freezing_beaches

I'm trying to decide between NYU and UCL's MS in Machine Learning. The benefits for NYU seem to mainly be the industry connections. They consistently hold events with companies around NYC, and the students seem to all end up with good internships/full time positions. The courses at NYU also look pretty good, with decent flexibility and solid instructors. I also like that you can do part time internships for course credits. The case for UCL is that the courses are taught by renowned faculty within CS and the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, and DeepMind researchers. It seems like better prep for a PhD, but at the same time, it seems tougher to land a full time position back in the states. I could continue to work in London for a few years, but Data Scientists/Machine Learning Engineers don't seem to be compensated as well as in SF/NYC, and UCL graduates end up more with start-ups than large companies (though not all NYU grads end up with big names either). Does my assessment seem correct? UCL might be more flexible in terms of career trajectory (as in not being pigeonholed into Data Science), while NYU may have more financial security in the short term. I'm leaning towards UCL given how cool it would be to live in London, and wanting to go against my myopic tendencies when it comes to a salary.

Having a tough time deciding here. It seems like UCL could be more suitable prep for PhD studies or an ML Engineer career, but I don't know much about prospects of getting good employment back in the United States upon graduation. A one year program in London also founds very fun/desirable. NYU seems more well tied in with the US job market, and it looks like students are able to pursue internships while being full-time students (they seem to offer course credits for internships). But I'm concerned that this program would pigeonhole me into a Data Science role and opposed to the potential for being a Research Engineer or similar. Any thoughts? I think if I was assured that UCL has good reputation with US employers, it would get the edge over NYU.