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Grad Program. USC vs UCLA vs Purdue vs Columbia


kcahmadi

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I was recently accepted into:

MS Astronautical Engineering from USC
MS Mechanical Engineering from Columbia
MS Astronautics from Purdue
MS Aerospace Engineering from UCLA

These are all fully online degrees that will have no difference with the in class degrees and they will be fully funded by my employer. I am having trouble choosing between the four. I understand the program reputation and advisor/professor quality outweighs school reputation but I'm stuck on finding out how to compare those things. 

Which do you think would be the best of the four? 
I know technically Purdue is ranked the highest of them all for graduate engineering so it would make sense if it had the best course quality but it is not a huge name on the west coast. And I've also heard the Purdue is for engineers that strictly want to do engineering (not venture into business, management, consulting.) For now engineering is my plan but I don't want the other paths to be closed for me)


Columbia has the Ivy league tag and is the most prestigious but I'm not sure if this applies to its graduate engineering program.


USC and UCLA are basically head to head in California and between the two I'm leaning towards USC because I like the program more. USC also has an amazing alumni network in california shich would be helpful.

 

Any suggestions?

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  • 2 weeks later...

If you are certain you will be in the Aerospace field, go to USC if that's where your heart is pushing you toward. Otherwise, I would choose Columbia because applying to Aerospace-related jobs with an MechE degree would not pose a problem whereas an Aerospace-degree may be non-preferable if you are applying to a MechE job.

Don't choose based on rank because all of these universities are similarly ranked and are all highly regarded. 

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