IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING GRAD SCHOOL IN COMPUTER SCIENCE
(revised October 8, 2001)
You may be aware that there are two kinds of CS grad
programs (and the same is true for many other disciplines): those where
most/all students are expected to pursue a PhD, and those where students
usually just go for the master’s, and a few go on for the PhD. The really
prestigious schools will want you only if you tell them you want to go for the
PhD. Doctoral programs are designed to be individualized: rather than following
a departmental ladder of required courses, you can set your own agenda. MSc
programs are usually an extension of undergraduate CS coursework, sometimes
topped off with a few months devoted to research working with one professor for
the master’s thesis.
As a matter of fact, some schools offering the MSc may not
even require a thesis. But if you take that route, it may be more difficult to
enter a doctoral program as easily when you’re done. During your first term in
grad school you should take time to begin narrowing choices on a major
professor, who will be your long-term 1-on-1 instructor, your advisor, and
maybe even your boss for a while. As soon as possible during that 1st
term, meet (or at least get to know all the faces of) the faculty. Once you
are there, find out if any professors are going to be on sabbatical in the near
future. It would be a shame to pick a major professor who is going to be gone
for several months at the time that you are ready to begin your thesis.
Choosing a major professor is probably a more important decision than choosing
a graduate school.
If you are looking for a master’s program, I think you may
be better off at a department where is no PhD program. That way, the professor
won’t be as distracted with lots of other research projects and can spend more
time helping you. The quality of classroom teaching at master’s institutions
tends to be much better, with smaller class sizes too. Doctoral programs are
usually located only at very large schools. But if you are PhD-bound (and you
might not know it for a while!) it’s more efficient to do all your work at one
school, with the same major professor.
Miscellaneous Sources of Information:
In major libraries you can find microfiche cards containing
the college catalogues from practically all American and many foreign
universities. Similar information can also be found on the Internet, as
universities and individual departments have their own HTML home pages.
If you are interested in ratings and rankings, there is a
book entitled “Research-Doctorate Programs” published in 1995. The Library of
Congress call number is LB 2386 R 47. But note that prestige is strongly
correlated with the number of faculty. The more professors a department has,
the more research “output”, and greater chance of national recognition.
The Federal government publishes a book each year called the
“Digest of Education Statistics” (also available via the Internet), and you can
find out things about the discipline as a whole. It can tell you, for example,
the number of CS degrees awarded each year in the US, and you can observe
trends of growth and decline. Currently American universities award about
25,000 bachelor’s, 10,000 master’s and 1,000 PhD’s in CS each year. In
addition, you can hunt down another annual publication called “American
Doctoral Dissertations”. It lists the titles and authors of all dissertations
written in the US, by field and by school. You can use this to see what grad
students are writing about, and where.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) also publishes a
treasure trove of statistics about scientists, graduate students and degree
data. Here’s a good place to start: http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/pubdata.htm
You should familiarize yourself with what the various
research areas (subdivisions) of CS there are and which one(s) you find
interesting, and probably which ones you hate as well. Browse recent issues of
the Communications of the ACM or IEEE Computer to get a flavor of what is out
there.
Eventually you will need to pick a school that has a grad
program in CS that will meet your needs and desires. To make this task more
manageable, I’ve come up with some questions you need to consider when
examining a particular program. Many of these questions are not seeking a good
vs. bad answer, but address issues you need to confront sooner or later. Find
out:
- What courses are required for the degree
- If there is a comprehensive exam, what subjects are
covered on it
- The research areas of all the faculty, and also notice if
there seems to be a lot of professors concentrated in one particular
area… For example, ½ of the faculty may specialize in AI. And of course,
find out – tactfully – about the reputation, personality and clout of the
individual professors.
- ASSISTANTSHIPS –
a) Will the school
pay for your tuition in addition to your salary?
b) What are the
criteria for earning and keeping the assistantship?
c) What duties are
expected of a 1st year TA or RA?
d) Are TAs required
to attend a training program or orientation?
- What is the lowest mark allowed for CS coursework in order
for you to count it towards the degree? Also ask whether required courses
can be taken pass/fail (probably not).
- Is a minor subject required? In other words, do you have
to take classes in other departments?
- Is a reading knowledge of a foreign language required for
the degree?
