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According to this report on research universities, Pitt is in pretty elite company (and ranks higher overall than CMU, by the way): http://mup.asu.edu/research2007.pdf
Ha! Its sorta funny to refer to philosophy as "career".
People get PhDs in Philosophy, become Philosophy professors, and work until they retire. I think it is safe to call that a "career", and that was more or less my plan when I started grad school.
For example if you have a Ph.d in Philosophy from Harvard it is going to look better than Pitt to many when you are applying for jobs (outside of philosophy), despite the fact that the department at Pitt is ranked higher.
Actually, if you are applying for jobs unrelated to Philosophy, few people will truly care that you have a PhD in Philosophy at all. Which is one of the reasons one really shouldn't go through the effort to get a PhD in Philosophy unless one wants to be a professor (either in Philosophy, or a related academic field).
I never said the school was horrid, I said its not highly ranked and as you just showed its not. Ranking 59th is exactly good. Its rankings for what the OP wants to study are even worse than the general rankings (60-ish I believe).
But the poster didn't give a lot of information, I was merely indicating that if he isn't in the area he may be better off looking for a more highly ranked university to transfer to. This is also not to mention that Pitt is a bit expensive. But he may have to stay in the region for whatever reason, in which case he can make the best of matters by taking some classes over at CMU.
59th out of the thousands of schools in the country isn't that great? I'm sorry, I guess we can't all go to Harvard. I think being ranked in the top 500 schools in the country is still pretty good.
Anyway, getting to the OP's question, I am currently a student at Pitt and live in the general radius of the campus. I would recommend taking a look at Bloomfield, Friendship, parts of South and North Oakland, Point Breeze (though not North Point Breeze), some areas of Lawrenceville (though many of the homes there are fixer-uppers, they are worth the investment if you can make it), Polish Hill... those places are all pretty safe, relatively inexpensive, and nice.
Ha! Its sorta funny to refer to philosophy as "career".
Actually, several careers are open to a person who takes philosophy... Law, Teaching, pretty much anything that has to do with information and intelligence management....
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But Pitt is a rather average university, particularly for what the OP wants to study.
It's amazing how very few people allow the facts to seriously affect their opinions.
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The OP can get a decent education at Pitt, but if they are going to be moving anyways you may as well look into better schools. Personally I've always thought of the schools in the top 50 or so as "good", top 20~25ish as "Excellent" and the schools in the 50~100 range as "average" and so on.
And is making $150,000/year excellent, good or average in your opinion? It might be an interesting case study to talk to a person who seems to have such inflated standards.
As I said, sorry couldn't all get into Dartmouth, but when I got into Pitt, going from a undergrad school that was considered "pretty good," but couldn't rank nationally to a school that was ranked in the top 25% (top 10% for my graduate program) of schools that could rank nationally, I thought I had really achieved something. I guess not.
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Anyhow, the people at CMU like to refer to Pitt as the "Tower of Ignorance". I always thought that was a bit funny.
CMU is a great tech school, one of the best, but doesn't really excel in much else... economics, I think. When one considers the very wide range of things in which Pitt ranks in the top 70, again out of schools that can rank nationally, it seems that the rich kids and computer nerds at CMU might be wrong.
People get PhDs in Philosophy, become Philosophy professors, and work until they retire. I think it is safe to call that a "career"
Yes, I know. I just think its a funny cycle.
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And is making $150,000/year excellent, good or average in your opinion?
That would depend on your background now wouldn't it?
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I thought I had really achieved something. I guess not.
You should learn not to take offense to other people's views. I think Pitt is rather average, not only from the national rankings but from my experience of the school. If you went there and did well, good for you.
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it seems that the rich kids and computer nerds at CMU might be wrong.
Its more so a joke. But the fact that Pitt has more programs than rank "in the top 70" than CMU isn't all that telling considering CMU is less than half the size. Also, calling CMU a "tech school" isn't really accurate. Do they care much about English, Humanities and things of that nature? No. But that hardly implies they are a "tech" school. CMU simply isn't big enough to have good programs for everything.
The whole school is hooked on computing though, but that is a good think if you are interested in such things. Most of the departments have at least some people working on computing which makes it a rather rich environment, not just for "computer nerds" but people doing theoretical work in computing.
But this is a positive thing for Pitt, because as far as I remember Pitt students can take some classes at CMU. Often people don't do this though, because the standards at CMU are much higher than Pitt and the students get killed. But if you are motivated its a great way to improve your education without paying any extra dough.
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Actually, several careers are open to a person who takes philosophy... Law, Teaching, pretty much anything that has to do with information and intelligence management....
Honestly unless you want to be in academia getting a degree in Philosophy is a bad idea. Pretty much any job you can get with a degree in philosophy you could've gotten without the degree. Regardless, the OP is interested in computer engineering.
because as far as I remember Pitt students can take some classes at CMU. Often people don't do this though, because the standards at CMU are much higher than Pitt and the students get killed. But if you are motivated its a great way to improve your education without paying any extra dough.
