My overall experience at USF has been fantastic, I am pretty confident that this University will help me achieve my career goal, help me refine myself and help me explore the cosmos of the CS community.
Course Curriculum :
The major plus point of the university is the industry exposure they give in addition to the academics which is very concise and offers a lot of courses/electives in sync with the current industry standard, for example several AI/ML and security courses and electives were added to the curriculum to reflect the recent trend/boom of AI in the CS community and prepare for the job/research opportunities after graduation.
Exams :
GRE 151 Verbal 154 Quant 3 Writing; IELTS 7.5. Research Papers, Projects and Internships are key things to be considered when applying as the GRE scores are not that much of a factor taken into account here.
Placement :
With respect to placements the university hosts a lot of career fairs year round, also the Student Career Services department help the students to ends from helping them build a resume to helping them initiate contact with a employer, they host a lot informative sessions which are mostly one-to-one in the form of an informal interview to an grilling interview with industry experts.
Fees :
15000 $ per year -> Tuition.
Faculty :
The faculty to student ratio was roughly 22:1 during fall 2021, since then It has improved with a addition of lot of faculties over the course of 2 years. The faculty and staff are very approachable and friendly, most of whom have years of industry experience or research or mix of both, so they are highly qualified and the teaching style (in general in US) allows us to develop a rational thinking of our own and not depend on any material.
Campus Life :
Apart from the lengthy commute, the campus life is one of the best things here, from regularly hosted events, extracurricular activities and parties from nearly 1000+ clubs in the campus to best in class facilities like the massive Library which hosts a plethora of books and digital content accessible from anywhere. WiFi is available for free to the students with great speeds, there is a wide array of sports facilities from gyms (which is free for the students) to giant pitches for American Football, baseball, athletics etc. The main highlight are the research facilities at USF, with a budget of nearly 2.5 billion dollars, nearly 40% of the amount is used to upkeep the research facilities with state of the art labs and systems.
Hostel :
The in-campus housing is very expensive and considering the space we live in for that amount, it isn't worth that amount of money, I strongly advise anyone coming here find accommodation off-campus (except for undergraduate freshman for whom it is mandatory to stay in campus for the 1st year). With respect to the off-campus housing we have rentals ranging from 300$ for a 3 Sharing per room 2BHK to 800$ for individual rooms.
