U. Chicago vs Columbia

[eyinyangb]

Hello,

I have been accepted to the MA in Computational Social Science at University of Chicago and MA in QMSS at Columbia.

I am inclined towards Chicago as it is more and flexible spread over 2 years. Its only downside being this is the first year the program has been offered. I am not sure what I want to do in future, but it would be either a Phd in decision sciences or an analyst at an organisation like United Nations Global Pulse. I have no working background in programming or databases, only Coursera-certified knowledge in Python, R, SQL. 

If anyone can advice me on which one is more logical to pursue, that would be much appreciated. Thank you for your time.

[johnnycomelately]

Are either funded/partially funded?

[juilletmercredi]

I'd lean towards University of Chicago, for a couple of reasons:

1) If you think you might want a PhD, having two years to forge connections and gain a network of professors who can write letters for you is a good thing. Also, all CSS students write a thesis in the form of a scientific article with a faculty member; that's harder to do in a one-year MA program.

2) You say that you have no background in programming or databases. The CSS program is in the Computation department and has more formal coursework in programming, machine learning, pattern recognition and visualization. The QMSS program has a data science concentration that you can follow, but it doesn't have required coursework in programming - you'd have to add that on your own, if you could. This kind of coursework would be especially useful for either of the two routes you think you might pursue.

The fact that this is the first year of the program doesn't really matter - if this was a PhD program you could be more concerned, but given that it's an MA program and Chicago has a pretty good reputation in both the social sciences and CS, I wouldn't worry.

 

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[eyinyangb]

@johnnycomelately Yes, Chicago offered two-third funding.

[eyinyangb]

@juilletmercredi Thank you for the inputs! Its a relief to know  that the program being a new one doesn't matter much.