In the EU there isn't much of a ranking of Universities. It's practically more of a good-uni-with-proper-acceditation vs. the rest. At the same time, almost no company really cares what school you went to or what it was called.

The only real choice or 'best' is the surrounding ecosystem. Going to a university that has no internet connection will still get you the same information and skills but for most people having no internet isn't all that fun. Same goes for studying somewhere very cold when you like warm days, or somewhere warm when you like it cold.

If you want something 'extra' (which again, no company cares about) like prestige, you can make a list of all the places that have your preference to be (climate, language etc.) and then check what 'extra' things they have, like solar cars or public-private AI partnerships, or military applications or space/esa connections. It won't do you much good if that extra experience has nothing to do with what your goals are, and you can gain that experience without a university just fine.

Perhaps some context in the origins of your thinking/culture would be best. Most people assume USA mindset when this type of question gets asked.

Thanks for the answer

The idea was to get a list of interesting places to choose from, apply to a bunch of them and try to have as much information as possible for choosing the final one

Another interesting question would be which culture would be the best fit for me, I hadn't thought of that, thanks

If you know what kind of topics you find most interesting, you should put that on your list of preferences (combined with culture, location etc). If you have a weird mix like Biomedical Computing, Program Correctness, Computer Vision and you really like SAT solvers, finding out where the hotspots for those topics are can help you select a uni. I know of a few people that selected based on professors that would be available to them, and some that were purely interested in getting into any of the FAANG, that does limit your options and as a result should make your list much shorter.

First of all, tone down the aggression. People are constantly harping on about how much better HN is than everywhere else on the internet. Your reply lends the lie to that complete fiction. Take a moment to reflect on your own communication style before dismissing others' comments "pure garbage".

Second, I agree with the post you're replying to.

Regarding accreditation, the point is that it effectively makes no difference whether QS or THE ranks your university as No. 6 or No. 106. They're both pretty good. But everyone knows that there's variation in the quality of graduate of any given university, and they take that into account.

It will make a difference, however, if the university is ranked in the 600+ category. That institution would probably be grouped in with "the rest".

If you're looking for certain jobs in finance, law or academia, then the institution matters much more. Those areas are perhaps not quite as meritocratic as they should be.

However, if you're applying for a graduate tech job in the EU, it really, really doesn't matter that much if you got a 1.1 from Cambridge or a 1.1 from Dublin City University. Both will probably get you an interview, depending on what else is on your CV. And at that point it's a level playing field - the interviewers won't be dazzled by the name of your college, they'll just grill you to make sure you know what you need to know and can learn fast enough to be useful in the company.

I suppose you misinterpret, but that is up to you. I'm not saying nobody is making lists, I'm saying the lists don't matter. Unless you are in some sort of alternate reality where you have to compete for work, the specific university you went to has no weight to it. You can probably find some sort of multinational or a FAANG job where they do try to rank applicants based on the name of the university but that is more an exception than a rule here in western Europe.

The last four large companies I worked at or contracted for didn't even look at what university I went to 15 years ago, or how certified I am. The past 5 or 6 years were relevant, and that's about it.

Perhaps if you are inexperienced or all you have is your years at a University it might matter at your first entry-level job. Or if you want to purely work in academia. But that is not what most of the MS or BS work revolves around and it is not where people are needed the most.

I completely agree with you.

Unfortunately, it seems like the parent poster never had colleagues from top universities. There is a reason that google is in Zurich, Munich, etc... and not next to random universities.

In general (exceptions always exist) there is much more potential in people who have finished 'good' universities. They are finishers. They dont give up and do whats needed to reach their goal.

Out of all the students I graduated with only 1 or 2 (one of them ended up quitting during the grace period so it depends on how you want to count that) ended up with jobs that they only got because of our university, and none of my current colleagues were selected based on where they got their MS or BS. Two of the ex-Googlers we have here were selected by Google for their MS, but then again, rather the exception (only a small number of jobs use ranking) than the rule.

We select on merit, drive and competence applied recently. And where you got your MS or BS or if you have one at all weighs proportionally to the rest (and in the past 2 years we haven't even had anyone join any of the teams where it even mattered if they had one at all because their were selected on the rest).

1. ETH Zurich 2. EPFL 3. Cambridge 4. Oxford 5. Imperial College London 6. TU Munich 7. TU Delft 8. KTH Sweden

PS: I have a MS CS from one of the above.

Me too. I think rankings aren't that important in Europe and people tend to get jobs based on other things here.

tl;dr For a MSc try to choose a department with strong faculty in your area of interest.

I've been both at Cambridge and Oxford. I think Oxford has had a much better CS department for a number of years. A lot of Cambridge faculty was hired by Microsoft Research long ago and they never recovered. Google Brain has also drained a lot of their talent lately, mostly from the Engineering Department.

