What Might We Look For in a MS Program?

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These are notes on some of the things one might look for in a less-than-PhD graduate program.  Whether or not a PhD will ever be practical for me is still to-be-determined, but in the short run it doesnt feel as though it is with one or two exceptions still being evaluated.  Ask for details.

 

But there are other paths through the jungle and they can achieve some of the goals that we are trying to achieve, including but not limited to: upgrading my technical skills which are wildly out of date in some areas, too many areas, getting a so-called terminal degree which might be an MFA or an MS or an MPhil depending on the subject,work with interesting professors and other students, possibly get some cachet depending on the reputation of the institution and finally, with luck, the MS is structured to prepare people to do research which is value added.

I am awful at evaluating such things over the internet in spite of it being a bold new paradigm.  Economics tells us that information is expensive so I am interested in what my friends who may know more than I in these areas have to suggest.

 

Obviously, in the old days, I would have gone to the MIT Media Lab (aka Archmac) or MIT, Stanford, CMU.  I am not sure I could get into any of these today, things being how they are.  

The following have been mentioned by friends.  Bob Coyne and Larry Stead have pointed out that Columbia has an excellent Masters of some sort in Computational Biology.  Noah Wardrip-Fruin has pointed me to several Masters programs at UCSC.  He he also pointed out that UCSB has a Media Arts & Technology program I knew nothing about.  Magy is starting something up at UCSC and thinks I should be able to easily get into a Masters program.  Jacki Morie has recommended a very interesting PhD program done mostly remotely that is based in Ireland.  Cambridge University has a wonderful sounding MPhil in computer science (dream on, wahrman) and of course, CalArts has a famous animation program which results in a terminal degree.  Michael Kass has pointed out that Cornell has some sort of joing program going with Technion in Israel.

I see value in the program being in a different country.  An educational visa is one way to get around visa restrictions.  The United Kingdom, Montreal in Canada, Italy and Israel are all value added for a variety of reasons.  I have always wanted to attend the London School of Economics, I have no idea why.  The RAND Corp has a PhD program but I have no idea if I am qualified.

The default here is to do none of this but to (a) take some courses online and (b) work on my previously specified projects (and some that are not specified and some that I dont even know about yet) and then fall over dead like everybody else.

All of this of course is for a year from now, for the most part, because of the pandemic.

Thank you.