    If you think about it undergrad may be 4 years, but over half that time is usually used for none core information (general ed requirements and electives), many schools don't even require students to choose a major before the end of their second year, so only 2 years in a bachelors is really important for career building. 2 years is more than enough time for getting the information you need and you'll be at an advantage when applying for jobs because you have a masters anyway, just make sure you use your time productively (co-ops in the summer and research during the year, the research and co-ops will give you a better understanding of what you really want to do.). Honestly although it is sad to say, the point of going to school at any level bellow PhD is not to learn or gain information, but to demonstrate that you can learn and function well to employers through validation in the form of a degree from the school. Most of what you actually need on the job you will learn while working or teach yourself afterwords. Honestly, I don't think going robotics or cs was the best option, going for a robotics degree is also kind of limiting, I have the same general interest but went for electrical engineering since it is more general and would allow you to apply for robotics jobs in addition to other engineering jobs more easily. In terms of the PhD being a requirement for a robotics job, it will depend on the job, but a PhD being required is very very unlikely, the majority of people working probably have a bachelors, while a few others have masters, and very few people have PhDs. PhDs are more for those that want to remain in academia than those that wish to work in the industry, the main consideration is that they are much too specific (you research an extremely specific subtopic in robotics), and normally the specific knowledge you get in your PhD studies is not worth the extra cost companies would have to pay to employ you. If your sure that working in the industry is what you want to do, my best advice for you would be to look at job postings you would be interested prior to applying for PhD programs to see what they are looking for and how many of the listings require a PhD, asking for advice during your co-ops would also prove to be useful.
  11. blacknighterrant
    I'm not entirely sure but people tend to over-exaggerate safety concerns. College campuses are generally safe, except for when situations happen (like shootings) that are equally likely to occur at any school. The general rule is don't do anything stupid like wander alleys in the middle of the night and you should be fine.
  12. blacknighterrant
    I agree with what everyone else said, but wanted to add that I don't think you should try to rush to make your decision before the deadline. Even if they have nothing for you now, as April 15th approaches more of those they offered money will start rejecting the offer and they will possibly offer you late funding, you lose nothing waiting a bit longer, you can still start making plans to go somewhere else in case it doesn't work out.
  13. blacknighterrant
    UMD is the far better option here. It is more highly ranked which is wonderful, but the more important point is the advisor. The quality of the advisor is perhaps the most important thing to consider and you have a better one at UMD. I guarantee you that internship and co-op opportunities will be the same or better at UMD, companies actively recruit at top tier ece schools. Are you sure you want a PhD and not a masters though, PhD's are more common for those that want to go into academia, they can actually over-qualify you for jobs depending on what you want to do, you should look at the requirements for jobs you would be interested in doing before starting your program. The thing about UC Davis being close to Silicon Valley is something that should not be considered at all. It is not close, you cannot commute from Davis to Sillicon Valley regularly and would have to move if you got a co-op or internship there regardless of if you went to UC Davis or UMD.
  14. blacknighterrant
    CMU is by far the better option. CS degrees are not particularly useful outside of cs, so it would be harder to get an engineering job with one than a robotics job. In addition you say you want to continue to PhD and research is extremely important when applying to PhD programs, if CMU is where you can do research then you need to go to CMU.
  15. blacknighterrant
    I went to Emory undergrad and enjoyed my time there. I don't know about the relative strengths of the programs so I can't comment completely. What you should think about though is what school you have the best research fit with and who your advisor is (advisor is more important than ranking generally). The money is also important, why pay more when you don't have to? In addition, if I was personally choosing I'd have to also consider the advantage of personal freedom. Although you would have to find housing in Decatur, at least you could be alone or with a roommate that wouldn't impede upon your personal freedom (you have to be more considerate toward family and living with family could make possible relationships harder). In addition, I don't think it would be realistic to commute to Columbia from Newark every day (at least you wouldn't be happy doing it), it is over 20 miles away and there is outrageous traffic getting into NY if you have a car, if you use public transportation it would take slightly longer. You would spend at least 2 hours in a car every day which would be a pain.
  16. blacknighterrant
    Google has very unique hiring procedures and your chances of getting in are probably about the same as a PhD and a non-college graduate, they have over 2.7 million applicants every year for a few thousand jobs. You should not make your decision with google in mind. In the industry, a non-thesis is better than a thesis, because you will have taken more classes and learned more, a thesis is more helpful if you are applying to PhD programs, but even though you aren't planning on doing a PhD now, it may be worthwhile to do thesis just in case you change your mind. Companies will not really care much about which you did at all. Princeton and Carnegie Mellon are better regarded than Columbia in electrical engineering, but all three are closely ranked. Regardless of which you choose companies are not gonna reject you because of which of the three you attended. Princeton is by far your best choice. Why pay for a degree when you don't have to? Companies won't care about whether you did thesis or not, but thesis is better to have just in case you change your mind and decide to go PhD so there is that. Actually the fact that you aren't getting a computer vision degree at princeton is a good thing. An electrical engineering degree is far more useful because a computer vision degree is too specific. You can change your subfocus and get other jobs with an electrical engineering degree if you want to later on while still getting any computer vision job you want, but with the computer vision degree you can only get computer vision jobs.
