Hello, I got accepted to UW Madison for CS and Purdue University of data science.
I am an international student, so my cost of attendance is virtually full tuition for both schools, which makes Purdue university about 10k cheaper than UW Madison.
However, I heard that Purdue is really boring and there is nothing to do around the campus.
My parents made a deal that if I choose to go to Purdue, they will buy me a car. Will this be a good deal? I am not sure if car is that useful, but they are telling me that I can literally drive to Chicago in two hours if I had a car. I probably won’t have a car if I choose to go to Wisconsin.
Also, is Purdue University data science program good enough to beat UW Madison’s CS reputation? I was rejected from Purdue for my second choice, which was CS, and I got accepted to data science, which was my second choice. However, I am not even sure what data science major studies. If data science has really good potential in the future, I might think about it more. But still, CS is really strong too.
I am personally leaning on Wisconsin because of the vibe it has, and I wanted to study CS.
I just want as many advices to not make a wrong decision.
It depends on you and what you want to study. I’m in the same exact boat but I’m a us resident so there are slight differences. Data science is obviously the hottest field in the world right now and by the time we graduate it will be even more desirable as new jobs for big data are being created all the time. Data science is also very similar to computer science and at Purdue and Wisconsin the courses for data science and computer science majors are almost identical making it very easy to double major as well. Both are top 20 computer science programs but Purdue has invested more in data science over the years especially recently and they’ve hired dozens of new faculty members for data science over the past couple years which will only increase their already globally recognized reputation as a rigorous cs and de program as well as their ranking in the future. Wisconsin has an amazing campus and is also recognized as a top 15-20 cs school, but has received various criticisms that I encourage you to look up regarding their recent restricted funding for higher education, laws restricting academic freedom etc. but regardless, they’re both great for cs and where Wisconsin has the edge is in the campus. Madison is indeed a cool city and why I’m considering Wisconsin strongly. If there are however perks to going to Purdue like getting a car I would definitely take it becasue from all my friends that attend both universities, I’ve only heard great things. Truly you can’t go wrong and when going to major in great cs or data science programs such as these, your experience will be what you make it and you’ll have great job opportunities regardless as long as you do your job and perform.
Studying CS at UW sounds like the right call to me, I wouldn’t compromise my major with two well ranked options.
I go to Wisconsin. Like you noted, the vibe here is amazing. Madison is a beautiful city with a ton to do. Lots of restaurants on State St. and the gorgeous lakes. Also, the atmosphere here is a great combination of work hard and play hard. Also, you may be aware of this already, but the university is creating a Data Science major that will be available for declaration in Fall 2020 (in case you still want to explore that potential interest). Though I am not a CS major, I would be happy to answer any other Wisconsin-specific questions.
Data Science at Purdue is a mix of CS and statistics:
https://www.cs.purdue.edu/undergraduate/curriculum/datascience-req-fall2020.html
Basically, would you rather study CS, or study some CS and some statistics?