Best Colleges for software engineering?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I'm a 30 year old with a good job that I worked my up from the bottom to get; however, it's not something I'd like to do for the rest of my life. My heart is in programming... I plan on doing 2 years at a community college before transferring to an university. The problem is that I need to choose which university to transfer to now, so I can make sure my credits are transferable.</p>

<p>I need to know which schools have the best Computer Software Engineering programs? What are some of the things I should be looking for, and what question should I be asking when choosing a school. I'm in Virginia, US, so can any of you suggest school in my area? I seriously doubt that I can get into any Ivy League school, but I still want the best education that I can possibly get that's within my means.</p>

<p>Please help point me in the right direction.... Thanks in advance.</p>

2

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<p>University of Virginia
Virginia Polytechnic and State University
other public universities in Virginia</p>

<p>Note that public universities tend to be the most friendly to transfers from same-state community colleges, and often have pre-arranged articulation agreements so that you know which courses at the community colleges will transfer and what they will be equivalent to at the university.</p>

<p>Out of state public universities can be expensive with little financial aid – put “net price calculator” in each school’s web site search box to get an estimate. A few of the top private universities like Stanford are generous with financial aid, but are very hard to get admitted to, especially as a transfer student.</p>

<p>Note that very few schools have a software engineering major; you are probably looking for computer science and/or computer engineering. At the few schools with an SE major, it is very similar to the CS major, but with additional software engineering methods courses instead of CS electives. At schools with a CE major distinct from CS, CE tends to be more hardware oriented.</p>

<p>Some of the out of state public universities that have less expensive list prices include:</p>

<p>University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
San Jose State University (in Silicon Valley)
Stony Brook University
University of Massachusetts, Amherst</p>

<p>An out of state public university that does give reasonable aid is:</p>

<p>University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill</p>

<p>Other universities in your region:</p>

<p>University of Maryland, College Park
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
North Carolina State University
Pennsylvania State University, University Park
Rutgers New Brunswick
Princeton University
Duke University
Carnegie Mellon University</p>

3

<p>If you know or are working in the field (or related) now, ask degreed colleagues, especially hiring managers, which schools they look at favorably. Among the in-state schools, George Mason has a well-thought-of CS program if you are in NoVA. Also look at Tech, UVA, maybe JMU (I’ve heard differing feedback about them, a S’s friend landed at Booze Allen so they must be doing something right). The must-admit contracts are very stringient to meet, so you may end up applying as a transfer student anyway. If you can go out-of-state, add GWU and JHU. I don’t know enough about VCU, CN, or ODU to comment. </p>

<p>Many schools have active evening programs at the certificate and Masters level in the DC/NoVA area, probably Tidewater. Do not know if they have anything at the undergrad level. Good luck.</p>

4

<p>DonLee writes “I plan on doing 2 years at a community college before transferring to an university. The problem is that I need to choose which university to transfer to now, so I can make sure my credits are transferable.”</p>

<p>Since you are in Virginia and are planning on attending community college you can take advantage of the articulation agreements that the community college system has with the state universities. [Articulation</a> Chart :: Northern Virginia Community College](<a href=“http://www.nvcc.edu/about-nova/directories--offices/administrative-offices/academic/transfer/chart/index.html]Articulation”>http://www.nvcc.edu/about-nova/directories--offices/administrative-offices/academic/transfer/chart/index.html)</p>

5

<p>Keep in mind that software engineering is a methodology which is different per employer and quite frankly is better learned from experience. Not one school will give you the “best” of software engineering. Yeah, Carnegie Mellon spearheaded many SoftE standards but the individual employers tailor it for their clients and projects.</p>

<p>You probably know the software engineering phases: </p>

<p>Requirements–>Design–>Development–>Testing–>Deployment–>Sustainment</p>

<p>Many software engineering programs (undergrad and grad) want to have a separate semester course for each phase. YOU DON’T NEED ALL OF THAT! It is better to take an overall 1-course software engineering course and use the rest of the courses in computer science. That one overall SoftE course will allow you to adapt to whatever “flavor” a certain employer has as far as the software engineering life cycle.</p>

6

<p>Yes, agree that, beyond one overview software engineering course, additional courses on various CS topics will be more useful in industry jobs than additional software engineering methods courses.</p>

7

<p>If you want to work in the silicon valley:
Stanford
Berkeley
Cal Poly
San Jose State
UC Davis</p>

<p>These 5 produce about 40% of the engineers in the silicon valley(other than those from India, China or Taiwan). </p>

<p>MIT, Cornell and few other places are okay too. (yes, they ranked high in that US news mag, but Californians usually don’t think that highly of them).</p>