  17. blacknighterrant
    ETH is not significantly better than GA Tech. But they both have highly regarded programs (I'm choosing between GA Tech and UCSD myself). I know you said money is not a limiting factor, but you should still consider it, because why pay for something when you don't have to? Don't worry at all about not knowing German, everything at graduate level is taught in English. Don't worry about job opportunities too much, either degree could get you a job in any country, that said GA Tech probably has more relevant co-op opportunities that would make it easier to find the type of job you are looking for. One thing I will say about the job opportunities though is that it will be far easier to find engineering work in the US than near Switzerland, but it is far nicer to work in another country (for example did you know that on average, workers in the US work 400 hours (10 work weeks ) more than workers in Germany for the same salary, because of the out dated work practices in the country (non-productive 9-5 jobs with 5 day work weeks)).
  18. blacknighterrant
    It is always better to go with something that is guaranteed than something that isn't. Do keep in mind though that going with UCSD would give you more flexibility. For instance, you could probably reapply to other PhD programs the same time you petition to change to PhD for UCSD which would give you a chance to try for Johns Hopkins/other programs better than UCSD and UCLA (although UCSD is already an extremely top tier school for bioengineering). Have you tried leveraging your PhD acceptance for funding? It helps occasionally, who knows maybe they'll fund the masters to make the offer more enticing. Whatever you decide, I wouldn't commit until closer to April 15th, sometimes they'll change their mind or give late funding (maybe those they accepted for PhD or funding will reject their acceptance and they'll change the conditions of your acceptance) ( you could also send professors emails about the possibility of an RA at UCSD and see if you could get anything before committing ). You should also consider who your advisor would be at UCLA, if you could get a phenomenal advisor there, it would be better than going to UCSD for your PhD would be even without the conditional acceptance. (advisor > ranking)
  19. blacknighterrant
    First consider funding. Then consider research. I understand the LGBT friendliness is important to you, but honestly determining how friendly the places are would be extremely hard to do, because everything will be based more on personal accounts than statistics and different people can have different opinions. I would immediately eliminate Duke and Davis as options because their programs are not as strong as Michigan or UCSD. In terms of LGBT friendliness UCSD is in california, so I imagine you won't have too many problems, I have no idea about Michigan. Michigan has the strongest electrical engineering program of the school you have acceptances too and it has a broader range of research topics. UCSD has far fewer research topics, but is also a very high quality program. San Diego is nicer to live in, but it is also probably more expensive. (If you are really worried about LGBT friendliness you could download a dating app, change your location to near the schools and ask how friendly it is or do something like that).
  20. blacknighterrant
    Georgia Tech should be better for everything. 1. Based on ranks alone, Georgia Tech is more highly ranked in every single type of engineering. It is also has more relevant research (Georgia Tech papers are cited more often) and has an extremely well regarded robotics and electrical engineering program. In addition, an ece degree is more marketable than a systems engineering degree (systems and control vs systems engineering are totally different; systems and control is very specific and is considered a lot harder, systems engineering is very broad) (also someone with an ece degree can get systems engineering jobs, but it is much harder for a systems engineer to get ece jobs. 2. Unpaid internships are useless and based on research do not really help you get jobs or relevant experience, co-ops are more useful and GA Tech has a stronger co-op program. In terms of RA and TA opportunities, you can already email professors and try for them, but if you didn't get them to start with don't hold your breath and expect to get one/make your decision based on the idea that one will come your way (hopefully it will, but it is never guaranteed); That said GA Tech has a higher overall research expenditure than Maryland, but a lot more students. By comparing the numbers it seems that it would necessarily have to be harder to get an RA or TA at GA Tech. 3. Honestly your master's gpa, rec letters, and research experience will matter a lot more than which of the two you chose. That said the professors at Tech are more highly regarded overall so you may have slightly better chances of getting good rec letters there. An ece systems control degree would look better than a systems engineering degree and what you learn could be far more relevant depending on what you want to do related to robotics. 4. They are probably both fine in terms of job opportunities, it is nicer to live in Atlanta though and you could get a job there more easily if that is where you wanted to stay, in terms of employment at major companies not near the two schools, both degrees would look good with Tech probably coming out slightly on top. Honestly the school reputation will play less of a role there than the degree type and the ece degree would go a lot further. GA Tech also probably has a stronger alumni network considering the sheer number of students that have studied there and the quality of the program.
