Graduate Studies at Carleton

[MrProsser]

Hi,
I was recently accepted into the masters program at Carleton but before I accept the offer I was hoping to hear more opinions about the computing science deptartment. I am not very familar with the university. I am not from Ottawa or Ontario and do not know anyone who had gone to the university in the past but I applied because I found a number of people who work there very interesting and overall they seemed to be productive researchers with a decent sized group including a good number of postdocs and graduate students. I should say my main interest is broadly in the Theory of Computating group at the university.

However a friend of mine mentioned that a CS professor they know said it was a bad university so I was wondering what others think of it. To me his broad assessment seems difficult to evaluate as graduate school seems to depend more on the research group you are involved with and therefore any discussion would have to be more detailed as some research areas may be weak and others quite strong.

Anyway, if anyone has an opinion I would be interested in hearing it.

[bishnu]

You're quite right. Carleton is very strong in some areas, weak in others.

They have a very good and well-regarded Theory & Geometry group, as well as an exceptional Network Security lab.

There's a good bioinformatics lab (if a bit small), and Frank Dehne is one of the pioneers in the field of parallel computing. So, if any of those areas interest you, by all means go to Carleton.

Beyond this, several profs at Carleton have strong links to higher-profile schools, so if you're planning on completing a PhD, it's a good place to jump off from.

The downside to Carleton is that the harsh weather in Ottawa makes it a bit of a commuter campus.[/url]