MS in CS (Machine Learning) - UCLA, UT Austin, or U Mich?

[njwilson]

I am trying to decide between three schools for an MS in Computer Science: UCLA, UT Austin, and University of Michigan (I'm still waiting to hear back from Michigan, but I'm hopeful). I am primarily interested in machine learning. I plan to do a master's thesis and hope to work for one of the top software companies after graduation.

I have been spending a lot of time digging through each school's website, but I am curious what people think of these schools. Any advice on which school is better in machine learning, or which school might have a better reputation among top companies?

[nvseal]

I'm currently a masters student at UT Austin doing the thesis option and focusing on machine learning. I can't really speak to UMichigan but I do think UCLA is a well respected school and has good brand name. That said, UT has a top ten ranking in both CS and AI which UCLA does not. UT also has a good reputation with top companies like Facebook and Google, both of which recruit here, among others. In my personal experience, I've done pretty good getting interviews as a first year masters student which I didn't get before coming here (Yelp, Google, etc.). I don't have a particularly amazing resume either (just one prior internship beyond freelance work) so being a student at UT has been a major contributing factor in getting employers to take notice.

I think that having a degree from UT, doing decently, and adding in a bit of research experience will probably just about guarantee you an interview anywhere that fits reasonably with your background.

[spark1989]

UCLA is not strong in ML (weak imo), as UT is. Unless you want to do RL, go for UT; otherwise you may prefer Michigan.

[Pauli]

That's funny what you mentioned about UCLA having a weaker ML program than UT. Isn't at least one professor in the UT program (Dr. Miikulainnen?) a UCLA graduate?

[spark1989]

That's funny what you mentioned about UCLA having a weaker ML program than UT. Isn't at least one professor in the UT program (Dr. Miikulainnen?) a UCLA graduate?

He was an NLP guy at UCLA, turned into a ML (NN to be precise) at UT only. So no worries.