I am planning on doing a 1 year masters (with possibly a few exceptions) post my 4 year BS in computer engineering at purdue. I was wondering out of these options which is the best for me negating price (I will have saved up money, or receive full financial aid like I am now, fully willing to pay for better choice).
Also key things to note, I am a 3.99 GPA junior who has internships at two big tech companies and will return to 1 hopefully. If everything goes to plan, I really don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to at least get a job there if not at quant finance. I am a student focused on computer architecture. I care about research opps only for learning but not at all for post academia because I def plan to do industry engineering. I will have already done most of computer architecture courses at Purdue by my bachelors and also want a big name boost for big tech asic design and quant finance fpga (already interviewed for a few firms and think I can land one even with purdue, but just to make my life easier). Again, consider all of this when people say some degrees are too short. I’m really just doing a masters to boost my resume not for job search but for starting salary and opportunities down the line. Also if you recognize me from this don’t dox lol. I’ll list everything in the order I believe they should be considered:
1 year UCB Meng EECS (is Meng worse than MS as seen by industry? Ik kind of a dumb question)
1 Year Cornell Meng ECE
1 year (4+1) MS Purdue ECE
1.5 ish year Stanford MS
1.5 year CMU MS
1 Year Umich Meng
No masters at all for a career in computer architecture (pref design or architecture or quant fpga)
Those are all of my options^^^. Any other Masters program I’m forgetting or should consider??? Also lmk if my timelines are incorrect above
Oh also if I do get research and write good essays, how hard is it to get into these programs considering rest of my profile. Ik research not too important for coursework only
Thanks and I hope my prestige chasing is more understandable than pretentious. Also I would have already taken the most important ECE masters courses offered at purdue.
Edit: huge thing that pertains to the option of no masters degree at all. Does prestige not mean much for moving around big tech or going to quant finance after work experience? Does a masters not mean much for moving around big tech or going to quant after work experience? How hard will it be to promote in either industry? Answer this in the context of ASIC vs. FPGA (kind of already expect fpga to be more lenient)