Boston University or Northeastern University

Graduate School
1

I have to decide between Northeastern University or Boston University for Masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering. In particular I would like to concentrate on the control and robotics fields.

I have spent a lot of time looking into each university. For the most part, they seem to offer similar courses and even have the same labs. I would like to ask what others think/ would do in this scenario.

As a guideline covering what I looked into, I developed a short comparison list.

BU Pros:

  • Good education/ courses/ labs
  • More name recognition (I’m not going to lie, I am getting quite influenced by this point)
  • Better location/ campus setting as I have heard
  • Specific concentration in Robotics exists

BU Cons:

  • Full-time student requires higher amounts of credits (12 minimum) (which I have to be as I am international)
  • Higher overall Cost

Northeastern Pros:

  • Good education/ courses/ labs
  • Full-time student is minimum of 8 credits which would allow me to do a part-time job easier
  • Lower overall Cost
  • Appears to offer more courses in ECE

Northeastern Cons:

  • Generally feel like it is less known
  • More general concentration in control, communication, and signal processing

Any advice/ opinions would be appreciated

2

I’m not so sure about the name recognition part. Overseas, definitely yes, but here in Silicon Valley, a lot of NEU folks here.

3

Yep, and I live and work in the Seattle tech scene, and Northeastern is well known here, too. We actually have an NEU campus in Seattle.

I wouldn’t decide on the basis of how many credits the program requires for you to be full-time. Your education should be your first priority, and the difference of 4 credits is only one additional class (which admittedly on the graduate level can be a lot of extra work, but that’s part of the experience). Plenty of students work part-time while taking 12 graduate credits, though; it’s very doable, so that shouldn’t make your determination.

Whether the specific concentration in robotics matters depends on whether NEU has a similar set of classes that you can take to get the knowledge. If they do, then the concentration itself doesn’t matter.

I’m not going to say that location totally doesn’t matter, but in graduate school it doesn’t matter much. You can live wherever you want as a graduate student, and they are both in Boston.

What’s the cost difference?