Which is better for a Ph.D in machine learning, ISI Kolkata or IISc Bangalore?
Posted On - Sep 17, 2021When choosing between a computer science or statistics perspective for ML, it's important to consider your goals. Statisticians have high standards for theoretical guarantees and usually publish in journals. It may take 5-6 years after initial conception for a method to be accepted and used. On the other hand, computer science and ML move quickly with conferences as the primary venues. Methods and code quickly spread, and people start using them.
In general, computer science is considered a better choice for ML than statistics departments. If you're considering the ISI Machine Intelligence Unit, note that it's mostly made up of statisticians who research fuzzy logic and publish in stats or application-specific journals. Their papers don't usually appear in flagship ML venues like NIPS, ICML, or KDD.
When deciding between a CS or statistics Ph.D., also consider your employment options after graduation. The majority of people in top Indian labs like MSR, Google, and XRCI are CS PhDs, if not 100%. Statistics PhDs, on the other hand, typically work in actuarial firms or investment banks, which have different work objectives.
My sister did her INEA Summer Research Internship in Machine Intelligence unit from ISI Kolkata. Here’s what her first-hand experience says about the course and the institution.
- You will get the opportunity to learn among leading Researchers in the field of machine learning who are INAE, IAS, IEEE fellows. You also find people doing research in computational biology as well, which is a highly specialized field not everyone is familiar with!
- You will enjoy high-quality research while interacting with the Ph.D. students here and the environment is quite friendly.
- IISc remains the top research institute in India but according to one of my friends who is doing a Ph.D. from IISc, it is quite strenuous and it takes a lot of time and research to come up with an excellent thesis. He is stuck with his Ph.D. thesis just because his mentor is mostly unavailable due to his busy schedule. It can prove to be a big problem because most professors In IISc are busy with their international-level research and conferences most of the time. Also, they are hardly satisfied with the work you come up with. So, you might not get enough guidance as you expect to finish your Ph.D.
Both IISc and ISI Kolkata are premier institutes that are well recognized and well-funded. So you wouldn't have any problem in your career with either of these two institutes.
