USC VS Vanderbilt

[fly_qiuqiu]

I am an international student and received two offers from two universities (university of southern california and vanderbilt university) on the major of epidemiology, both provide me stipend and tuition waiver in the first year. Now I wonder which one is a better choice? The mentor assigned to me in vanderbilt is very good, she is a nice Chinese woman and has fundings;on the contrary, in USC, the research assistantship should be found on campus after I arrived, so I'm afraid that the risk of doing teaching assistant for a long time will be great if I couldn't find a mentor. On the other side, I think LA will be more energetic and has more diversity, maybe the life in Nashiville will be a bit of boring. But the medical campus of USC is inside of hospital, so maybe it will be boring, too. I never went to these two places, so all the things I described are my imaginations. If anyone who's graduated from these two programs or know them well, could you please give me some advise and provide me more information concerning the research, life, job hunting, and any other considerations? (I'm inclined to go to the industry after I graduate, if anyone know something about the job choices of epidemiology phd, could you please share your experiences with me?) Thanks a lot!