Post Undergrad Comp. Graphics Studies in the U.S.?

AliParr asks: "Having just completed my first degree, BSc Hons Visualization at Teesside University in England, I am considering continuing on to Post-Graduate study. While courses in the United Kingdom are fine, I have always fancied studying abroad, or more specifically, in the states. Finding a course/university seems an overwhelming process however and I'm struggling to know where to start. My interests are Computer Science and Graphics based, with my first degree centering on C++/OpenGL/DirectX and general graphics algorithms. I was wondering if fellow Slashdot readers could give guide me as to the best places to look, and maybe shed some light on their experiences."

Comments

Mississippi State University

[Yerase]

Mississippi State University has a good program, both in Computer Science and Computer Engineering, that focuses on Computer Graphics and Scientific Visualization. They also have a close working relationship with the DoD's 4 supercomputing centers (MSRC's) via the PET program. You can find info on the DOD, MSRC's, & PET on http://aspen.ucs.indiana.edu/pet/

TestMagic: advice on getting into grad school

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get advice on programs and admissions from your peers here: (international students trying to get into U.S./Canadian programs)

TestMagic

Look under the graduate forums. Hordes of people discussing how to get through GREs, get Financial aid from various schools etc. Most people on the board are Indians, but you have your odd Australian, Briton, American etc.

Some of these people really know how to work the system...

Canadian Chamber of Commerce needs new slogan.

[solomonrex]

"Lotsa universities here."

And apparently, they teach American English 101.

I suggest you reconsider graduate studies when you're asking to upgrade what is essentially craftsmanship. Post-graduate work should be for research, not job skills and experience.

Narrow down your choices first maybe?

[Ankh]

Start by asking yourself what you expect to get out of studying in another country, and why that country in particular.

There are some Canadian universities that at least at one time were very good for post-graduate graphics work, for example, and I think one in Singapore.

Note also that a Masters in North America is treated like a BSc in the UK, so you'll probably have to do a Master's before you can do further studies, but the master's degree in the US might only be one year. So there are some differences in terminology.

One approach to help you decide might be to investigate authors of up-to-date graduate level text books, and people who are publishing interesting papers (e.g. ACM SIGGRAPH), see where they are teaching, and see what some of their past students have done.

Another obvious approach is to compare the Web sites of some of the schools (as they call them) that interest you, and see what the course looks like. If the Masters in Graphics requires a course in Adobe PhotoShop and another in Adobe Illustrator, it's probably not what you want! (and yes, there are courses with such requirements).

The level of teaching varies wildly, much more than you might expect, as does the cost. Canada tends to be cheapr than the US if that helps any.

If you are going abroad to get a different experience, you'll find Kentucky State University very different from the University of California, and that in turn is different from MIT (in Cambridge, MA, a conurbation with Boston). My husband did a degree in Fine Art in upstate New York (maybe 8 hours' drive from New York city) and the people in the town there are very conservative and "redneck", openly racist and homophobic (e.g. a pizza store that didn't serve blacks), but on the other hand a wonderful faculty and campus. Horrible weather though, with nine feet of snow in one or two weeks in the winter, and over 100F with high humidity in the summer.

In general the two coasts of the US tend to be more tolerant than the middle of the country. If you are not white, the North is a better bet than the South.

So, narrow down your choices by listing your priorities, and maybe post them here. Then go and do some research. You can also email people teaching computer graphics, or working in industry, and ask their opinion, but make sure you do some research first, so you don't just waste their time.

Liam

Re:Narrow down your choices first maybe?

[Ankh]

From the wikipedia article you mention:

In the UK it is sometimes awarded for an undergraduate course whose final year consists of higher-level courses and a major research project

and, under North America, The master's degree is intermediate between a bachelor's degree and a doctorate.

People in the UK generally are (or used to be) unlikely to get a Master's unless they are going on to do a PhD and didn't get a First or 2-1 (an "A" if you prefer). But in North America un undergraduate degree isn't valued as much (and is perhaps easier to get), so e.g. employers or research institutes may look for a master's.

So what I meant is that the names are not exactly equivalent, not that someone with a Master's degree from the US, going to the UK, will be treated as if they had only an undergraduate degree!

Check GPGPU.org forums

[ccweigle]

There was a recent thread on the GPGPU forums about picking a grad program for studying graphics. Since pretty much everyone there is either studying graphics or practicing them, you may get better responses than from here.

Vizlab

[jonabbey]

Take a look at Texas A&M's VizLab. They're a part of the school of architecture there, but they do graduate training in computer graphics, generally. A lot of their grads go on to work in the movie business.. Pixar, PDI, Sony, etc.

it IS an overwhelming process.

[lliiffee]

Applying and getting accepted to CS grad school in the US is an extremely drawn out and painful process, even for US citizens. The method I advise for you is this:

1) Find the US News and World Report rankings of the top 50 programs. (You can ignore the exact rankings, but this is a good list of 50 schools to look at.)

2) For each (yes!) school, go the the faculty, and find those (if any) who have interests in graphics. Read their web pages and papers. Make a list of all faculty that would be interesting to work with. (To a first approximation the shool you go to does not matter. What matters, TREMENDOUSLY, is who your advisor is.)

3) If possible, correspond with the above faculty.

4) Apply to each school (shoot for 10 or more- competition is extremely high these days) who has at least one faculty whose research is interesting. This will cost you, with application fees running around 50-100USD each. (But you are in England- treasure those exchange rates!)

5) (If you get in) Profit!

Also note that to get in, you principally need LETTERS OF RECOMENDATION FROM PROFESSORS WHO CAN VOUCH FOR YOUR ABILITY TO DO RESEARCH. Grades, test scores, etc are somewhat important, but the above trumps all.

Thanks! And more details...

[AliParr]

Firstly, let me say Thank You all for the interesting and informative comments. You've certainly given me a starting idea and foothold. Let me give a few more details, to help refine your suggestions :) "The submitter is looking for grad schools, not another 4 year degree (BA/BS, etc). The submitter named C++ as a current skill, not an end goal. And finally, at no point did the submitter suggest interest in the "computer graphics" industry, for which you list a few members of the entertainment side. Given an honors degree in visualization, a research lab, medical imaging company, or academic position are more likely goals." This I couldn't agree with more. Firstly, I believe my C++ skills to be of a high standard, alongside my Real-Time graphics abilities. For reference (I didn't want to sound like boasting in the actual submit) - I achieved a First Class Honours degree, with an 85%+ average. While the university was originally a Poly, some 20 years back, it has come on leaps and bounds in recent times, and has truly one of the best Vis courses in the country. So, rather than learning 'Games Programming', or something similar, I am intersted in the more academic nature of visualisation. Medical, or even Criminology style visualisation techniques I find most interesting. With that said however, I do not want to end up a pure 'academic'. My reasons for continuing study are that I'm relatively young (20), and am keen to experience another culture before I get settled into a job. Also, the graduate IT industry in the UK is ridiculously competitive, and I feel I need a postgrad qualitification to help set me apart. Thanks once more guys.

Graphics Programs

[doktor-hladnjak]

A good starting place for information is this little document by Mike Gleicher who is a graphics prof at the University of Wisconsin. He gives a lot of general advice, but also some specific stuff for graphics which is helpful and otherwise hard to find.

Here's his list of places where major graphics research is going on in North America:

The "Big" Places for Graphics: (all of these places have LOTS of graphics students)

• Washington
• Stanford
• Georgia Tech
• UNC
• Utah
• MIT
• Brown
• British Columbia

Other Really good groups (smaller, more personable):

• Princeton
• Caltech
• NYU
• CMU (was big, but lots of people left)
• Toronto

Up and Coming Groups (newer groups with a small number of newer faculty in graphics)

• Berkeley
• Virginia
• Illinois
• USC

He also of course adds Wisconsin to the list too. I'd personally place it in the last category, since they have a small, young but respectable program. Generally, I agree with this list although there are probably a whole bunch of other places with just one faculty member doing good work.

Having spent time studying and researching in Europe, there are some good graphics groups there too. In the UK, I know of two places off hand: Cambridge (Malcolm Sabin doing stuff with surfaces and geometric modeling) and Bath (Phil Willis and some others). In Germany, there is the Max Planck Institute (which does everything in English and is a very strong group although I admit I used to work there, so I'm probably biased), TU Darmstadt (Alexa), RWTH Aachen (Kobelt) and Tuebingen (Strasser). In Switzerland, there is the ETH in Zuerich (Markus Gross), the EPFL in (I think) Lausanne (Nadia and Daniel Thalmann) and Basel (Thomas Vetter who not so long ago left Freiburg to start a new graphics group there). In France, there is a group at the INRIA in Grenoble (Marie-Paul Cani). The above is certainly not an exhaustive list, just names that come to mind off the top of my head.

Most of these programs in continental Europe probably require you to already have your MSc before beginning PhD studies, but some have MSc programs as well. I know the MPI has one and awards scholarships even to foreign students. Generally, it's easier to get funding with only a Bachelor's degree in the US than in most of Europe. I've also heard the funding situation in the UK is not really very good, which is probably another reason to consider places like the US, Canada, Germany or Switzerland.

Competition for admission to US schools is fairly intense and is a time consuming and expensive process, but there are some really amazing opportunities here. I'm currently a grad student (graphics, visualization and scientific computing) at UNC and we probably have the largest number of graphics and imaging faculty and grad students under one (academic) roof in the world. We're not as hard to get into as a lot of the top schools like Berkeley, MIT, Stanford or CMU, but we still only take about 1 in 7 applicants or something. The key is to apply to as many places as you can afford, but only apply to places you'd actually attend.

Happy searching!