Are small departments a problem?

<p>I want to major in Computer Science, but I noticed that Caltech only has about 10 professors teaching CS. Will this limit my opportunities a lot, or is it not a big deal?</p>

<p>10 professors in CS is a lot when you’ve only got like 20 or 30 students in CS :P</p>

<p>What opportunities are you looking for?</p>

<p>From what I’ve heard, Caltech has the best opportunities for “self study” credits so you can get what you need from the CS professors there and the rest by making arrangements with the faculty for self study courses.</p>

<p>So, not going to lie, the small size can be a problem. Many classes are not offered frequently (for example, CS150 “Probability and Algorithms” and CS151 “Complexity Theory” are only offered once every two years), and a few haven’t really been offered in a while. It’s a trade-off, though–the class sizes are also pretty small, so I imagine getting a familiarity with the professor is probably easier done than it would be at a university with a larger faculty but even larger student body (I can’t say for sure, of course, because I have pretty limited experience so far here, and no experience at all in other universities).</p>

<p>Obviously my preferences might change, but I want to study Artificial Intelligence, and I didn’t see any classes listed for it on the catalog.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.registrar.caltech.edu/schedules/FA2009-10.html#dept_details_COMPUTATION_&_NEURAL_SYS[/url]”>http://www.registrar.caltech.edu/schedules/FA2009-10.html#dept_details_COMPUTATION_&_NEURAL_SYS&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Those are the classes you’ll want to take for artificial intelligence, especially Learning Systems (I’m thinking about sitting in on that class myself this year). The only problem is that they are all graduate level and you’ll only get to take them junior and senior year when you do classes for your major.</p>