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SZJX

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  1. Background: I studied CS as an undergrad, but I feel myself to be equally passionate about languages. I did TOEFL and SAT in high school with decent grades, went on a one-year exchange at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and learnt Spanish, and now I want to learn German and explore Europe, thus my applications to German universities. Honestly, during my time as an undergrad I didn't see myself very interested in a CS research career (the project I got involved in didn't go particularly well), and feel I would rather work as a programmer than committing myself to a PhD program. However, I haven't tried out anything related to computational linguistics yet (the professor in charge of this program at my university left when I enrolled, and no CS professor does related researches), thus I think if I ever do a Master's degree, I'd rather do a more theoretical one and lay foundation in case I ever go on to do a PhD. (I don't think the job as a programmer needs much training from a Master's program anyways.) Currently, I have received offers from Universität Tübingen in M.A. Computational Linguistics (Winter), Universität Stuttgart in M.Sc. Computer Science (Autonomous Systems) (Summer) and TU Darmstadt in M.Sc. Distributed Computing (Summer), with other decisions pending such as those from TU München in Computer Science/Data Science and the ITIS program http://www.itis-graduateschool.de/ (basically all the remaining programs are more traditionally CS rather than CL). My application at Universität Stuttgart for M.Sc. Computational Linguistics was unsuccessful, presumably because they think I'll have too much catching up to do in the field of linguistics. I'm considering whether to accept the offer from Tübingen outright and tell the other schools to stop the process already. My main concern is that Tübingen seems to be a school more renowned in humanities/natural science than engineering, and the program website for computational linguistics http://www.sfs.uni-tuebingen.de/study-iscl/en/ http://www.sfs.uni-tuebingen.de/en/courses-of-study/courses-of-study-at-the-sfs/international-studies-in-computational-linguistics/international-ma-programme-iscl.html seems to be a bit out of maintenance for a couple of years, with several broken links, which makes me a bit worried. Actually I was more inclined to join the M.Sc. CL program at Universität Stuttgart (seemingly focuses more on the computational aspect than the humanities aspect) but since I was rejected, this is no longer an option. Of course, I mean no disrespect for Tübingen and I hope my misgivings are all baseless, and that the program at Tübingen would help me learn the subject and prepare for a potential PhD with equal efficacy as any other. It's just an impression I got on the university based on its common reputation which I hope to be debunked. It would be best if there is somebody who studied computational linguistics at Tübingen who can give me some insight about its career prospect. Or maybe just somebody who is well versed in computational linguistics in general and knows the quality of various CL programs/research groups including that of Tübingen. Also, in general, if I want to go on the path of PhD, which one among the above mentioned three programs that admitted me would be the most sensible choice (in terms of research opportunities/international recognition of research projects etc.)? By the way, since I never really tried out linguistics, there is the possibility that I actually don't like the field once I get into it. In this case, I wonder whether it would still be possible for me to drop out and switch to another more traditional M.Sc. Program at another university in which I've been admitted before (submitting a new application, of course). I think I've seen some cases of switching programs/universities midway through, but I'm not sure how German universities treat new applications from students who already rejected their offers once before. I see a question during my application asking whether I had once been admitted before by the program, though. This has been a longwinded post. Thank you very much for your time and I appreciate any help you might be able to offer.
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