Thoughts on Columbia MA?

[Penguin123]

Does anyone have thoughts on the Columbia MA program in Statistics? Anyone from the program can share your experience? What about the online option versus on campus? How will the quality of education be affected? Thanks!!!

[DMX]

depends on what you want from it.

in general though, it's not a very reputed program (columbia stats MA here myself)

[blobblobblob]

depends on what you want from it.

in general though, it's not a very reputed program (columbia stats MA here myself)

 

Hi, could you explain in greater detail why it is not a very reputed program? Is it because of the part time/online options that make it less serious?

[Chai_latte]

I heard the same thing.  I was there for about a year after undergrad (not for Stat though).  I'm pretty sure people said that the curriculum wasn't that much more advanced than undergrad work.  And one thing I've found about their math dept., the profs are really hit/miss, IMO.  Some are just gosh-awful.  I'm not a Columbia-hater, I really wanted to like the school (my parents are alums), but I was severely disappointed with the quality of instruction.  So, that compounded with what I heard from some folks about stat in particular would make me stay away.

 

@DMX- did you use the degree to complement another grad degree you had, or was this your stand-alone degree?  How is job placement for that program?  Just curious (I know some of their other masters programs have underwhelming job placements).  Thanks

Edited March 14, 2013 by Chai_latte

[Shostakovich]

Hi, could you explain in greater detail why it is not a very reputed program? Is it because of the part time/online options that make it less serious?

 

I can explain a little bit since one of my close friends just graduated from the program few years ago. Columbia is more of a finance department, and many students/faculty there have an industry mindset. What happens to a number of rejected applicants in the financial engineering program is that the school will offer them the MA in Stats, and the applicants take the offer since they could still add the Columbia brand name as well as a quantitative masters degree to their resume. Also seemed like some faculty also like to rotate their time between industry and academia.

 

So yeah, what my friend suggested is that it's a good program if you're set on going into industry, but not as great if you want to go into academia. He still doesn't really know how to use R and SAS (could be wrong about R but did complain about lack of SAS and programming in general).

Edited March 14, 2013 by Shostakovich

[blobblobblob]

Does anyone know what the likeliness of continuing your MA to a PhD? And is the PhD program equally as weak?

[DMX]

Does anyone know what the likeliness of continuing your MA to a PhD? And is the PhD program equally as weak?

phd program is quite strong. likelihood of continuing from MA to PhD is close to 0, unless you get some fantastic research and/or good number of phd-level classes under your belt.

[Penguin123]

Thanks everyone! Your feedback was extremely helpful!