There are many graduate programs in the U.S. offering PhDs in computer science. With such a degree it is easier to find gainful employment within the walls of academia or within a business environment. Choosing a top academic doctoral program generally means exposure to extensive computer science research and a significant source of funding for research and development.
The top Ph.D. programs for computer science in the U.S can change in ranking depending on what source is doing the calculating, but the following top five are generally agreed upon: Stanford, M.I.T, Carnegie Mellon, University of California Berkeley and Cornell. Prominent names like Princeton, Harvard, Brown, Yale, University of Maryland, University of Wisconsin, University of Texas at Austin and the California Institute of Technology can also be found ranked within the top 20 programs.
Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science (SCS) is consistently ranked, not only one of the best in the U.S., but in the entire world. The school offers seven academic units of study which are as follows: human-computer interaction, the institute for software research, computer science department, the Lane center for computational biology, language technologies, machine learning and its robotics institute.
Stanford also adds to its overall distinguished reputation with an outstanding SCS program recognized the world over and annually ranks among the elite in areas such as artificial intelligence, programming language and systems and theory. It’s no surprise that such a prestigious program claims former students like Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as alumni.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology combined its electrical engineering department with its newly created computer science department in 1975. Known as EECS, their doctoral program is another world renowned institute of higher education offering a wide range of research topics including theoretical computer science, robotics, computer systems and architecture, graphics, machine learning, large scale systems analysis, power and energy, numerical computing and nanotechnology are just some of the research areas a Ph.D. candidate has available to them.
The Cornell Ph.D. program in computer science is another top program consistently ranking among the top five in the country. The school distinguishes itself with a long tradition of pioneering research and its overall large-scale scope of its Ph.D. program. Over the past ten years they’ve specialized in areas such as artificial intelligence, digital libraries and computer graphics, while also maintaining top-flight study in areas of theory, scientific computing and programming. The program accepts about 25 new Ph.D. students each year.
Another outstanding academic program in computer science can be found at UC Berkeley. The Ph.D. program offers top research study in the fields of artificial intelligence, graphics, computer architecture & engineering, human-computer interaction, integrated circuitry, programming systems and scientific computing just to name a few. The school boasts prominent former students like Steve Wozniak, who along with co-founder Steve Jobs, founded Apple Computer.