<p>Hi folks!</p>
<p>I was fortunate to be admitted at both with full funding. Which one do you think is better?</p>
<p>USC have a large program (40+ faculty, 50 phd students) and some of the best people in the field. It's one of the oldest graduate programs in computational biology in the US (20+ years). Also, they claim that their alumni are highly successful (something I tend to believe). The faculty members have great connections to other top places in the field. The program itself is only 4.5 years long, which is good, but has no lab rotations (something I don't like).</p>
<p>On the other hand, UCLA's program is young (3-4 years). They don't have alumni yet. The number of faculty is around 20. Yet, they received several big grants in the past years and are expanding fast. They seem to have good connections with the rest of the life science departments (which are better at UCLA compared to USC, at least according to the rankings). Also, they said that I'll need 5-6 years to finish.</p>
<p>I was able to pinpoint POIs at both places. UCLA has a little advantage on this though.</p>
<p>Since I live outside of the US, I have no chance to visit both campuses. Nor have I ever been there. I have to make a decision based only on the information I am gathering through the web. Please, let me know your opinion of both programs! Any thoughts would be VERY helpful!</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Hi Fizilla, </p>
<p>Congrats on your acceptances!</p>
<p>I am also a comp bio/bioinformatics person, but I didn’t apply to either of these schools. However, I worked at UCLA for a while after I graduated from college, so I can tell you the following: I thought UCLA was a great place to work. The campus is in a great part of LA (Westwood), where you are fairly close to the beach, west hollywood, Santa Monica, and many other attractions. Many people will tell you that you really need a car to get around the city from Westwood. Personally, I think you can take advantage of many of the best things in LA via the Santa Monica bus system, which stops on campus. I did not have a car when I lived there. There would certainly be parts of the city that would not be accessible from UCLA’s campus without a car, though. </p>
<p>Furthermore, UCLA has a LOT of research opportunities in the biosciences (I did immunology work there). They also have a very well known computer science department, but I’m not sure how many cs professors have research interests in biology. </p>
<p>I don’t know as much about USC. It is also a well regarded school academically (especially in computer science), and they have a few very famous faculty members like Michael Waterman. The one down-side that I am aware of is that the main campus is in an undesirable neighborhood that is primarily known for its high crime rate. However, the USC campus itself is pleasant.</p>
<p>Either way you decide, you will be picking a great place. Congrats!</p>