Oxford has tons of famous people now: Luca Cardelli, Marta Kwiatkowska (formal methods), Yee Whye Teh (Bayesian non parametrics), Dan Olteanu (database systems) and others.

As for mainland Europe, I agree ETH and EPFL are probably among the top. I would also consider French CS, which is super good. Any French department associated with an INRIA in the topic you are interested in might be a great choice. In particular, ENS Paris might rival with ETH or EPFL in terms of quality.

Lots of smaller Scandinavian, German and Belgian / Dutch unies might be a great choice too. E.g. UCL Louvain, DTU, etc. It really depends on what you wanna do.

How can I know if there is a "strong faculty in my area of interest"?

H-index on google scholar?

University Rankings are like the Body Mass Index of figuring out how good a university is - not entirely useless, but not to be used as anything more than a very rough gauge of what's going on.

That said, QS break down their (global) rankings by subject. Below is the link for computer science.

https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/universi...

There's no easy way of telling how much better the nth-ranked university really is compared to the (n+m)th-ranked one, but it could be informative nonetheless.

That's a decent starting point, especially in CS.

If you wanna disclose your area of interest I may be able to point you to some departments. Contact information is in my profile, if you prefer email.

> Which do you think are the best universities in Europe, for a MS in the various fields of Computer Science?

I can only name the best two that are worthy of this for a Masters degree in Computer Science or similar.

Even 10 years later, it is still both Imperial College and Cambridge University in that order.

In Greece the most famous one is CEID. Has produced quite a few strong engineers. No tuitions for Europeans, but classes are in Greek and the entry exam is a bit hard.

That said, I’ve worked with strong engineers that came from unknown universities. Loving what you do can get you far.

I heard great things about both, Copenhagen and Saarbrücken

If in Denmark, then not Copenhagen for CS. Aarhus Uni instead. Much better research groups on Crypto, Algos, Prog languages, and Human-Computer Interaction

Thank you! What about Aalborg, mentioned by another commenter?

My uni in Slovakia, Zilina.

just kidding, Aalborg.

Interesting that two of the four commenters mentioned Denmark

Why Aalborg over Copenhagen?

While I know I discovered this thread late, I hope it's not too late to reply :)

Being a Dane it mostly seems to me that people defend their university a lot and it often correlates with where you grew up/went. So people saying Aalborg is the best probably grew up near Aalborg or went to study there. This is of course very anecdotal but when I studied CS in a CPH university nobody ever spoke of Aalborg. People spoke about KU, ITU and DTU. Sometimes Aarhus was mentioned.

Not saying Aalborg isn't great, but my general observation is people defend their university choice like it's holy. Probably the same in other countries :) so my suggestion would always be go where things are "closest to home". If you're a foreigner, pick the one closest to the airport for convience.

One example is from outside Denmark is another commenter in this thread mentioned the royal Stockholm uni, but forgot to mention Lund University (LTH) which is just as prestigious.

In the end I never noticed anyone caring except in jest. Never met anyone who cared professionally.

Thanks for the answer! It's never too late ;)

I agree that everybody (especially professors) think their university is The Best™, for many reasons (probably if they didn't like it they would have gone to another place)

The idea of this thread was mostly to collect a (hopefully big) set of candidates to choose from, and choose between them based on available programs and general quality of life indicators (and average salary in the area...)

University of Warsaw

Why do you think Warsaw is a top university? It's the first time I hear about it

It has a very strong math/cs department. (MIMUW https://www.mimuw.edu.pl/en).

I've been doing my master's degree there. Although I've never finished the final paper, I consider it to be one of the best decision / time well spent.

Great staff. Professors are just awesome (some of them are also lecturing at abroad universities). Students as well. You will find the brightest polish minds there (the entry exam is not that easy, and big part of the students are math Olympiad finalists).

Courses:

1. Logic - Poland has produced some of top logicians, you can see the inheritance during the lessons. Loved it.

2. Compilers - you will be able to compile in head and on paper. JVM/LLVM/Assembly, you will learn how to write parsers, compilers etc.

3. Cryptography - there are a lot of crypto enthusiasts in the department, you will learn anything you need.

4. Parallel computing - access to super computers, programming Nvidia, verification.

5. Seminars aka what you want to focus on, there's a long list from which you can pick from. My main focus was on game theory, and I've learned a ton and had a great support from professors.

Perks: FAAMGS companies line up couple times a year recruiting for internships and work (always seducing with free pizza). Some of the students I know spent every summer in Bay Area, and would accumulate enough money to live in Warsaw for the next academic year.

I once met a couple of engineers who graduated from there. They were incredible.

University of Edinburgh

ETH Zurich

TU Munich

EPFL

Cambridge/Oxford are very overrated imho. I have a masters from one of them.