I have a fully funded research program admit from UBC Vancouver and a $90K program admit from CMU Pittsburgh. I’m 23 and the choice is hard because of CMUs prestige, ranking and access to US opportunities. I’m an international applicant from the EU and both the programs are CS related. Any opinions/suggestions regarding what I should pursue and why? Really confused because I’ve heard that Canada, in general has terrible salaries in tech when compared to the US. #UBC #CMU #Vancouver #Pittsburgh #CS #GradSchool
Do your research at UBC then get a job in the US? 90k is a lot of money
All Masters programs across the world that don’t promote research are cash cow IMO including Stanford, Berkeley, etc.
$90K is the tuition for 2 yrs.
One thing, Pittsburgh rent is much cheaper. But not $90k cheaper
You can’t negotiate for more money? I went to CMU and I’ve never heard of someone paying that much. I paid 55k overall for undergrad and a masters. I’d feel out the money sitch.
That being said CMU is a feeder into everything. What about the Vancouver’s placement rate?
Tough call. You would regret saying no to Vancouver life. If you plan to stay in Academia CMU comes with bigger and better connections for post-doc but industry cares 0 about the name of your school for PhD
Go for CMU. It won't actually cost you 95k. That is an absurd figure. And you'll start off at 200k+ TC most likely.
Yeah, I’m figuring RA/TA should be easy to come by....
CMU no brainer.
Why dude? UBC is top 20 CS as well.
Much more CS jobs in the US. Dont get me wrong, UBC is a decent school, go there if money is really an issue, otherwise CMU ftw.
Go To UBC , enjoy studying what you want to study without much financial pressure. It makes a huge difference when you are trying to master a craft. You can always gain experience in US later on. Also, being from the EU , there are a lot of options to get to US if you are not indian/ Chinese. Some of these are TN visa if you get Canadian citizenship / diversity lotto for green card. Lastly, if you still want to study in USA , study at a good state school like NCSU which will cut your tuition in half or lower. A US education is purely ROI as the brand of the university can be easily overcome by talent / aptitude especially for a field like CS. US universities are mostly run as businesses especially for some cash cow Master programs. (This include the top 10/ 20 etc)
Been there done that. Had a cash cow MS offer from CMU and a Research (PhD) offer from UMass Amherst. Took the CMU offer and no regrets !
Any specific reasons?
UBC