The Student Room Group

Funded Phd at poor uni or do a masters at a top uni

My final year project supervisor (I'm a final year undergrad) is offering me a fully funded Phd (with 15k pa stipend) to research machine learning in the genomic space which is super cool and interesting. He studied his Phd at Cambridge and is very strong in his field but the only downside it that I am at an ex-poly very low-rank university.

I have also been accepted at Manchester to do an Msc in AI which I think should lead to a funded phd thereafter and Manchester is one of the best uni's in the country for research in this area.

So , the question is, what the hell do I do?

I don't want to stay in academia after finishing a Phd so I need to know if a) employers will care if I have a Phd from x low rank uni rather than y high rank uni? b) if at a Phd level (people have said) its better that you get on with the supervisor and the uni prestige is meaningless at that level ?
Original post by chrisToPher198
My final year project supervisor (I'm a final year undergrad) is offering me a fully funded Phd (with 15k pa stipend) to research machine learning in the genomic space which is super cool and interesting. He studied his Phd at Cambridge and is very strong in his field but the only downside it that I am at an ex-poly very low-rank university.

I have also been accepted at Manchester to do an Msc in AI which I think should lead to a funded phd thereafter and Manchester is one of the best uni's in the country for research in this area.

So , the question is, what the hell do I do?

I don't want to stay in academia after finishing a Phd so I need to know if a) employers will care if I have a Phd from x low rank uni rather than y high rank uni? b) if at a Phd level (people have said) its better that you get on with the supervisor and the uni prestige is meaningless at that level ?


Tough call. I wouldn't worry about university prestige when it comes to CS/tech because it's about what you can do as much as anything else. So if you do a great PhD project and develop a lot of great skills and some industry contacts, that will help you out immensely. I did some ML myself for a masters project and you may have heard of Tomas Mikolov. He's a world leader in NLP.

What you may not know is he did his PhD in the University of Brno. I'm wiling to bet that might be the first time you've heard of that uni. The point is he did an amazing project (look up word2vec) and got some very lucrative jobs at Google and then Facebook as a result. I've been offered a PhD before (vulnerabilities in SDNs) and when considering it I looked at:

1) What was the project about, and where could I go after it?
2) Was there any industry links or internships?
3) What was my supervisor like?

I felt that there wasn't any value in the project in terms of finding a job as I already had a lot of industry experience and like you wasn't interested in academic careers. There were no industry links and the uni in question was very against establishing any (a very backwards approach IMO). My supervisor was good, but as I'd scratched off 2 out of the 3 of my criteria it was a moot point.

There are plenty of jobs in Data Science and ML at the moment. What would swing it for me if it came to where you are vs Manchester is what industry links they have. Check out that, as working with a company or getting internship chances will be immensely helpful.
Original post by jestersnow
Tough call. I wouldn't worry about university prestige when it comes to CS/tech because it's about what you can do as much as anything else. So if you do a great PhD project and develop a lot of great skills and some industry contacts, that will help you out immensely. I did some ML myself for a masters project and you may have heard of Tomas Mikolov. He's a world leader in NLP.

What you may not know is he did his PhD in the University of Brno. I'm wiling to bet that might be the first time you've heard of that uni. The point is he did an amazing project (look up word2vec) and got some very lucrative jobs at Google and then Facebook as a result. I've been offered a PhD before (vulnerabilities in SDNs) and when considering it I looked at:

1) What was the project about, and where could I go after it?
2) Was there any industry links or internships?
3) What was my supervisor like?

I felt that there wasn't any value in the project in terms of finding a job as I already had a lot of industry experience and like you wasn't interested in academic careers. There were no industry links and the uni in question was very against establishing any (a very backwards approach IMO). My supervisor was good, but as I'd scratched off 2 out of the 3 of my criteria it was a moot point.

There are plenty of jobs in Data Science and ML at the moment. What would swing it for me if it came to where you are vs Manchester is what industry links they have. Check out that, as working with a company or getting internship chances will be immensely helpful.


This is super helpful and a perspective I needed to hear, thank you!
Original post by jestersnow
Tough call. I wouldn't worry about university prestige when it comes to CS/tech because it's about what you can do as much as anything else. So if you do a great PhD project and develop a lot of great skills and some industry contacts, that will help you out immensely. I did some ML myself for a masters project and you may have heard of Tomas Mikolov. He's a world leader in NLP.

What you may not know is he did his PhD in the University of Brno. I'm wiling to bet that might be the first time you've heard of that uni. The point is he did an amazing project (look up word2vec) and got some very lucrative jobs at Google and then Facebook as a result. I've been offered a PhD before (vulnerabilities in SDNs) and when considering it I looked at:

1) What was the project about, and where could I go after it?
2) Was there any industry links or internships?
3) What was my supervisor like?

I felt that there wasn't any value in the project in terms of finding a job as I already had a lot of industry experience and like you wasn't interested in academic careers. There were no industry links and the uni in question was very against establishing any (a very backwards approach IMO). My supervisor was good, but as I'd scratched off 2 out of the 3 of my criteria it was a moot point.

There are plenty of jobs in Data Science and ML at the moment. What would swing it for me if it came to where you are vs Manchester is what industry links they have. Check out that, as working with a company or getting internship chances will be immensely helpful.


Very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to post.
Original post by chrisToPher198
He....is very strong in his field


This is the only relevant thing, from an academia perspective. As far as going into industry, it doesn't really matter where you get the PhD much because there are so few of them out there - plus, the actual work you do in the PhD is inevitably going to be of a similar level of intensity. The only difference is at a "higher ranked" university there may be more funding available for you to go to conferences, publish papers, get additional resources for your projects etc. As far as industry goes, that's all irrelevant, and isn't even really a deal breaker for staying in academia.

Also, you don't know what the potential supervisors will be like at Manchester (or elsewhere) - and PhDs really hinge on the candidate and their supervisor getting on. If you like your undergrad/prospective PhD supervisor, and they're offering you a funded PhD, AND they're well regarded in their field, I would strongly recommend you consider taking that. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush as far as funding goes, and for supervisors...better the devil you know.

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