I’m deciding between CMU and Columbia for CS right now. I feel this post so hard, lol.
Let me know what you decide!!! I may turn them down if it’s a financial burden!
@deadgirl omg i was choosing between georgia tech and cmu before may 1st (before i got off the waitlist for columbia). hate that i have to make a college decision twice… best of luck to you and your decision!
I am Tech graduate with BS in Applied Math, and MS in Industrial Engineering.
I can relate to you 100%. Do not know much about Columbia.
I loved math applying in. Was not very interested in very advanced math and did concentration in Statistics.
Usually path BS Math → graduate Industrial Engineering is not available (want to have only Engineering student), but I had huge amount of engineering classes, so was allowed.
More standard pass Math → Operation Research.
I was considering Actuarial career at some point, but was not interested in so many exams.
If you want to work on Wall Street - definitely Columbia.
If you want finances ( I hate accounting…) - definitely Columbia.
If you want to stay in NY - Columbia.
If you want to consider really Engineering - only GaTech.
Good luck.
@Greymeer to clarify my previous comment - I was responding to OP’s question about the competitive atmosphere at Columbia; I was not trying to disparage the quality of the students at GT.
@kaityb24 Glad you looked closer; Columbia does have a strong applied math program, and it’s a great foundation for further study in lots of fields - tech and otherwise. If you’d like, you can also look at the “degree tracks” for Applied Math (and other engineering programs), which are part of the online bulletin. Looks like there’s a good bit of flexibility. Then compare that to what you would take at GT.
Good luck either way!
GT is known for engineering not really anything else, most that start in engineering don’t finish in engineering, I graduated in EE with only 1/3 that started, you can get a well recognized engineering degree at Columbia plus a ton of other outstanding degrees if engineering turns out not to be your thing. The same cannot be said about GT. The 80k still remains a factor.
GT will probably be more challenging academically. It is a very difficult school, but the engineering resources are outstanding. Columbia just isn’t that great for engineering, it’s more about school reputation vs program reputation. GT also has an outstanding co-op program, and Atlanta is a lot cheaper and almost as much fun as NYC. GT grads are hired very quickly.
On the flip side student resources are a lot better at Columbia, and the student body is 50/50 MF, vs 60/40 at GT. Being able to go home for the weekend is a real plus too.
Finally Georgia’s economy is growing faster than NY, and will probably continue to do so with NY’s anti-business reputation, ranked in the bottom 5 states nationally.
Considering the $80K difference I’d go to GT. Columbia does not offer the same value for an engineer, especially if you are a near full pay student.
I disagree, relatively little difference between Columbia at #11 and GT at #2. Both are outstanding engineering programs.
Both outstanding of course. But for rankings clarity. Usnwr undergrad engineering. GT and Caltech tied at number 4. CMU is number 6. Columbia is number 18.
My son is doing the applied math program at Georgia Tech. The math department is really strong, as is physics.
GaTech also has strong world languages, strong international focus, strong world history classes, and better outdoor education than Columbia. I would not say humanities and social sciences are a dominant strength at GaTech, but a surprising number of students major in business. You cannot major in business at Columbia U, its not offered, only economics. There is more flexibility at GaTech as there is no Core. Combinatorics, and discrete math is ranked number 2 at GaTech, after MIT and way way ahead of Columbia in that field. Look up combinatorics, and PM me, my son works for one of the experts. GaTech undergrads can do a 3 or 4 semester deep dive into mathematics research and work summers and get payed to work on mathematics. Applied Math is really stronger at GaTech than Columbia in my opinion. See US News Ranks for Discrete Math. Look at modeling too at GaTech, industrial engineering, and the classes in EE, CS, math, all fantastic.
GaTech will allow you to substitute graduate math classes to get an undergraduate degree. GaTech really has a better focus on technology than Columbia by far. GaTech is more spirited, in a good way. GaTech football is right there, not up in the slums of NYC, at 168th Street. Its still so bad up there, Columbia provides a private bus to go to football games, but no one at Columbia bothers!
School spirit counts a lot, Gatech just really is much more friendly and less hyper focused on politics and smoking to be hip. I mean Columbia is not The New School, but its still way way too cool for some of us!
GaTech’s math program IS applied math! The entire math department focuses on that. Columbia is more of a pure math sort of department.
GaTech will offer you the applications of math for modeling biology, physics, chemistry, and all the math/CS combination classes, and you might love fluid dynamics, for instance in mechanical engineering or aerospace engineering. Many of the engineering departments will have many classes that use math in new useful ways.
And the top discrete math/combinatorics outside of MIT is GaTech’s group. See Dana Randall, great mentor to undergraduates. Prasad Tetali, and many others studying the intersection of math and CS.
GaTech is not particularly southern, nor is Atlanta. There are Mosques in Atlanta, a large Jewish community and I feel its a more open culture than New York City in many ways. Open to many ways of thinking, not just “group think”, the that many New Yorkers seem to go today. If everyone is a cookie cutter ,politically how do you learn anything new, or even how to argue your point of view!!! Also at GaTech, because OOS students are 30-50% of some GaTech departments, its not particularly southern as students hail from NJ/NY, and California. There are a large number of Asian Indian Americans at GaTech. Not all are super conservative. There is a large variety of clubs, and students actually enjoy that stuff, they do outside the classroom.