  21. blacknighterrant
    Well if you really want to, it may be possible to defer entry for a year if you contact the program, so then you could do the year masters then go to the PhD program. Honestly though, it is a waste of time. Honestly, this is an easy decision, the general rule is always choose PhD program over masters if that a PhD is your final goal (assuming that the PhD program is not significantly worse than the school where you would get the masters, remember though that adviser reputation and research fit is more important than school reputation at PhD level).
  22. blacknighterrant
    So, I'm trying to choose between UCSD and GA Tech for a masters in ece with a focus in Systems and Control. I got into UCSD with a 5k fellowship on top of the already low 11k-12k in-state student tuition and did not get any funding at GA Tech which would make GA Tech around 40k more expensive than UCSD for the full masters. The thing about that though is that I know I want to pursue an MBA after my masters and Georgia Tech has an MBA/masters joint program that would save a year (MBA there would take 1 year after the masters instead of the normal 2 years), so doing the joint program would effectively save me a years worth of MBA expenses which would effectively cancel out the advantage UCSD has over GA Tech in terms of cost, in addition if I can get a gra or secure funding after acceptance GA Tech would end up being cheaper. The problem with this is that you do not apply for the joint program until the final year of your masters or PhD at GA Tech, so it is not guaranteed that I would get into the MBA program. However, it would provide me with some flexibility if I went to tech (during the final year of my masters, I could try to get into the MBA program, apply to other schools MBA and PhD programs and try to get into the Georgia Tech's PhD program simultaneously, if I get into the MBA program and nothing else I could reapply for the other programs again next year, if I get into the PhD program there the MBA is still an option after the PhD if I didn't get in the first time). Do you think all of this is worth considering when I make my decision or do you think I should just consider the price of the masters without the possibility of the MBA? Do you think this MBA program would sound like a good idea if I can do it or would it be better to take an extra year and more money to get an MBA at a more renown business school provided I am accepted there? I know UCSD is a very good school for ece, but I know nothing about their systems and control program and can't seem to find much, how does it compare with the program at GA Tech and would it be worth the extra cost to go to GA Tech only considering the M.S. in ece?
  23. blacknighterrant
    They are all good. The thing about USC area being dangerous is overstated, it is no better or worse than any other city, if you live in a decent area and don't stupidly wander alleys at 3 am nothing will happen to you. That said USC is probably the worst of the schools at computer engineering (Do not look at closeness as a factor, USC is still very far from Sillicon Valley. That said all the schools and programs are top tier, although if you want to get super picky, CMU is slightly more prestigious than the others at CE. It would be best to choose based on research interests and potential advisors, remember guaranteed funding >>> partially guaranteed funding.
  24. blacknighterrant
    They are both incredible programs. Caltech is better in physics overall than Princeton is at EE, but they are both top 10 programs in the respective field. An advantage of EE is that it is more marketable in case something goes wrong on your path to be a professor or you decide to change your mind (an engineering degree will make it easier to get a pe if you decide to go into the field, you can use it to get a job in finance/consulting, and it is easier to get an engineering job.). I don't think being an EE PhD would make it much harder to teach as a Physics professor, the director of the undergrad physics department at my university was an EE PhD, in addition, you don't even really have to be a physics professor to teach physics classes (for instance, MIT has EE graduate programs with a focus around applied physics). In addition, there are many ECE programs in universities that do research in fields like quantum information/computing/etc (for instance purdue), so if your research interest and experience is similar it shouldn't be that big a deal. (Advantages for Caltech on the other hand are weather and a Caltech Physics Degree)
  25. blacknighterrant
    I think most STEM PhD programs normally provide funding, you'll probably get something just wait and find out what. You might want to not reject the offer of admission until the April 15th deadline if you don't get anything and UCSD is your top choice, sometimes schools will offer late funding to unfunded acceptances when those originally offered funding decline their admission. Wait till the end of March, if you still don't hear anything email whoever your contact is (often the person whose name is on the acceptance letter) and ask about the possibility of securing additional funding. Many schools will encourage students to contact professors directly and ask about the possibility of a gra, find out how much a UCSD gra would cover and email professors to see if it is possible for you to secure one before making your decision. If you have other good acceptances with funding you may be able to use them as leverage to secure funding (tell the program you are there number 1 choice, but have better funded options elsewhere and that your financial situation is making it difficult for you to choose them). (On a random note, I applied to UCSD for the ece masters program and they gave me a fellowship on top of my already low in-state tuition, so they do give money even at the masters level. Don't let the fact that I've already heard bother you, masters and PhD funding offers are different and you probably applied to a different program (I think UCSD released masters decisions in ece before PhD decisions so it isn't surprising that masters students heard back about funding first even if you did apply to the ece department).)
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