Cornell ECE Masters of Engineering

[stankuo]

Hey all,

Can you guys please share your opinions on this Masters of Engineering degree Cornell offers? I have been accepted to UCLA's EE MS program, Columbia's EE MS program and Cornell's ECE M.Eng program. I am still waiting on other schools, but so far I cannot decide between Cornell or UCLA. Columbia's engineering program is not as highly ranked am I right? Anyways, the question I have is, do people (or companies in general) consider M.Eng inferior to M.S degrees? If not, then Cornell might seem like a good choice since the program is only one year and the school itself has more reputation... Please feel free to give your 2 cents! Thanks a lot!

[bgk]

The Cornell MEng is pretty flexible. I see a few MEng guys in my classes and they seem happy enough. Last semester I know one guy went off to Cisco and another to Microsoft... but there are, of course, a lot of factors that decide on how employable you are.

[stankuo]

thanks for your input. which school would you pick if you were me? I am most likely not going to do PHD... Also, do you know if it is hard to finish the degree within 1 year? seems pretty rushed in my opinion

[123456789]

The Cornell M.Eng. is basically 24 credits of coursework and 6 credits of a "design project" (read: thesis lite). It is very doable (in fact more or less required) in two semesters, though some people spend the summer finishing their project.

See Re: M.Eng. vs M.S. for more on the M.Eng.

[stankuo]

thanks 123456789. Which school would you pick? Right now I am deciding between UCLA and Cornell. For UCLA you get an M.S. and a great location... For Cornell you get to finish in 1 year and also go to a school with great reputation, albeit you get an M.Eng degree. By the way, is it easier to get in the Cornell M.Eng program in general?

[123456789]

I don't know nearly enough about EE to say anything about the reputation factor or make that judgement call. I know that it is much harder to get into Cornell's MS program (essentially the PhD program) than their MEng program.

All the MEngs I knew (only a couple were ECE) got jobs they were happy with coming out of the program. If you are going to have to pay for either degree yourself, then it would definitely nice to only have half the debt, and you'll still pull down a "Masters" level salary after graduation. Few people in academia (the only real experience I personally have) seem to really know the difference between the degrees, even though it is significant.

As for location... you can check out some of the Ithaca threads. Mileage really varies. If you require sunlight and warmth, beware. Fun place, though.

[stankuo]

The only concern I have is that whether the M.Eng degree is considered as an legitimate Masters degree, since theres no research element to it..

[canuck]

It is not. If your aim is to work afterwards then the choice is clear to take the M.Eng. But the choice is not so clear if you want to do a PhD. If you go to UCLA and get the MS then you shorten up the process to get your PhD, and UCLA is a great school (Cornell ranks 12th in the World and UCLA 13th). UCLA might also let you just carry right on into the PhD program or you can apply elsewhere. An M.Eng is virtually useless if you want to pursue research aside from the fact that it gives you a chance to pad your resume. I mean it does not look bad if you go to Cornell for a year, and put down a 4.0 in graduate courses. Paying for 1 year of tuition vs. 2 years is a significant advantage, although the tuition at UCLA is probably half that of Cornell. If the choice was mine to make I'd do the MS at UCLA, then you can either transfer to the PhD, finish and apply directly to to another school's PhD program rather than MS/PhD, or just go to work.

[exp_jw]

Let me preface this by saying that I am an EE grad student at UCLA, so I might be a little biased. First, I think that you have a slight misconception about how long it takes to get an MS at UCLA. You can do it in only 1 year, just like at Cornell. I think that the confusion is probably coming from you reading somewhere about the requirement that all MS requirements have to be completed within 2 years of beginning the MS program. This doesn't mean that it takes 2 years, it means that your time here is upper bounded by 2 years (in the MS program). All of the PhD students in my research group always finish their MS in 1 year. At UCLA, the MS is a requirement for a PhD, because there is only a small coursework requirement for the PhD program itself. Basically it is the same as a MS/PhD program or PhD program (without MS) at any other school, just by a different name. I don't know if you are planning on pursuing a PhD or not, so i won't mention anything else about this.

Other than that, LA is awesome. It has great weather, lots of things going on, and it is a really exciting place to be. The UCLA area is really nice and the campus is gorgeous. It depends on what you are interested in, but I would highly recommend UCLA.