slippy0

I got accepted to the masters programs at CMU Robotics Institute, Columbia, and Princeton, and my goal is to go back to industry as a vision engineer, not to continue on to a PhD. Columbia and CMU are tied as my top choice, but neither offer any funding to their masters students, whereas Princeton offers full tuition plus a stipend. I've been out of school working in industry for two years saving up money, and I can afford Columbia and CMU without putting myself into significant debt, so I'm not worried about that. However, the question remains if Columbia or CMU are worth the ~$100k it would cost. Their programs have better vision classes, but no thesis, whereas in Princeton I'd get a larger portion of my experience through thesis work, and fewer high-level classes. In fact, the Princeton degree wouldn't actually be in computer vision, it would just be the focus I would take with my thesis. Additionally Princeton's computer vision group is relatively young, so they don't have much of a track record to go off of. This combined with the fact that I'd be doing a thesis causes me to feel a lot of uncertainty compared to the reputations of the other programs. I've begun conversations with the admissions departments and professors, but I'm trying to figure how much a "better" education for a MS continuing on to industry is actually worth. Does a company like Google care more that I took classes in CNNs and photogrammetry, or that I did a thesis on similar topics? Thanks, and let me know if there are any other details that would be helpful.