CMU Professional MS in Software Engineering vs Georgia Tech MSCS

[anom217]

I've been admitted to both CMU's professional MSE and GaTech's MSCS programs. I know CMU is the best around in CS, as well as in Software Engineering.

I'm not sure if the CMU degree (since it's a professional degree and less selective) is worth taking over a degree in Computer Science from GaTech (which is very respectable at #10 nationally).

The CMU degree will cost nearly twice as much as the GaTech degree (about $25k-30k more), and since professional MS degrees don't seem to be respected as much I'm not sure if CMU is worth that difference. I have enough money saved up that I would only need a small loan for CMU, but that's still a lot of money. I'd like to study software engineering since it seems it's very useful to industry, which is what I'm interested in. I can still take some of these courses at GaTech, but the specialization doesn't seem to be as strong as CMU's program in the field.

Is CMU's MSE program worth it in terms of job prospects over an MS CS degree from Georgia Tech?

Edited April 5, 2012 by anom217

[Pauli]

No difference. American employers don't differentiate between the two if you do very well during your time there, especially since both programs are comparably decent. Choose the one which offers the better financial package.