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CS Master's Degrees - US vs. EU Programs?
Monty asks: "I'm currently exploring my options and I've been wondering, is it worthwhile to seek education overseas--specifically the EU? Edsgar Dijkstra was of the opinion, though controversial, that American and European CS programs were fundamentally different (see his later writings in the E.W. Dijkstra Archives). What makes the EU interesting, in that light, is that it seems to have more openly embraced things like functional programming. So, if I want to focus my study on something of a more functional nature, are schools in the EU a better choice? What are the implications of returning to North America for employment with a foreign degree? Do they have to be accredited as proof of validity or are they usually recognized by themselves here in the US?"
Of course it never comes down to someone from one school, vs someone from another, there is history, communications ability, interviewing skills etc.
so in that sense it doesn't matter where you get your degree, it is what you learn, and what you can show to an interviewer
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
I was a student at a German university for a semester. I had received a BS from an American university and wanted to continue my education in Germany. Four universities accepted me (that was the easy part). However, three of them would only give me 2 year's credit for my 4-year degree, making me a Junior in college. The 4th university would only give me 3 semesters' credit, making me a Sophomore!
But that was the least of my problems. Once I got there, I was like a fish out of water. I thought my German was good, but it wasn't anywhere near good enough. I had an impossible time following the classes. Combined with a bunch of other personal problems (e.g. my landlady was a bitch!), I dropped out after a couple months.
One of the reasons why I got into all those universities so easily was because the idea of an American coming to Germany to study Comp Sci was unheard of, so of course they had to let me try.
Frankly, I don't think European universities are better than American universities for any of the computer fields. Sure, there are American universities that are worse than the average German university, but so what?
If you're going to study in Europe, don't do it because you think the schools are better, but that's just stupid. Do it because you want to study in Europe.
If I didn't already have family, friends, and own a house here, I'd look into leaving. It just seems to me that the U.S. is on a slippery slope downhill. I think whatever your political viewpoint is, it's all downhill...
But that's just my opinion, and I could be wrong.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
It's true that there is a lot more functional programming going on in Europe. But there is also plenty in the US. If you have an interest in a particular subject, find faculty who have published good, readable papers in the area, and then apply to the schools where those faculty work. I can tell you that CMU and Cornell have great typed functional programming groups (very European style, in fact), although CMU at least does not have a general CS masters program; you'd have to do a PhD. Several other schools like UPenn, Berkeley, and Harvey-Mudd are building strong programs in the same vein as well.
As a hiring manager, unless you go to a school I've heard of, in an English-speaking country, I'm probably not going to think very highly of your degree.
You may have lost countless excellent graduates as a result of that mentality. I once heard a hiring manager insist in the strongest possible terms, over countless objections, that they had never heard of Carnegie-Mellon and therefore the CS program couldn't possibly be any good. I would never accuse you of being that ignorant. But it is still fair to ask: how many schools have you heard of, and how familiar are you with their programs?
Ask anyone on the street to list every college they've ever "heard of" and you'll rarely find anyone who can name a couple of dozen (not counting "University of [STATE]"). With 3400 colleges in this country, a couple of dozen is less than 1%. I usually follow up by showing them a list of the top 10% of US colleges -- 340 schools, mind you -- and watch as they realize how little they really know. And why should they? Who besides college counselors can recognize 340 schools?
It might be interesting to go through your own company's roster and see where people went as an undergraduate. You may well find the prestige schools are quite underrepresented, and rightly so: as with many things, college reputations are pure popularity contests and have relatively little to do with merit.
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Dum de dum.
Freedom is not the license to do what we like, it is the power to do what we ought.
I've seen a lot of comments which are mainly outdated and ill informed.
... and 3 for engineering and some medicin studies). The candidatures are not really accepted as a final degree, but a way to the licenses (hardly anybody stopped studying after a candidature). These are the broad lines.
First off, indeed, some European countries did not have a Anglo-Saxon Ms/Bs system in the past. I believe some countries adherred to a more German system, where you had the 'candidatures' (after 2 years) and the 'licenses' (after 2 or 3 years; 2 for 'normal' studies, e.g. history, archeology,
One of the formost problems with this was the diversity of the degrees. You typically had 'universities' and 'high schools (=/= american high-schools). For some long term degrees (4/5 years) the degree of a high-school did not get accepted abroad (including some engineering degrees), while the university degrees were universally (pun) accepted.
Then there were the differences between countries... Over the last decade, countries started to simplify and reform their studies. If I remember correctly, Sweden had at some point over 100 different engineering degrees.
More recently (and which has been the cause for quite some protest), all the EU countries signed an agreement to take up the Master/Bachelor system (Bologna Accords). As far as I know, this system is currently being introduced (if you start now, you should be in this system) and is retro-active (if you graduated in the old system, you can call yourself Master).
Of course, there are still discussions going on (and I basically lost the thread by now) between lobbying groups (which are sometimes powerful and recruite off campus) that e.g. think that an engineer of a university should be an MSc while one from a high-school should be a 'simple' Master (and so on and so forth). [some weven wanted to have high-schools only deliver bachelor degrees while leaving masters to the universities]. I will not go into the ramafications of these discussions, it's enough to say that if some ppl had their way, it would be more chaos again.
I just hope the politicians get their act together and for once, take some rational decisions, once and for all making the higher education homogeneous. After all, if there would be an objective difference between degree X from school A and degree Y from university B, I assume recuiters would take up on this (as they already do now for some degrees that are offered on both universities and high-schools).
But in the discussion about degrees, all rationality seems to be gone out the window at some times... Some people seem to like protecting the education and degree with all kinds of laws, thus decoupling 'capabilities' from 'person' but linking 'capabilities' with 'degree/institution'.
As for your question, if you come to the EU for studies, pick a university with a good reputation. You can hardly miss. Another note that I want to add (from my limited experience with US degrees) is that the EU educations (also depending from institution to institution) put more weight on theory (mathematics).
Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. You can't simply say, "Today I will be brilliant."
I assess international qualifications for an Australian university, and we consider US qualifications to be about a year behind Aussie and western European quals (UK etc). The US education system is about on par with Hungary and Pakistan in the view of our assessors, but we consider UK and many Indian quals to be on par with our own.
The main factor in deciding the quality of a particular country's qualifications is not the curriculum, facilities, or anything along those lines. It's the quality of the students, determined mostly by whether students gain their place at university through academic merit, or by buying a place. In the US you mostly buy a place, so consequently the value of degrees from the US suffers.
I would advise anyone trying to choose between the US and Europe for a degree of any kind to go to an English university. They don't hand out testamurs from Oxford to any sub-literate with a fat wallet.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Quick question: how are Canadian universities seen? Canadian education system is sometimes similar but, at the same time, remarkably different from the American counterpart...
[Gets big 'C' book from shelf...]
Canada is seen as high quality, on par with UK / Australia, and ahead of the US by a year or so. The high school diplomas / matriculation certificates are highly regarded also. Further, the French and English institutions are considered on par with each other. Canada would be a good choice for postgraduate study.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling