<p>The single most important factor in choose a PhD program is picking one where there's a professor whose research interest matches yours. Not every school will be a match for you, even the ones that are tops in your department. At this point, you most likely have no idea what that research interest is, so you really won't know if it's a good idea or not.</p>
<p>If I ever go back to get my PhD, I wouldn't be looking to go back to Columbia. Instead, I'd be looking to go back to the professor who I had previously done research with, at whichever school he ends up at. If I do go back, there's only maybe half a dozen professors in this country who I'd like to work with. The other gazillion professors just aren't interested in the same things I'm interested in.</p>
<p>I'd like to know more about the difficulty of the MS classes compared to undergrad classes.</p>
<p>Say an average undergrad class takes about 8 hours of outside study per week. How about even the first MS intro class you will take? Judging that it will be significantly more difficult than undergrad, would it require 2x (16 hours/week or 3 hours per day per class) to get the work done?</p>
<p>I am deciding if four quarters can finish it for me:</p>
<p>Spring: 2
Fall:3
Winter: 3
Spring: 2</p>
<p>Taking 1 undergrad each quarter, the rest are graduate courses.</p>
<p>
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I'd like to know more about the difficulty of the MS classes compared to undergrad classes.
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</p>
<p>It really depends where you go. Where I went for undergrad, a grad class exchanged time-consuming work like homework for increased difficulty so that one could take quite a few grad classes as long as you were pretty quick. Where I am now, however, I'm taking 4 grad classes and only have a few precious free hours a week (gonna guess about 10-15) after finishing the weekly problem sets and TAing.</p>
<p>Stanford's M.S. ElecE program offers a non-thesis path. It's doable in 1-year, and a lot of students do this -- but wow, competing against TAs/RAs who are at the TOP of their class, is not fun.</p>
<p>...I went this route, and if I could do it over, I would have taken 4 quarters (1.25 years) instead of 1 academic year. I did not absorb as much as I could have, though I only have myself to blame (came from a non-top University of California.) Speaking with other MS students who came from UCLA undergrad, they found the student-pool to be ratched up 1 notch. (Thankfully, grad-courses are curved to a B.)</p>
<p>Yes, there are TAs in grad school, too. Particularly for the larger intro courses, or the more difficult courses. For the sorts of courses where there are only two or three people in the class, then probably not, but in larger programs, there are certainly still TAs.</p>
<p>how is doing the 5 year BS/MS option ‘not a bad option’? In that program, you’re doing the non-thesis MS, so you have to pay for your tuition. But if you found a job with just a BS, your employer may pay provide tuition reimbursement, so you don’t have to pay AT ALL for the MS. Or, if you get lucky or go to certain schools I believe, you can get funded for your MS by doing the thesis option. This is just what I know, am I’m certainly no expert on this, so hopefully someone can clarify this for me</p>