Studying Master of IT at UniMelb or UNSW

Hey there,

I'm finishing up undergrad cs at unimelb, so just offering my two cents on no. 1 and sort of no. 4!

CS at unimelb is IMO a mixed bag. Fields like AI (esp NLP), ML, declarative languages and quantum computing seem to be really at the cutting edge here and this is reflected in the quality of coursework for these subjects. On the other hand, there is no course for discrete maths for computer science which is a real problem; algorithms subjects are kind of shafted by the department's reluctance to whiteboarding/blackboarding maths. Additionally, the offering of OS subjects is very sparse. I've worked with a few CS students at UNSW and they certainly seemed to be in their element with systems and network programming while I was floundering. Self-learning can make up for this, however - I think whether or not it's enough is up to you.

Industry connections are really good. All major tech companies, tech consulting firms and trading firms hire here because they know the quality of students at the top end here is really high. I can't imagine any employer turning you down purely because you went to unimelb.

Overall you could probably get a more cohesive and generalist CS education at UNSW, ANU, USyd. That said, the reputation is solid and the student clubs are great. The scholarship would be a major boon too!

/r/unimelb Thread