PhD at Columbia University
Apr. 26th, 2010 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guslFor those who haven't heard yet, I have accepted an offer to do a PhD in Statistics at Columbia University. The offer came as a great surprise, very late in the process. I visited them last week, and I'm very excited to be spending the next 3-5 years there.
On Saturday, I saw a series of student talks, and got a pretty positive impression overall. During the week, I met with several faculty, many of whom seem to be doing interesting work that I identify with. I also met with interesting faculty in departments outside of Stats, and became aware of more machine learning folks in NYC (NYU, Yahoo, Google).
In the first year, I am expected to take 3 course sequences and to pass two quals; on top of TAing; which may be quite heavy, considering that I want to be involved in research, go to talks, and have a life outside of work.
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I would like to thank the various people who have helped me: my tireless recommenders over the years, those who gave advice and feedback on my Statement of Purpose, and the ILLC and Onderwijsbureau at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, who don't get any money from me when sending transcripts.
P.S. I would NOT like to thank the ETS, who have cost me an arm and a leg for reporting my GRE scores, which nobody cares about.
On Saturday, I saw a series of student talks, and got a pretty positive impression overall. During the week, I met with several faculty, many of whom seem to be doing interesting work that I identify with. I also met with interesting faculty in departments outside of Stats, and became aware of more machine learning folks in NYC (NYU, Yahoo, Google).
In the first year, I am expected to take 3 course sequences and to pass two quals; on top of TAing; which may be quite heavy, considering that I want to be involved in research, go to talks, and have a life outside of work.
---
I would like to thank the various people who have helped me: my tireless recommenders over the years, those who gave advice and feedback on my Statement of Purpose, and the ILLC and Onderwijsbureau at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, who don't get any money from me when sending transcripts.
P.S. I would NOT like to thank the ETS, who have cost me an arm and a leg for reporting my GRE scores, which nobody cares about.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-26 12:26 am (UTC)Best wishes to you, Gustavo!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-26 04:50 am (UTC)Not that I mean to slight the Madison Area Technical College or Ithaca College---both are fine schools.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-26 04:18 pm (UTC)Yeah, population density definitely helps! The best solution might be to live in a community with enough people that I like. (International House?)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-26 02:22 am (UTC)Columbia has a great Statistics department.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-26 03:53 am (UTC)I'm tempted to look at published rankings, but that doesn't seem to be very meaningful... graduate placement in good faculty jobs is probably the most important thing. (I have a good idea of what the Top 50 schools are, but Top 10 is less clear)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-26 02:30 am (UTC)Columbia, hot!