I am admitted to PhD programs in mechanical engineering at both CSM and UPitt. My field of study is bioengineering (a blend of mechanical engineering and medicine). I received scholarships from both universities by which all my living costs and tuition are covered.
I know that the graduate students of CSM can find job without any problem and their starting salary is much higher than UPitt’s graduate student but I have heard that UPitt is so much stronger in the bioengineering and most of bioengineering related companies in US are located in the east coast.
This makes it a little bit difficult to me to choose between them.
The only thing that is important to me is how easily I can find a job after the graduation and also its salary. Please let me know your opinion in this respect.
I mean that the UPitt strength in biomedical engineering is so much higher than that of CSM so that in the NIH funding by institutions the UPitt’s ranking in even higher than that of MIT and UPenn. My field of study in both institutions is somehow related to the biomedical engineering. I am wondering that CSM’s reputation in its graduate students starting salary may be related to the fields of studies like mining, machinery and these sorts of fields rather than biomedical engineering.
Moreover, based on the US-news ranking the UPitt’s ranking in engineering is equal to the Brown university which is a highly reputable university and this may help me continue my future career in academia as a university lecturer instead of working in industry.
Besides, in terms of supervisor in the CSM I would work with a assistant professor while in the UPitt my supervisor is a prominent professor and may have more connections than the CSM supervisor.
If you are looking at PhD programs, there are a few things you should know:
A. USANews rankings are meaningless for grad schools. Each field has its own view of how programs are ranked. So ignore how USANews ranks engineering programs.
B. If you are looking at a job in academia, check out where professors in different universities did their PhDs. Placement rates in the corporate world are not always indicative of a high rate of success in academia. There are programs which have a very good placement rate of their PhDs in industry, but from which few are successful in academia.
C. Tenure track positions in the USA have the title “assistant professor”, not “lecturer”, as in Europe. In American Colleges, a lecturer is a non tenure-track teaching position.
D. Salary and job satisfaction are, in general, higher for people working in industry than for people working in academia.
E. In engineering, colleges often hire people from industry, so working in industry after your PhD doesn’t bar you from returning to academia at a later time.
Yes, you are definitely right. I was making a decision in this respect based on the ranking of different websites like US-news, QS and times, which is not obviously rational.
So in terms of finding a good job in the industry in biomedical engineering, you think I should choose the CSM. Am I right?
@Mi1990 If you have it on good authority that CSM graduates find jobs more easily that UPitt graduates, then yes, I would recommend CSM over UPitt. Overall, I would recommend CSM over UPitt for grad school in engineering.
HOWEVER, the PhD program at CSM does not have a PhD in biomedical engineering. So if you want a graduate degree in biomedical engineering, you will need to go to UPitt.
In short - if you want to stay in ME, go to CSM. However, if you want to do your PhD in bioengineering, you will need to do it at UPitt.