My son has been admitted to both universities but we are not sure which school offers the best Computer Science program. Any thoughts or experience would be greatly appreciated.
UT is ranked 9th in the nation for computer science. However, from what I have heard, the department seems to be overcrowded and underfunded. That’s not to say it isn’t a great program. I don’t know much about A&M’s CS program though.
UT has a great CS program and is also very strong in computer engineering. TAMU is ranked 19th, not shabby, but not top ten. If your son has any artistic talent, one option where TAMU shines is in its Visualization (computer animation) program. They place a lot of folks with Pixar, ILM, etc. http://viz.arch.tamu.edu/undergraduate/curriculum/
One of my OOS College Confidential pals has a daughter who is double majoring in CS and Visualization.
My S will be attending A&M in the Visualization department this fall. He plans to minor or double major in CS. Although one could try to duplicate the Viz program curriculum at UT, it would require a lot of cross-college classes in RTF and Visual Arts and likely some finagling to pull it off (taking upper level courses in a different college from one’s major used to be very challenging to arrange, back when dinos roamed the campus…not sure about now). From what we’ve read and heard, Viz at A&M is a way-cool program! For a regular CS degree, however, I believe UT is ranked higher, although the overcrowded aspect might be worth investigating and considering. Perhaps the number of students accepted into the major each year has been recently reduced.
“Graduates from the Visualization (or Viz) program have played a direct role in many popular movies such as Shrek, Toy Story, Avatar and Up, going on to work at studios like Pixar, Walt Disney Animation, Blue Sky, Sony Pictures and DreamWorks. (So many former Texas A&M Viz students worked on the Disney Pixar film Monsters, Inc., in fact, that the character Sully is named after former Texas A&M University president Lawrence Sullivan “Sully” Ross.) Pixar and DreamWorks also support the program by providing visiting artist lectures, reviews of student work and scholarship matching.”
http://www.learningace.com/doc/1281758/d9f8ee998cbc4f35a0336babf5ef7958/counselor_connection_current (P. 6 of 8).
Is A&M’s program not good? I plan on going there next Fall, I’ve been accepted. I haven’t decided if I want to major in Computer Engineering or Science. I don’t want to do visualization.
It’s good, but not at the level of Carnegie Mellon or Illinois.
It’s good enough to get an excellent job if you work hard and get good grades.
@Beaudreau
That’s true. If you’re motivated and in-state, A&M is a bargain and will launch you into a great career, thereby providing an excellent ROI:
@Fredjan And the Aggie network will look out for you.
Is the agile network a bigger bang for your buck than the internship opportunities in Austin?
@satxcanuck
Internship offers will be all over the country not just in Austin.
I have heard that A&M has some of the largest job fairs in the country. With the support of the strong Aggie Network there will be many internship offers. You have to do your part by maintaining a high GPA and participate in clubs, etc. In addition A&M offers fantastic scholarships which can easily sway decisions.
UT has a reputation for being very strong in the Computer Science and Computer Engineering areas. My older son is at UT (Electrical and Computer Engineering) and has had multiple internship offers in Chicago, Austin and Oregon. He had a similar choice, but for him UT was a better fit. Program ranking was a top criteria for him.
Maybe look at the details of the programs at both schools. Course choices and research/specialization areas.
@satxcanuck You are very fortunate to have two top-20 programs that you can attend and pay in-state tuition.
Another point to consider maybe is that the top 10 ranked programs will attract the academically strongest students. So, the overall class could be more competitive for GPA/choice internships. If choosing a competitive program you want to be able to stay at the top of the class. A reason my older son did not choose Georgia Tech or Berkeley (he thought it would be more difficult for him to maintain a high GPA there).
That said, I think A&M will also have strong students. Many NMF and others because of the many scholarships and the school being a better fit for them.
I agree that my ds is very lucky to be choosing from these two schools. He loves them both which is why we are having so much difficulty with the choice. I think we will wait and see if he gets any scholarships offers for either school which will help with the decision.
New graduate school rankings for software developers: Texas at 6; TAMU at 16. https://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/edu/rankings/us/graduate-software-engineering?trk=edu-rankings-ctg-card
Rankings don’t matter much in CS. If you can program, and know your stuff you’ll be hired. Work experience will always win out over where you went to college. Select the college that gives YOU the best learning environment. If you’re not learning properly it doesn’t matter if you went to Harvard, UT, Berkeley etc.
Came across the following link. (Computer Science at A&M is ABET accredited but the UT (at Austin) program is not. Is this an old listing? I know that Computer Engineering is ABET accredited at UT - it’s strange that CS is not.
http://www.softwareengineerinsider.com/abet/abet-computer-science-degrees.html
@EventHorizon32 ABET isn’t a big deal with CS. None of the Ivies are ABET, neither is CMU. Even Stanford lacks ABET for their CS degree. So, I think you can do well at a school w/o an ABET CS degree. 