The quality of CS MS program at Columbia?

<p>Hi, all</p>

<p>I'm new here in college confidential.
I'm planning to persue my graduate study at 2013FALL and recently I have received admission from CS@columbia, being puzzling when choosing school.
As we know the rank of Columbia in USNews is shinning while the engineering there is a shortage when comparing with Arts or Ecnomics.</p>

<p>And I really want to know the quality of its Computer Science MS program, especially the networking track. Info on their website only provide basic situation. Will students get enough training there and to be competitive with other CS students when seeking job?</p>

<p>Your help will be greatly appreciated!</p>

<p>The Computer Science MS program at Columbia is top notch. I don’t specifically have experience with the networking track, but I would definitely prefer the Columbia MS CS program to many other CS programs (even over many schools that USNews ranks higher than Columbia).</p>

<p>There are some really great professors. In the NYC area, the graduates from the program are held in the highest regard. The program has quality and a great brand name. How could you go wrong?</p>

<p>2 things.</p>

<p>1)Don’t go strictly by US news ranking.
2)Look into Stony Brook University, which is in my opinion far, far stronger than SBU in nearly every field, and blows Columbia away in the field of networking. SBU conducts more research than Columbia in CS, has twice the number of faculty, has faculty from better schools when compared to Columbia(Scroll down Stony Brooks faculty list), has more resources than Columbia(4 buildings devoted to CS, plus a new $100 million CS building under construction), and great companies recruit at Stony Brook.</p>

<p>I think it has to do with experience. Stony Brook is a more experienced, older, with young and bright faculty and the future seems very bright for the school. I also want to emphasize on cost. Stony Brook is like 1/4th the cost of Columbia, which makes it a NO BRAINER. Google, Microsoft, Apple, and all the top companies recruit on campus, since our Computer Science enrollment is 3x the size of Columbia’s.</p>