Help an italian ENG to find university :)

Graduate School
1

<p>Hello! :-h This is my first post in the forum.<:-P </p>

<p>I'm an italian student and in a few months I'll get a bachelor degree in Management Engineering from the italian-swiss university in Lugano. I planned to work in a manufacturing company in Switzerland for the next year and to attend an MS in Industrial and Systems Engineering in USA in 2016, because of the clear quality of american accademic system and opportunities for business; moreover, I love to travel.</p>

<p>My predicted final GPA will be around 3.4-3.5 and i'm in the top 15% of my class. I'm a Chess Candidate Master and as a hobby I play the piano, not as a professional but I can play a Fugue by Bach or a Beethoven's Sonata without problems - if that matters, that said, in the next months I'll take the IELTS and GRE, which looks to be essential. </p>

<p>Since I know that it's better to organize everything earlier, I started a web serch, learning as much as possible of US colleges and discovering a deeper and wider world than I expected.</p>

<p>I checked the international rankings (QS, ARWU and TIMES HIGHER EDU) to get a general idea of which colleges would fit me and I temporarily selected these, whose programs in IE look solid:</p>

<p>University of Washington
Penn State University
University of Florida
University of Wiscosins, Madison
University of Michigan
University of California Los Angeles
University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign
New York University
University of Boston
University of North Carolina
Carnegie Mellon University
Purdue University</p>

<p>I tried to be realistic, but still challeging. My priority is of course the quality of teaching, but I consider the prestige of the institution important as well and the campus' life and enviroment, too.</p>

<p>Here I ask your help: since I don't have a wide knowledge in American Colleges, what colleges would fit my profile?
Which colleges I didn't mention should I add to my list in your opinion? Which ones should I erase?
Which steps should I take?</p>

<p>Lastly, I searched a book for admission to us colleges and I found hundreds about bachelor's admissions, but not a convincing one about MS; do you know any?</p>

<p>Every further suggestion is welcome, of course. :-bd </p>

<p>Best regards from Italy,</p>

<p>TAM :-h </p>

2

<p>Your list is fine. These are all fine universities. Since you are looking for a M.S. you should expect to self-fund it and it is likely that you will be accepted into a significant number of these schools should you apply. Your GRE scores will be important for admission but all your extracurricular activities are not going to matter. having work experience will be valuable. My suggestion is to decide where to apply based on the quality of the program (as you perceive it) and where you would like to spend 2 years of your life.</p>

<p>As far as I know there are no books dedicated to searching for a Masters program. The focus is on the Bachelor’s degree because so many more student are interested in that degree.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

3

<p>Thank you very much! Your tips are helpful.</p>

<p>I noticed you told that I should expect to attend MS for 2 years; however I’m a bit confused because for some colleges it’s 1 year, for some 18 months and for others 2 year and this has a huge impact on budgeting, since the tuition is term-based. In the next year I’m going to work to fund my MS, though I’m still not sure it will be enough for a 2 years master; how much should I save to attend a MS in Engineering in US? (I mean an average of the universities on the list) Any concrete experience? </p>

4

<p>I find strange also the fact that times to get the MS are different, but the number of credits are nearly the same (31-33) in every course I found. Can anybody explain why and how should I budget?</p>

<p>Thank you ;)</p>

5

<p>I think it depends on how many courses you would take per term. At my university, Illinois Institute of Technology, a typical full load for a graduate student is about 3 courses, each counting 3 credits, for a total of 18 credits per year. Since the Masters degree is 32 credits, then this means just under 2 years of full time study. however, some students decide to take 4 courses each semester and can finish it all in 3 semesters. If, however, a student wants to do a Masters Thesis, the research may take an additional semester. So it all depends on the program and what you decide to do.</p>

<p>As for cost, finishing in 3 semesters will reduce your living expenses but your tuition costs will probably be the same as many graduate programs just charge a flat rate of tuition per credit hour of coursework. Thus, it does not matter if you take 9 or 12 credits per term, you are paying to the total number of credits you take in the program. I am sure that other universities might have slight differences.</p>

6

<p>I understand; and what do you think of online MS (or MEng)?
Here in Europe, nobody considers them, but I found that high-prestige universities in US, like Columbia and UCLA, have several courses, are they worth the money? Any experience?
I think that one advantage for me would be that won’t have huge living expenses…</p>

7

<p>These are OK if the coursework and the degrees are the same as those taken by and received by students who take the classes in person. In my department (Physics) at Illinois Tech, we have a Master of Health Physics which is all online except for a one week laboratory short course. The courses we offer online are the live lectures captured and presented within 24 hours. In this case, the distance learning students are taking the identical classes and exams as the student present for the lectures in the classrooms so the degrees are all the same. The challenge is that one has to use electronic means to hold discussions and to communicate with the professor. This takes a bit of getting used to. Personally, I have taught students in Italy and Brazil for an online course and it has worked well.</p>