Stanford vs UToronto vs ETH Zurich in mechanical

[ultrafrog]

I got offers from Stanford ME master (no funding), ETH Robotics master (no scholarship) and U of Toronto ME master (with about $18000 funding). I am planning to get PhD and stay in academia.

I want to study Robotics but I couldn't find any decent robotics professor at UofT so I will study fluid mechanics if I study there.

Prof. Siegwart will be my tutor at ETH (although I don't think tutor means anything for a student).

PhD at UofT is almost guaranteed. But I am not sure about PhD in other universities.

Which one should i choose?

Edited March 26, 2011 by ultrafrog

[CanuckBoy]

I got offers from Stanford ME master (no funding), ETH Robotics master (no scholarship) and U of Toronto ME master (with about $18000 funding). I am planning to get PhD and stay in academia.

I want to study Robotics but I couldn't find any decent robotics professor at UofT so I will study fluid mechanics if I study there.

Prof. Siegwart will be my tutor at ETH (although I don't think tutor means anything for a student).

PhD at UofT is almost guaranteed. But I am not sure about PhD in other universities.

Which one should i choose?

If you want to be in academia, best to attend the best school, chances are you will work at a school that is weaker than the school you went to for your PhD.

You'll see that it is easy to find Canadian professors that came from top US/European schools, but you'll hardly see any US/European professors graduated from top Canadian schools.

I think you'll see that the rankings do not reflect reality of what is perceived in the academia.

[ultrafrog]

If you want to be in academia, best to attend the best school, chances are you will work at a school that is weaker than the school you went to for your PhD.

You'll see that it is easy to find Canadian professors that came from top US/European schools, but you'll hardly see any US/European professors graduated from top Canadian schools.

I think you'll see that the rankings do not reflect reality of what is perceived in the academia.

Thx for your reply.

Can you (or anyone else) comment about ETH and Stanford then? Which one do you find more promising?

Edited March 27, 2011 by ultrafrog

[CanuckBoy]

Thx for your reply.

Can you (or anyone else) comment about ETH and Stanford then? Which one do you find more promising?

I'm not sure about those two. It might be best to contact existing students there.

What you can do is google PhDs from those two schools and see what schools their graduates end up.

[neocortex]

Stanford accepts lots of master students (>100) for Mechanical Eng. so the competition is stiff for funding and getting a position in a lab for your PhD.