PhD in Engineering/Computer Science

[stormtrooper]

Hi,

I was lucky enough to get admission letters from the University of Toronto (CS), Oxford (CS), Cambridge (ENG) and ETH Zurich (ENG). All are fully funded. 

I am confused as hell! Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages and the rankings for each of them is not consistent (Ex. Oxford is 3rd in QS Ranking but 7th in Times). My heart is with Oxford (CS) but please let me know if and why you think it is not a good choice.

PS: I also have an option to wait for one year and take GRE exam to try my chance in US (but I feel my chances are not high).  

[pterosaur]

Those general rankings are useless for determining how good the school will be for what you're studying. In general, Oxford does not have as strong of a reputation in CS/engineering. (I'm at Imperial now, and it's not looked on super favorably here.) ETH I would say has the strongest reputation for these fields.

But I think the most important factor, especially in a European style PhD, is where would you be doing the research that best aligns with your goals and interests?

[stormtrooper]

On March 10, 2016 at 8:36 AM, pterosaur said:

Those general rankings are useless for determining how good the school will be for what you're studying. In general, Oxford does not have as strong of a reputation in CS/engineering. (I'm at Imperial now, and it's not looked on super favorably here.) ETH I would say has the strongest reputation for these fields.

But I think the most important factor, especially in a European style PhD, is where would you be doing the research that best aligns with your goals and interests?

Well I believe the professor that offered me the position in Oxford has a good reputation globally. I know that the university's name is not that important but I am just wondering if choosing Oxford is going to hurt my future opportunities in any form rather than going with ETH or even Toronto. 

By the way, I checked Oxford's subject ranking in Computer Science and it was far beyond my expectations: it is 3rd right after Stanford!

Edited March 13, 2016 by stormtrooper

[Markerz]

Personally, I feel that as long as you are in schools that are not unknown it shouldnt hurt you. I am by no means an expert and just as lost as you but I feel that if your in the first teir most things will be fairly similar, second tier, third tier, that is dont worry about being 1st or 3rd but worry about being in the first 20 vs the first 50 vs the first 100 or worse.

If your at a fairly good program, and more importantly working with a well known and respected advisor in their feild you should get hte connections you need you jsut need to do good work and your advisor likely knows how to help advise you on what good work is.

If your at a lower ranked school you will have to work harder, especially if your advisor is less knowledgeable on how to produce good work but you can still accomplish the same, you will likely have to work harder to overcome a lack of resources though.