<p>I've been grappling with this for the past two weeks. Thought I'd post it here, look for some peer-input. </p>
<p>Basically I've narrowed my Mech E possibilities down to 3 choices: PhD at Cornell, MS at Georgia tech or UT Austin, or Dual MS degrees at a Georgia tech campus in France.</p>
<p>The 1st one should be clear. I'd be done in 4-5 years with research I am fairly (but not precisely) interested in. Downsides are being in middle of nowhere for that long(though I do like the environment of the school itself), and also not working on exactly what I want. Plus, my goal isn't academia or big industry research lab, but more towards the startup side, and for that Cornell isn't really in a networking hub...</p>
<p>...like say the Bay Area. Which brings me to the 2nd option - doing an MS at GATech or Austin then trying to return to Stanford or Berkeley(who both merrily rejected me this round) for a PhD. With this choice, I have a wide variety of research that I can enjoy, plus both cities are great, and I'm fully funded at both schools. Of course, there's no guarantee I'll be able to return to the Bay Area for PhD, but if no I can always continue my PhD at these schools or reapply to Cornell and a few of the other A-list schools(as opposed to the A+ list Berkeley, Stanford, MIT and maybe Caltech). As long as my Thesis is decent, this won't be a problem. </p>
<p>I'd be leaning towards the 2nd option, if it weren't for this third option that's been keeping me up at night. Basically GATech has this research campus in France. For four semesters of work I get a degree from GATech and a 2nd degree from a top French university(I looked it up, to make sure this was true). In addition, I've found a professor who does research on something close, but not quite related to nanotechnology - he studies nanomechanics, so more materials side of things - and he offered me a fellowship and a position in his lab, which will produce a publishable MS thesis. Now the downsides are there. First, I have limited coursework - very much less, here are their Fall 07 offerings(some distance learning courses aren't on there yet):</p>
<p>But for a PhD qual exam, I would mostly be studying privately anyway, so it's not that terrible a deal. In addition, I'd probably have to pay $10000 out of my own pocket for the two years- for travel costs and some living expenses. This is an amount I can easily handle, but again, other schools have offered me a full ride. Also, again, the research isn't completely up my alley, but it would provide a solid basis for studying and devloping nanostructures as PhD. Still, how often do you get to work or study in a different country as an engineer? The courses at the French university are all in French. I'd also do an internship at a French Multinational over the summer. There's no doubt it'd be a good experience, but am I risking too much over it?</p>
<p>I've been contacting my professors at Berkeley, at other schools and anyone else who'll talk with me, but they're all naturally very vague. I'm not going to base any decision of response I get here, but it would be interesting to see which choices you would pick.</p>