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?"

Comments

It is all name recognition after all

[MerlynEmrys67]

US/EU/India/AU... all of these degrees come down to, what is my impression of their program. If I had to choose someone from MIT/Stanford/UCB vs. someone from noname tech.germany of course I'd pick someone from MIT, however if the choice was from a top graduate program in Finland vs. someone from a no name school in Iowa... Well Finland wins that one.

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

Re:A couple arguments

[sasami]

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.

--
Dum de dum.

Qualifications Assessor POV

[sbszine]

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.

Canadian Quals

[sbszine]

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.