- Once a student has completed all the required coursework,
is it permissible to work exclusively on the thesis/dissertation without
taking any additional courses? In some schools, a student must always
register for at least 1 regular class per term (except summer) even if
you’ve taken all the required classes.
- What is the minimum course load per term?
- Are any classes offered in the summer?
Are students required to be in residence
in the summer?
What do students typically do in
the summer – can one get an industry internship in the summer?
- How many grad students are in the department?
How many of those are full time,
and how many are master’s students and how many are PhD students?
- Is OFFICE SPACE available for all students, or just for
those on assistantships, or…
- What hardware is available for student use?
a) Is there a “grad
lab” with 24-hour access?
b) Access to laser
printer
c) What kinds of
machines (and operating systems) do they use? Sun, NeXT, SGI, PC, Mac, …
d) Are students
required to own a PC?
- If a student really wants to go for the PhD, is it
required to get a master’s (and write a master’s thesis) first before
taking the doctoral preliminary exam? How long into the program do
students take the prelim (or qualifying) exam? (e.g. 2nd or 3rd
year)
- What proportion of students are from foreign countries?
- How many MSc and PhD degrees were awarded this year? In
the last 5 years?
- Is the department more committed to serving the needs of
the undergraduate students? Don’t ask this directly, but you can gather
this by looking at how many undergraduate majors there are versus how many
grad students are in the department, and by how many classes are offered
at each level. Beware that at big schools, you may be dealing with a
department that is trying to be really 3 departments in 1: a graduate
program, an undergraduate program, and courses for non-majors. Each of
these 3 endeavors can be a huge undertaking. Beware of tension between
these multi-faceted goals. Similarly, is there any tension between the
goals of the master’s and PhD programs?
- What is the level of prestige of the department within the
university? How does the department get along with its neighbors and other
departments (e.g. electrical engineering, math) that might compete for
students and other resources?
- Can any undergraduate courses count towards the graduate
degree?
- What courses were offered in the most recent academic
year? This will give you an idea of what electives are typically offered.
- Is the school on the quarter system or the semester
system?
- For the school as a whole, how many grad students are
there? And how does this figure compare to the number of undergrads?
Some prestigious schools have more grads than undergrads.
- What is the typical rent for a 2-bedroom apartment in the
area? How far of a commute is it from a nice neighborhood to school? --
Find out from people who are already there.
- How long does it usually take a full-time student in the
department to get the degree? The typical numbers in CS are 2 years for
the MSc and 4 more for the PhD, but these are national medians and there
is a lot of variation. Graduate degrees are often treated like fine
wines.
- FUNDING! Are the faculty successful in securing grants to
support their research, so that they can hire their own grad students as
RAs? It would be nice if your major professor can pay you while you are
getting your degree (without you having to do additional work not directly
related to your research, such as teaching). The best financial aid is
the “fellowship”, which is awarded to a few of the best entering grad
students. A fellowship is like a scholarship – an award, with no work
obligation.
- What is the school’s Carnegie classification? This rating
is given to the school as a whole, and gives you an idea of the academic
climate of the school. In descending order of prestige, they are:
Research I, Research II, Doctoral I, Doctoral II, Comprehensive I,
Comprehensive II, …
- What classes are TAs expected to teach (in later years)?
Although teaching may seem like a distraction from getting on with your
own academic progress and not seem as desirable as a research
assistantship, you may enjoy it immensely. About being a TA: what
freedom does a TA have in teaching his own class? Is there a
department-mandated syllabus? Can you make up your own homework
assignments and tests? How many students are in each section, and how
many sections must I teach?
- What jobs have recent graduates taken?
- Does the university library have a good (extensive)
collection of CS books, and more importantly, journals and conference
proceedings?
- Does a student have to be in residence while finishing the
thesis/dissertation? It’s a good idea to stick around, but some people
get early job offers they can’t pass up. The down side is they may forget
to finish the thesis!
- Are students who have assistantships or fellowships
allowed to supplement their income with an outside part-time job?
- Has the department experienced a stable student
population, or has it been growing/shrinking lately? Would the department
like to see the number of students (both undergrad and grad) grow, shrink
or stay the same? Is the department overcrowded (not enough faculty or
office space)? Are there brand new faculty members? Does the department
plan on hiring new faculty soon?
- Is income from being a TA or RA subject to state and/or
local income tax? Are Social Security (FICA) and Medicare taxes taken out
of assistantship income?