Is USC (University of Southern California) as good as it is projected for MS in CS?

[harshs08]

HI guys/gals.

 

I have got an admit for MS in CS at USC for fall 2013 session. I am an international student and have just received the I 20 couple of days back, where it is mentioned that the funding needed for 1 year is 53 k.  Seeing this huge amount for 1 year I am getting doubts about joining this university. But now recently the US news has ranked USC engineering school among the top 10 and so at the same time I am feeling the studies in this university will be top notch and I should not miss out on this opportunity.

 

So now I am really confused, whether should I invest this much as I will taking loan to fund my studies. Will I be able to pay back the loan in 2-3 years by working as I am really inclined towards doing  Phd finally after the repaying the loan.

I also wanted to ask the funding option for MS in USC.

 

[harshs08]

Anyone???????  

[addola]

You could do course work and finish your studies in 1 and a half years. Check out if the requirement for the degree have changed. However, going this track might not be the most helpful if you have plans for a PhD. Having a master's thesis (and publications) will definitely boost your PhD admission chances. USC has about 35% acceptance rate for MS, and 9% or less for PhD.

 

You could cover the degree requirement and not learn much because you didn't really take "interesting courses". To me, the graduate database course did not really add much to my knowledge, but User Interface Design course (a course that wasn't offered in my undergraduate school) did greatly. You could choose a specialization in USC such as networks, game development, robotics..etc. If you go for any of these, then definitely it's worth it, especially if you were close to your professors, as they would help you with your recommendation for admission in the future for your PhD.

 

I did my MS in USC, and I had friends from India who went on to get jobs in Microsoft, Oracle and other companies in the United States. USC is well respected, and have this "culture" thing going on with it aside from academics, so you could get a job in the US after graduation.

 

This $53k cost might not just be for courses, but also living expenses. It's expensive to live in Los Angeles, and you want to live North of USC campus (costs about $750-$900 and is safer, patrolled by USC Department of Public Safety DPS) rather than west or east of campus (costs $500-700, not patrolled by DPS). Costs of groceries or restaurants are pretty much the same across the US, the only differences would be gasoline for cars and rent. Assuming you rent for $750, that's about $9000/year for rent. 

 

 

I do not know why didn't you try to apply straight to PhD as an MS degree might not necessarily be needed for that. In USC, MS student rarely get any funds from the school, while PhDs do. 

 

Good luck!

[harshs08]

Thanks addola for your reply.  Got a very insightful perspective. I am more inclined now to attend USC 

 

So I need to get my finances in order to attend USC.

 

Regarding the Courses, even I was thinking to switch to a specialization. USC has added a 'Data Sciences' specialization this year, and the courses enlisted for this specialization are pretty interesting and in line of my area of research, that been data mining and web services related to it. But I have one doubt about this specialization that this been a new one, will it carry the same weight as that of other CS specializations? Also for other fields like AI, Networking, Machine Learning there are many ongoing research enlisted on USC site but not for Data Mining, Databases and Web services, and only Prof Shahram, Prof Jihie, Prof Dennis McLeod, Prof Cyrus have research related to these fields. So what's your take on it? I am thinking that for 1st sem I carry forward with general CS and gather enough info regarding this specialization and then commit to Data Sciences specialization.

 

For the second point regarding the direct Phd, I didn't went for it because at this point of time I am not sure 100%  to commit to a Phd and I just want to test the waters by first pursuing Phd and if I have same level of dedication and passion will surely go for it. 

 

Once again thanks alot  your reply,