Need a second opinion for selecting university for Master's in CE
Hello all!
I'm stuck in quite a dilemma and I need opinion from people who are either studying or working in the chip design industry in US. I have admits from NCSU and TAMU for MS in Computer Engineering for fall 2026 and I have gone through their courses and curriculum but each passing day I'm getting more confused. For starters, my primary aim is to bag a DV / comp arch / digital VLSI job role in the chip design industry. I'm also open to pursuing research and a PhD if the field interests me during my studies.
Points where I'm having conflicting thoughts-
Does TAMU serve as a pipeline into the Austin and Texas semiconductor industry? Or will companies not discriminate based on location? I see that Raleigh has more EDA and computer networks concentration.
TAMU and NCSU both have dedicated comp arch, verification and gpu arch courses. So I wanted to know if anyone of them is more industry aligned and has a more rigourous coursework and practical projects.
Also, I'm well aware of the difficult job situation and my long term goal is to return to my country. I acknowledge that the job hunting scenario has become quite tedious for an int'l student and am ready to put the efforts needed. Funding isn't an issue too so even though NCSU is more costly, if its better then I dont have any problem choosing it.
A little bit of my background -:
I have 2 YOE at a leading German semiconductor MNC as a verification engineer for software architecture of automotive mircrocontrollers. I quickly found out that embedded sys isn't for me and hence i want to switch domains. I completed my UG in Electronics and Communication Engineering