Stats at UT-Austin

[straitup94]

I recently got accepted to UT-Austin as a Master's student in Statistics in the Division of Stats and Scientific Computing, and am curious if anyone is a student there or knows much about their program.  It seems like a fairly new department so it's been hard to find much good info about it, but it looks pretty neat with the flexibility and interdisciplinary aspect of it.

 

I'm planning on visiting there (as well as A&M) next month to get a feel for both and hopefully get some questions answered but in the mean time, hoping someone can provide some details!

[cetaphil]

I got accepted to their PhD program and I also have a few questions. Many of the professors there got their PhDs from Duke, so it I assume it is a heavily Bayesian department. From the course selection is also seems to be a very applied program. Austin also has a great ML program, so as a masters student I suspect you could take a few ml classes as well. I'd like to know what people in the statistics world think about it though.

[sooshaloosh]

UT Austin has had a Masters program for a while but they just (literally within the last 3 months) got approval to restart their PhD program.  I've had meetings with a few of their faculty (I work for the university administration) and they definitely seem like a very applied shop.  Ultimately I opted not to apply there since their PhD program was going to be brand new.

 

That being said, I got my undergrad degree there at UT Austin is an amazing school and Austin is an amazing city, so you can't go too terribly wrong. 

[Maximalist1]

Straitup, did you end up going to UT-Austin?  I also made it into their M.S. and I get the sense it would be a supportive, cool place, but like you said, hard to find much info.

 

Anyone have a sense of how respected an M.S. from there is?  They are not listed in US News and World Report...

[Y.T. Safire]

I also made it into their M.S. and I get the sense it would be a supportive, cool place, but like you said, hard to find much info.

 

Anyone have a sense of how respected an M.S. from there is?  They are not listed in US News and World Report...

 

Viewed from the curriculum, the MS program there seems pretty solid. The math stats sequence seems to be PhD-level instead of Cassella & Berger in most of MS programs. Heard that they just made the Bayesian course compulsory. The department seems to be Bayesian. Also, it seems that one can get much training in computing if one takes full advantage of the electives there.