j3doucet

That's an interesting question. I mostly work on the academic side of things, so I cannot speak from personal experience. Friends of mine who have completed an MMath have usually become developers, but the degree generally counts as experience (making it easier to get hired in the first place), and can help towards getting a promotion. Many of them also join local startups, where they initially work as a general employee, but often end up in a management role if the company expands. That said, it's not unheard of for people to become business analysts after leaving school. Project managers usually seem to have more work experience (though it sounds like you'd have some already).

How do people weight the relative importance of the school you attend against the quality of your POI? I'm trying to decide between two schools. One of them has a great reputation (top 10 in my field), but has made little effort to recruit me beyond the initial offer. The other has a much worse reputation (~90th in most surveys), and comparatively poor name recognition (especially outside the US), but my POI there shares my research interests exactly, and we've had several enthusiastic and interesting conversations. He even lobbied the department to create a new fellowship to provide me with a better funding offer. On the balance, the schools are pretty much identical when I ignore these two (vital!) criteria. Both are in nice places to live, have made reasonable financial offers, etc. I want to work in academia eventually, and so am leery of attending a poorly ranked school for my PhD (I've seen people hired practically on the basis of the name on their diploma). On the other hand, being really excited about my research topic and being happy to work with my supervisor seem like qualities which could make a PhD both much more productive and more fun. Anyone have some thoughts or guidance here? Thanks!

Disclaimer: I'm currently a grad student at student at UW. If you want a Canadian CS job, I think you'll be hard pressed to find a better Canadian program than UW's MMath. UW has a very strong industry/coop bent to it, and a very strong industry reputation (especially in Canada). In particular, the coursework-based MMATH is extremely popular for industry people. Basically, UW has three MMath options: - Thesis: You do 4 courses + research thesis, and often go on to do a PhD afterwards. - Research Paper: You do 5 courses + publish a research paper. - Coursework: You do 8 courses and no research. The degree is primarily for industry people. The drawback of the coursework program are that it is unfunded - you need to pay your own tuition. This could be quite expensive, especially if you are an international student. If you get a Canadian post-graduate degree (e.g. MMath), you typically get an automatic work visa, and then can work towards becoming a citizen/permanent resident from there.

CS Admissions for UT Austin went out in late January. They auto-reply email says they will probably only be admitting a few extra students if many decline offers. Sorry to break the news. On the plus side, I'm leaning against going there, so there's probably at least one spot!

Waterloo very heavily emphasizes its connection to industry for undergraduates. For grads, it seems to vary by supervisor and by field. There are defiantly good ties industry present though. Reputation-wise, people generally seem to be able to find industrial work. Academic work seems to be significantly harder to find, but everyone I know who went looking got a postdoc at least. The point about permanent work mentioned above is important. Note though that a graduate degree can fast track you for citizenship (at least in Canada), and that once you get citizenship in one of the counties, NAFTA (our free trade agreement) covers CS, so you are free to work in either country (i.e. automatic green card).

I'm a current student (I'll actually be helping out during grad visit day). Usually visit is closely related to acceptance, though not always. POI interest is a big factor. Also, you can often schedule an individual grad visit later in the term. I did, for example, and it was a worth while experience. Just reply to the grad visit day emails and ask them about it.

If you do, can you post back their response?

The autoreply email from their account says there may be 10-15 extra admittances, but that all the primary offers have gone out.

Admitted: U. Texas at Austin with funding Admitted: U. Waterloo, with funding