Rock Climbing , mountain biking and kayaking are all world class in northern Georgia. See outdoor recreation programs–
http://www.crc.gatech.edu/outdoor
Hope you saw the Olympic swimming pool, it was part of the 1996 Olympics ! Open to all students all the time,
on west side of campus.
Atlanta is surprisingly sophisticated too for going out, restaurants, and stuff to do. No its not NYC.
I suggest Columbia. I would guess that Ivy name is more important than a higher US News rank. Columbia’s core, location, and community will make your education especially valuable.
Checking each department’s information - Columbia Engineering’s Department of Applied Physics and Applied Math has 24 professors; a few of them hold joint appointments in the Math department of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, but most do not. It’s the latter department that is highly theoretical - as are most math departments that are not part of an engineering school.
GT’s math department’s web page states that they offer four optional concentrations within the major: applied math, discrete math, probability and statistics, and pure math. I can’t find a breakdown of degrees awarded by concentration, but overall it seems GT awards roughly the same number of bachelor’s degrees in Math each year as Columbia Engineering’s Applied Math major (Columbia awarded 24 last year, with another 16 doing a minor in math).
Also, while you cannot major in business at Columbia (Engineering or College), you can minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, or Economics - about 41 graduates did that last year (Columbia’s Economics faculty includes three Nobel prize winners). Another 76 majored or minored in Operations Research, which is a program that applies math to business problems.
Combined, those majors and minors account for about 1/3 of the graduating class at Columbia Engineering, which is very small to begin with - they award about 450 degrees a year. By contrast, GT awards about 2,400 engineering degrees a year.
Applied math at Columbia is lumped with materials science, which only recently has become quantitative. Also so many of Columbia’s professors are metallurgists from MIT’s department of materials science, and do not do any applied math, they do research using specialized equipment like transmission electron microscopes, which is interesting but not really OP’s interest. See Jim Im, Katyun Barmak and others. Many Columbia faculty in this department, Applied Math, Applied Physics With Materials Science, came from the graduate school at MIT, an arguably great department, but its not particularly strong in applied math.
Compare to this list from GaTech
https://math.gatech.edu/faculty-research-interests
Math is one of the best departments at GaTech. Its not big, but OP can also combine many math classes
with most GT engineering programs, or move over to math. OP can do a math minor as well, at either college.
Columbia Math is more pure math focused-
http://www.math.columbia.edu/research/overview/
Both colleges offer a computational finance MASTERS degree.
https://www.scheller.gatech.edu/degree-programs/interdisciplinary-ms/quantitative-and-computational-finance/index.html
@Coloradomama I have seen your posts elsewhere and they are invariably informative and helpful, as are your comments here about GT. So I’m sorry to have to point out that you’ve linked to the wrong Columbia math department - you’ve linked to the “pure” math department’s web page. The research interests of the Engineering School’s Applied Math faculty are listed here:
https://apam.columbia.edu/applied-mathematics-research
It’s also not accurate to say that Columbia’s applied math department is “lumped” with materials science - if anything, it’s the other way around. But there’s no clear definition of applied math, and every top engineering school is striving to be inter-disciplinary these days, so the key thing is to look under the hood and see what the faculty are really doing, and what kinds of courses are offered for undergraduates.
As for many Columbia faculty coming from MIT - that’s true, but MIT’s math department is one of the best in the world, as are its applied physics and materials science departments. Not sure that’s a negative.
@wylehamist thanks for the feedback. Just to clarify-- I mean specifically if you look at Applied Physics, math, and materials science at Columbia, a large fraction of the materials scientists are from MIT, making it a bit more narrow
in approach, but also outside of OPs interest entirely. (probably, although computational materials science is a growing field !)
So overall that department, called Applied Physics and Applied math, is dominated with experimental scientists, calling themselves applied physicists or materials scientists. There are a sprinkling of great math people in there, with cross appointments in CS
and earth sciences. OP only needs one good mentor after all. Bigger is not always better.
I just want to let readers know that Ivy is not automatically better, although I do really appreciate that Columbia has
longevity, powerful networks, a location that many might find desirable, and the Core program is excellent. (but more focused on reading, analyzing and writing, and not mathematics). Only Chicago Core requires some tough math classes, I think Columbia’s Core goes somewhat lighter on science and math. Chicago Core, actually requires biology and a physical science, which is very broad and difficult for many students.
GaTech programs are really missing that core, although it can be constructed by taking history, world language, economics etc, Those courses are offered, but not anywhere near as demanding at Columbia’s humanities offerings. GaTech economics is quite good though and ties to Washington DC are strong.
Ah yes the food fight continues in these somewhat ridiculous threads, one thing is clear, wherever I or my child went/goes to college is MUCH better!
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Let’s move past debating the age range of GS students please. That was not the OP’s question.