Hello All,
Out of University of Washington-Seattle, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Purdue, NYU and UC Davis what which school would you choose for Data Science and why?
Thanks!
You’ve left too many variable out for anyone to give you meaningful advice. What are the cost differences? How adverse are you to cold weather? How will you travel to and from home? How important is city life to you? How much do you hate traffic? Do you care about big time athletics? Maybe most importantly, where do you want to live when you get out?
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Good point, independent of cost, location and weather what school would people choose and why? So im more interested in the quality of the program, ability to land jobs with employers, difficulty of getting into the program if it’s not direct admit.
thanks
At which schools do you have direct admit to the major? At which of the non-direct admit schools is the data science major impacted?
Many college career centers have internship and job outcomes data on their websites, so check those first. If they don’t have major specific data, contact the career center and ask for outcomes data for data science majors.
Where do you want to live? You can certainly land a job anywhere from any school, but most students end up working close to where they went to school because there are more regional business recruiting there.
I’m the Seattle area. For Tech jobs, the west coast is definitely strong for that. Does anyone have thoughts about the NYU Data Science program?
Do you have direct admit to the major you want at UW? Davis?
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Purdue and Davis are direct admit, but UWash, UW-Madison and NYU are not. However, UW-Madison and NYU Data Science programs are not capped, so its just a matter of getting the min grades and prerequisite courses before declaring the major. UWash on the other hand has a capped program that is very difficult and only 25% of 1st year applicants get into the Data Science program (AMCS). I’m just looking for any feedback from students who are looking at similar options and what they are deciding.
Guaranteed spots are always nice. That said, non-capped programs with very minimal GPAs are about the same. If you don’t hit the GPA, they’re probably putting you on academic probation no matter your major.
I know UW is probably your cheapest option, but with a 75% chance that you won’t get in, probably too risky.
If you want to be on the west coast ultimately, you’d have the most recruiting options at Davis.
If you pick Madison, Purdue or NYU, you will personally have to do much more of the job search legwork. It can be pretty frustrating.
Do you have a favorite?
Where are the programs housed? Business school, CS, Engineering? Data Science means different things to different people. Is the focus more on math, CS or business? Which area appeals to you more?
Direct admission would be at top of list. Of the schools you listed none stand out more than the other. Purdue, UW and NYU are excellent. Go with fit if cost isn’t a concern.
In terms of pure Data Science ranking, UWash has the highest ranking at #5, UW-Madison at #14 and NYU at #16. However, NYU does have a CS and Data Science double major option that also makes it appealing. It is true that there is higher risk with a capped program at UWash and I’ve heard many students there complain about not being able to get into the majors of their choice and having to transfer out.
First, rankings based on what methodology? Second, who cares what the ranking is if you can’t get in?
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The rankings are from the 2022 USNews ranking for Undergraduate Data Science programs
That’s not the methodology. How did they rank them and do the things they care about matter to you.
Personally, I pay very little attention to USNWR.
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That is why I’m actually looking for feedback from Data science students in the schools I’m interested in.
You likely won’t find students from these specific programs here. Are you visiting these schools? If so ask admissions to connect with you a data science student, or ask to do this virtually if not visiting. Also, if your HS regularly sends students to these schools, ask your HS GC if they know data science majors at any. Good luck.
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The Data Science major at UC Davis is new for Fall 2022 so you will find no student feedback about the program.
Agreed. Data Science is an interdisciplinary field. As a stand alone major, it’s relatively new everywhere, really too new for rankings, even good ones to have any meaning. Not knowing the methodology of USNWR for this major, it could be completely useless. For example, in engineering, the methodology is based 100% on institutional reputation. That’s hard enough for engineering, an old field. It’s impossible for an emerging field.
As I said, it’s an interdisciplinary field. As such, each program is going to probably take a little different angle. Some will be more math heavy. Some more CS. Some more business. Have you pulled the curricula from each school to see which ones align best with your interests?
From outside, my concern is that you want to work in the west, but WA has a 3/4 chance you won’t get in AFTER you’ve already spent a year.
You don’t seem enthused about Davis, maybe because it’s new and not showing up in the USNWR ranks. I wouldn’t worry about that.
Are there any others you haven’t mentioned?
NOTE: I figured out USNWR ranking for data science. There isn’t one per se. You rank all schools an then filter the using two majors, CS and Data Analytics/Science. It’s essentially just made up out of whole cloth. It would be like taking Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and CS separately (assuming they meant anything in the first place) and using the filters collectively to say who had the best robotics program.
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We haven’t looked into U-dub, but we looked hard into Purdue, and I know NYU quite well.
Purdue DS is a VERY good program, curriculum is well balanced if even CS-heavy (which we liked).
NYU is historically awesome in Math and very decent in CS. As DS is a combination of Stats/Math/CS that bodes well for NYU. The biggest distinguishing factor of NYU would be its location - NYC has the lion share of finance and fintech companies (often within walking distance of the campus), and the Techs are well represented in Manhattan as well.
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That’s kind of like asking “what’s the healthiest way to eat a 6 pound bag of Cheetos?” Cost is your primary factor. I do data for a living. You don’t need a degree in it. You just need to be proficient in SQL. You’ll be doing a LOT of programming in that language. Learn it…love it. Most CS or IT degrees have more than sufficient classes to get a good foundational knowledge of data, but it’s almost entirely learning on the job. It’s NOT worth spending $100,000 in debt for an out of state data science degree.
If you’re going for tech, go for the least expensive school that gives you the least amount of debt. Despite the “big bucks” stories, IT professionals start out making a modest salary. It takes a good few years of experience for life to get more comfortable. The BMW happens long after your student loans are paid off, and some people trade that off for job security and stable retirement.
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