Sorry, but I have to laugh about this statement. Some semesters I teach a particular class at Pitt (a class with a large writing component), and a friend in my department was hired to teach the exact same class at CMU for a few semesters. One day were were talking and I was bemoaning the idiocy and ignorance of my students and their inability to construct complete sentences, much less broader arguments. I expressed to her my envy that she was getting paid to teach at CMU instead of Pitt, where certainly there must be a higher class of undergrads who actually knew how to think critically and write about it. She laughed and told me that they were just as bad, and in her opinion the only difference between the Pitt students and the CMU students she had taught over the years was that the CMU students tended to be of a higher socio-economic class and paid a lot more for their education.
I myself have taken graduate-level courses at CMU, and graduate-level courses at Pitt which had many CMU students in them. I also collaborate heavily with graduate students from a particular very highly ranked department at CMU. I didn't get "killed" in the classes I took at CMU. Actually, they just seemed like normal graduate-level courses to me. Neither were the CMU students who showed up at my Pitt courses obviously superior students to anyone else there, although in one case they very obviously thought they were (but IMO their in-class contributions and grades didn't reflect that bias). I keep up just fine with my CMU collaborators, and in fact I think I am a better technical writer than most of them, although I fully admit that they put me to shame as far as CS knowledge goes.
I have a CMU undergrad working for me this summer as a research assistant and honestly he's kind of a moron. I wish I could get rid of him but unfortunately I don't make the hiring decisions. The smartest, hardest-working RA I ever had was of all things a Pitt sorority girl.
There's a graduate student in my program who was an undergrad at CMU in their computer science department. She is a good student, but not one of the department "stars". In fact, I think I shine more brightly than she does, and I got my undergraduate degree at a very small state school that catered to working adults.
Anyway, I know that CMU has a more "academic" reputation than Pitt, and I'm sure the average SAT score of their entering freshman classes is higher than Pitt's and all that. But I wouldn't assume that this translates to a huge difference in terms of actual ability once students actually get to campus. It's certainly not enough of a gap that Pitt students get "killed" in CMU classes. The brutal truth is that outside of the Ivy League (and maybe even there), most entering undergrads these days are dreadful students and not accustomed to functioning in an academic environment. I wouldn't assume that any average CMU student is any less ignorant and lazy than any average Pitt student, or that the professors at CMU are able to impose much higher standards on their lazy, ignorant students than are the professors at Pitt.
In fact, I think I shine more brightly than she does, and I got my undergraduate degree at a very small state school that catered to working adults.
Good for you, I always hate when people make these sorts of comments though. You have no idea what goes on in other peoples heads.
Anyhow, I have no idea what field you're working in but it does not sound like its engineering, computer science or any related field. Saying that English majors at CMU aren't any better than those at Pitt after all isn't very interesting. Anyhow, my comment was directly related to CS, engineering etc as this is what the OP is interested in. When Pitt CS, computer engineering etc students take courses at CMU they usually get killed, because the courses at CMU are far more rigorous. This shouldn't be surprising considering CMU has one of the highest ranked CS departments in the country.
But as I stated if one is motivated one can take some courses at CMU and get a great education without 1.) being accepted into the program, 2.) Paying the extra tuition. This is a pretty sweet deal.
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or that the professors at CMU are able to impose much higher standards on their students than the professors at Pitt.
I think this is just rather silly. CMU is getting the best of the best in computer science, computer engineering, etc ...Pitt well...not even close. The undergrads in the computing related fields at CMU are extremely smart, if you are trying to judge their intelligence by their writing......I don't know what to tell you.
So, back to Pitt. Their computer engineering program is rather average and there are many other programs in the area that are far better.
So, back to Pitt. Their computer engineering program is rather average and there are many other programs in the area that are far better.
That's one program. I hear tell CMU is pretty good at drama too. In fact, CMU seems to excel at about all five things the Pitt doesn't really pay much attention to. To their credit, they built their school that way, as a means of not competing directly with Pitt, but understand that Pitt offers a much wider array of fields and is consistently good at almost all of them.
You think that was taking offense? No, that was mockery, because I know your standards are ridiculously high if you think being ranked in the top 60 doesn't make you good... especially when those rankings usually go:
#1 tie... University
University
University
#4 tie... University x5
#10 tie... University x 3
And so on. So although Pitt might be ranked number 59 chances are its a high 59 that it shares with 10 other schools, while there are actually only about 10 school "ties" above it.
Personally I've always thought of the schools in the top 50 or so as "good", top 20~25ish as "Excellent" and the schools in the 50~100 range as "average" and so on.
"Good" and "Excellent" are somewhat ill-defined terms, and therefore there is little point to arguing with someone's personal sense of "good" and "excellent". However, "average" is a term with a more precise meaning. And with 262 "national universities" in the rankings, to claim that the "average" range is those universities ranked from #50 to #100 is simply misusing the term.
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