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Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

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Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#41

Post by SJC_Hacker »

cozzyd wrote: post #16

Both schools have excellent reputations, so the PI is going to be the most important thing (and, perhaps, variety of PI's if you're not sure you want to stick with a specific one). After that you would consider things like course requirements, likelihood of having to TA, etc. And if you want to live in a city, Berkeley is much easier (yes, it's possible to commute to Stanford from SF, but it's a slog).

The only people crazy enough to try to commute from SF to Stanford area (Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Sunnyvale, etc.) are hipsters who work in tech, or people who have spouses who work downtown. The rent is substantially higher.

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#42

Post by antognini »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #40
antognini wrote: post #33

At least in astrophysics Berkeley had a reputation for grad students taking a very long time to finish. At most schools grad students would get a PhD within 5--6 years. At Berkeley it was regularly taking students 10+ years to finish, which is pretty unheard of at most other institutions. My knowledge is about a decade out of date now, though, so things could have improved. I'm also not sure if that was also happenin…

Are you counting the MS portion, or only the portion after masters is awarded?

This is including both MS and PhD.

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#43

Post by throwawayhnxxx1 »

xadhominemx wrote: post #14

Both programs are very good, the specific PI is going to be much much more important than any generic advice you glean from this thread. Separately, the environs are very different. Stanford is pristine, quiet, safe, boring, isolated, VC-oriented. Berkeley is urban, gritty, dense, exciting, outgoing, academic. For most people it doesn’t really matter but if it does for you this could be important.

>Both programs are very good, the specific PI is going to be much much more important than any generic advice you glean from this thread.

I completely agree with this- your advisor will be the most influential factor of your phd years, for better or worse.

Also, some programs have a reputation of enrolling a lot more students than there is actually room for, with purposeful high attrition during the first couple of years. I am not sure if Stanford or Cal have this reputation or not, but might be something to look into.

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#44

Post by throwaway2037 »

xadhominemx wrote: post #14

Both programs are very good, the specific PI is going to be much much more important than any generic advice you glean from this thread. Separately, the environs are very different. Stanford is pristine, quiet, safe, boring, isolated, VC-oriented. Berkeley is urban, gritty, dense, exciting, outgoing, academic. For most people it doesn’t really matter but if it does for you this could be important.

This is a brilliant post. One of the best that I have read in months.

Real question: How do you know? Example: Did you partner get a PhD in Physics at Stanford and you at UCB? Or, did you get masters at Stanford, but PhD at UCB?

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#45

Post by GlibMonkeyDeath »

Another Ph.D. physicist here (Ivy, not Stanford/Berkeley)

As others have pointed out, your prospective advisor(s) are the most important thing to consider. You can't go wrong with either school.

That said, when choosing an advisor:

* Pay attention to where the advisor's former students ended up. The former students are a natural "network" for you when you graduate. If you can, ask relatively recent grads about their experience.

* Meet the prospective advisor's current students and post-docs - are they happy? Will you fit in with them? Do they graduate in a reasonable amount of time? Ask other grad students about the professor as well. Trust me, each professor is going to have a reputation.

* If you want to stay in academia, mid-career advisors are the "safest" - an assistant prof may be working on something exciting, but the research will probably be more risky, and the professor might even have to leave mid-way through your thesis work if they don't get tenure. A late-career advisor may presently sit on a lot of committees and be more well-known, but by the time you need their recommendation for jobs/tenure they may have considerably less influence (that happened to me, although it was fine in the end.)

Read Feibelman's "A PhD is not enough" - still lots of good advice even though written 30+ years ago.

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#46

Post by guywithahat »

jedberg wrote: post #30
guywithahat wrote: post #23

Both great schools. As others have mentioned, your PI is going to matter a ton, there are really bad PI's who will deliberately keep you a few extra years, and there are good ones who will let help you and progress your career. It's sort of a gamble as to which is which unless you know them personally. One other consideration though is that Berkeley is the safety school for people who don't get into Stanford. If all…

> Berkeley is the safety school for people who don't get into Stanford. This is true for some undergrads, although there were plenty of people who got into both and chose Berkeley. But it's definitely not true at the Graduate level. It just depends on the program. Some programs at Cal are better than at Stanford, and vice versa. But in make cases the two schools collaborate quite a bit. It's not unheard of for someon…

I think as you move further from the specific work your lab did, school brand name matters more and more. Berkeley is a public school, and it’s going to be more closely associated with other top public schools like UW-Madison, while Stanford will be associated more closely with private schools like MIT.

I think people in the Bay Area forget this, but as you move further from the bay Berkeley is regarded more and more like another public school. I’m not saying it’s fair, but it is just another public school, where Stanford is a globally recognized school.

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#47

Post by guywithahat »

cozzyd wrote: post #16

Both schools have excellent reputations, so the PI is going to be the most important thing (and, perhaps, variety of PI's if you're not sure you want to stick with a specific one). After that you would consider things like course requirements, likelihood of having to TA, etc. And if you want to live in a city, Berkeley is much easier (yes, it's possible to commute to Stanford from SF, but it's a slog).

Both schools have a great reputation, however Stanford is clearly superior. Berkeley is, at the end of the day, a public school, and so it’s lumped together with other top public schools like UT Austin or U Mich. Stanford, on the other hand, is a globally recognized private university and more often compared to MIT

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#48

Post by BeetleB »

guywithahat wrote: post #46
jedberg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Berkeley is the safety school for people who don't get into Stanford. This is true for some undergrads, although there were plenty of people who got into both and chose Berkeley. But it's definitely not true at the Graduate level. It just depends on the program. Some programs at Cal are better than at Stanford, and vice versa. But in make cases the two schools collaborate quite a bit. It's not unheard of for someon…

I think as you move further from the specific work your lab did, school brand name matters more and more. Berkeley is a public school, and it’s going to be more closely associated with other top public schools like UW-Madison, while Stanford will be associated more closely with private schools like MIT. I think people in the Bay Area forget this, but as you move further from the bay Berkeley is regarded more and more…

> I think people in the Bay Area forget this, but as you move further from the bay Berkeley is regarded more and more like another public school.

As someone who lives far from the Bay Area: This is ridiculously wrong - especially when applied to PhD.

It all depends on the discipline you're in. And when it comes to engineering, most of these top public schools outrank most of the Ivy's. Almost no one cares if you got your EE PhD from Princeton or Yale. They definitely will care if you got it from Berkeley. Or Ann Arbor. Or Illinois, And so on.

Reminds me of a coworker who went to Princeton for his Mechanical Engineering PhD who deeply regretted it. He was coming from abroad, and naturally assumed an Ivy would be better. He really wishes he had gone to one of the Midwest public schools instead. He hadn't heard of any of them before coming to the US (and clearly hadn't bothered doing his research before applying).

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#49

Post by brcmthrowaway »

GlibMonkeyDeath wrote: post #45

Another Ph.D. physicist here (Ivy, not Stanford/Berkeley) As others have pointed out, your prospective advisor(s) are the most important thing to consider. You can't go wrong with either school. That said, when choosing an advisor: * Pay attention to where the advisor's former students ended up. The former students are a natural "network" for you when you graduate. If you can, ask relatively recent grads about their…

what job did you end up doing
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