UMD Computer Science or Rutgers

Probably not. I have a kid who started CS at Rutgers this year. He is not fully happy, but I doubt he would be happy at UMD either :-). Neither school is small and cozy. Teaching quality at Rutgers is hit and miss, albeit more hit than miss so far. I think kids will place into the local regional economy. Rutgers CS is not terrible – it is attached to DIMACS which is good for theory CS if the kid is inclined that way. I suspect UMD places marginally more into the national job market than Rutgers does – perhaps 15% vs 10% – hard to find numbers for these. By national I mean the west coast big tech jobs, or jobs that pay that kind of money. If you can be in the top 10% of the class at Rutgers, you shouldn’t see a difference. Rutgers is considered somewhat of a party school. Don’t know about UMD. Other complaints I have heard about Rutgers are a) food can be better, b) it is a commuter school and empties out on the weekend, c)sometimes challenging to get into classes you want unless you are coming in with a lot of credits from HS. I suspect UMD may be similar about course availability, although they made it a closed major in the past few years – so things may have improved. CS at Rutgers is an open major. It is a closed major at UMD. Closed is better other things equal. It is possible that UMD will have better peer quality. I have heard complaints about peers at Rutgers.

You may also check out this thread: Current CS Senior at UMD - ask me anything - #22 by SoofDad

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