Confused between Brown and Stony Brook for MS CS

[ac/dc]

Hi TGC,

I have received admits from Brown U, Stony Brook U, UC Irvine and USC for MS CS (all unfunded). I don't have much research experience from my bachelors. But I have worked for around two years in the columnar database field. My main interests lie in Algorithms and Theory because I am good at logic and problem solving. But as I said, I have not done much research before, I am not sure how good I will stand at the same. I want to use Masters as a platform to gain some research experience to evaluate myself and also see if I would be interested in PhD later. From what I heard, it is very difficult to get into the theory group at Brown for someone without prior research experience. I would have to take courses and impress the profs there and still I would have little chance of getting to do something worthwhile under the prof. But according to my discussions with the seniors there, I would stand a good chance in the applied theory specially in computation biology as it is well funded there.

On the other hand, I am pretty impressed by the works of Prof Skienna, Bender and Joseph Mitchell at Stony Brook and I think I would like to work with them. The path here would be similar taking courses -> impress the profs -> work with them. But the difference here is there are around 10 masters students working with them currently. So I think this is relatively easy compared to Brown. Although the batch size is pretty intimidating at Stony Brook (last year there were around 120 masters students) compared to Brown (~20-30 masters students). Also Brown is pretty much better university in every other aspect except the fees.Also there are better chances of getting RA/TA at SB after the 1st semester. Also RA/TA positions don't get any fee waivers at Brown. So the Stony Brook would be cheaper by around $25-30k. I am okay with taking the loan of that amount. The only real factor is I think I have better chance of working closely with the profs at SB than at Brown.

How much should I weigh the reputation of Brown compared to SB while making the decision? Also in the factor if I don't quite get working in the area of Algo and Theory, would Brown be better school compared to SB because of the diverse research areas?

Thanks.

[alexpap]

Hi and congratulations!

I happened to visit both universities when I was admitted this year for PhD in computer science. I chose to go to Brown and I will try to explain why. This does not mean that it can be applied directly to your case, it is merely an attempt to help.

LOCATION - HOUSING

Brown - Lovely campus, very picturesque. Dorms are not that good but they are in the campus and I heard that the rent is about 800 USD. You can also find housing on your own and by sharing a house you can reduce it to 500 dollars or even less. Providence is a really cute town, you can walk almost everywhere, take a bike, bus etc. It also is 50 min from Boston with railway commute and 3 hours from NY in case you get bored.

Stony Brook - Huge campus in a forest, you will absolutely need a car or shuttle to commute everywhere including classes, super markets etc. There are impressive (even though CS classes are held in an old building) and futuristic buildings like CEWIT. Housing is cheaper, but it is not near the class building (again bus every morning) and there are not so many options if you want to live outside of the campus. There is pretty much nothing else in the area, apart from a cute harbor 20 minutes from there. NYC is 2 hours with Amtrak and if you feel that you are very outgoing you will probably hate it.

REPUTATION

I think that you know that Brown is better, but I don't think that this should be the only factor in your decision. Stony Brook is really good too.

UNIVERSITY

You have to think of your character. Do you like to outstand or not? Master students in SB are not that unique. Actually since the open days where both for master students and phd I learned that getting a RA in SB as a MS student is very very difficult. A professor said that they don't have that much funding to spend on someone that will be able to work for a year. At Brown on the other hand I met almost every Master student and they blend really well with the PhD students. I don't about the RAs, but they are given TAs.

MONEY

Your case is the opposite of mine. When I considered the stipends that I will get I thought that Brown has a much higher one. But you have to think that SB is a state university and especially NY state has many difficulties in funding. In your case it will be easier to survive in SB, it is much cheaper.

PROFESSORS

Brown has an excellent Theory group. Actually it is its best part. Professor Skiena on the other hand is a really terrific person and very very good in what he does. This is a tough one. You have to consider how many professors there are, what funds do they take, how many MS students they have in their webpages and what is the proportion, what is their reputation etc

I will be a member of the Computational Biology group and it is true, it has a lot of money. Most of the CS professors are from the theory too.

On the other hand, SB is about to establish a new institute in Bioinformatics which will include CS, Biology, Chemistry and some other departments and it will probably be well funded too.

All these, in case that you like to see something more applied. Professor Skiena will be a part of it too

GENERAL IMPRESSION

I will be honest. I enjoyed myself much more when I was at Brown. Maybe this is why my decision was so easy between these two. One thing that annoyed me when I was at SB is that things were really random. They lack organisation and Brown is absolutely better in promoting itself.

One more thing (in jeopardy of being characterized as racist) is that SB has a really big Chinese community. If you are from China that is really good. But if you are from another country you might feel a little bit lost when you see whole labs with only one race.

To sum up

Brown - better campus, great location, better reputation, more expensive, more funded, less master students

Stony Brook - not that good location, good reputation, much cheaper, a lot of students

I think that I am biased I wish that I could tell you what to do, but it is your call.

Good luck and tell us what you chose

Edited May 2, 2011 by alexpap

[ac/dc]

Hey Alexpap,

Thanks for the detailed outlook for both of the universities. Yes it's kinda different picture if you are doing a PhD. You would be really focused about your interests and would be able to match them better with the professors at both the universities. Couple of things I would like to add are that I am from India, and I know that there are many Indians as well at SB. So it's not really going to be much of a problem. Yes SB's location does seems to be little boring, and Brown's environment would be better hands down. But I guess I would do okay at both the places.

Another thing would be I would not be much concerned about getting funds if I am at SB as it is really cheap i.e. I would be ready to word under a prof w/o funding for a sem or two if it's good enough at SB. I would confirm if it is really difficult to get RA at SB as well. And as I said, there are around 10 masters students working under the three profs I mentioned. I could not find any masters under the theory profs at Brown. May be I guess the pages are not updated. But the theory page itself doesn't list any masters student as well.

The peers at both the school are going to vastly different which bothers me as well. Anyway, I would think a bit more on these points before taking the final decision by this weekend.

Thanks again!

[alexpap]

It seems that you tend to think SB is a better match for you. If this is the case go on, don't hesitate. You will be the one to spend 2 years there, you have to make the decision that feels right. That's how I decided and I think by this way you won't regret it in the end

[ac/dc]

Hey Alexpap,

Kinda late reply but I remembered about this thread as I joined Brown! See you around!

[cjshetty]

Hi ac/dc,

 

Can you tell me the fees for MS-CS at Brown?