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UIUC vs CMU for PhD in ECE


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Hi everyone,
I shortlisted the schools down to UIUC and CMU but can't decide on which to attend. My future plans is to stay in academia with postdocs at top schools (perhaps at MIT or Stanford) but I don't want closed doors to the industry. Here are the good vs bad things about both of these schools

UIUC
Good: The PI is highly reputed very famous in contro&gamel theory. The school is also ranked higher in ECE (US News). Very strong faculty members. In addition, I will be working on multi-agent reinforcement learning which I am quite interested in.
Bad: I am not quite sure if this would be a criterion when choosing grad schools but Urbana-Champaign is in the middle of nowhere, isolated by cornfields in every direction. I am coming from a big city so I am not sure if I can get used to such a small and isolated place. Another drawback is that the PI's research is very theoretical which I am fine with but students in the lab told me that I will be closing my chances of working in the industry. Finally, PI is very senior so that means I will be doing most of the work.

CMU
Good: Compared to UC, Pittsburgh is a more vivid and bigger city. CMU is also very great for its school of CS and PI(s) there are also affiliated to the ML department. Being private school can also be regarded as something positive. The stipend is also much better. I will be doing machine learning, optimization, and signal processing if I attend CMU.
Bad: PI(s) are assist/assoc professors and they are way less reputed compared to the PI in UIUC. Rankings CMU ECE is lower compared to UIUC. 

Final remarks: I like the research and the academic environment in UIUC but I have concerns about living in Urbana-Champaign. CMU is also very good at CS but I am tempted to work with a famous yet senior professor. I am open to any comments/views/ideas about these schools.

Thanks and good luck to everyone!
 

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