<p>Does anybody want to make some comments on caltech's undergraduate computer science program? I know caltech is amazing for science/math, but what about computer science?</p>
<p>Also, if I get into MIT in the RD round, which would you consider to be the better school for computer science?</p>
<p>Caltech has a good computer science program- its graduates go to some very cool places to work. That being said, I'm not in it and can't really give details.</p>
<p>If you're picking between Caltech and MIT for CS, strictly speaking MIT probably has a better CS department. That being said, they're probably pretty close, and you should base your decision on which school you like better non-academically. There's much more to a school than nit-picking the quality of its departments, and don't forget that whichever one you pick, you'll be spending 4 years of your life at.</p>
<p>My boyfriend is doing CS at Caltech. I am pretty sure that at MIT CS is combined with EE, so you would have to take some EE classes, whereas Caltech is not like that - I know a CS major at MIT who HATES the EE requirement, so that might be something to consider. But in general, I think Caltech is more theoretical, while MIT is more applied/practical/whatever, so it all depends on what you like.</p>
<p>Anyway, I'm not a current student at either; I just know people who have done CS at both. Probably either school would be very good; I know of people at Caltech who go on to get amazing CS jobs even while still in college, and I know someone who has worked at Google/is now working at Oracle and went to MIT. Granted, my sample size is small, but I am pretty sure either school would be a great school for CS, and if you are good enough to get into either, you are probably good enough to make a great CS career no matter where you end up, so you can base your choice based on whether you like the theory or the practical sides more, and the different environments of the schools and all. Not sure if that's helpful at all....</p>
<p>I picked Caltech for CS. I'd read up on each institute's departmental focus and what not to see whether you'll like it.</p>
<p>What about someone like me who's interested in artificial intelligence? I know there's some <em>research</em> being done in that field at Caltech (automated learning, pattern recognition, etc), which would be great for SURF, but from what I've seen there aren't really any <em>courses</em> about AI as such.</p>
<p>I know a few people who are taking CS/CNS 156 (Learning Systems) right now and really enjoy it. You might want to look into the Computation and Neural Systems department if you're into that sort of thing. There's quite a bit of overlap between CS and CNS. </p>
<p>CNS</a> :: Research
Computer</a> Science, Caltech - Groups</p>
<p>Both departments are pretty small, but there's high-quality research being done and it's really easy to be a part of.</p>
<p>Since you were asking about classes specifically:</p>
<p>Computer</a> Science Courses
Computation</a> and Neural Systems Courses</p>
<p>Most of the AI-related ones are pretty high level since they're specialized.</p>
<p>how hard is cs 2?</p>
<p>If you have programming experience, not hard at all. If you don't but survived CS 1 alright, it should still be perfectly doable. I spent about 9 hours a week on it like you're supposed to, and my programming experience mostly consisted of CS 1, which I thought was significantly more challenging. At least last year, CS 2 was pretty poorly organized, but the labs were cool. You learn a lot more programming skills than you do in CS 1, but very little theory.</p>
<p>"What about someone like me who's interested in artificial intelligence?"</p>
<p>I would choose MIT for AI.
See About</a> CSAIL</p>
<p>Patrick Winston, Abelson, Sussman, Berners-Lee, Barbara Liskov, Peter Shor and many others are at CSAIL</a> Principal Investigators</p>
<p>Stanford would a good alternative to MIT.
Perhaps you have heard of John McCarthy ....</p>
<p>Yeah, MIT is a lot better if your intended focus is CS/AI. Don't go to MIT if you dislike it for some reason, but if you are close to indifferent on other dimensions, then most CS people would be better served by MIT.</p>
<p>What about Carnegie Mellon? I thought they were also pretty good when it comes to AI.</p>
<p>CMU is good too.
Raj Reddy is there.</p>
<p>Hi,
I am interested in pursuing my masters in AI. I went through the post and searched around, but couldn’t find an MS in AI at MIT, can someone please confirm and help me out? CSAIL looks brilliant! Things on which they are working currently look soooooooooo exciting, it would be a big deal to get to work at CSAIL! :D</p>
<p>Unclear why you decided to post a question about MIT on a five year old thread in the Caltech forum but MIT EECS (which includes CSAIL) does not have a master’s program unless you are a MIT undergraduate in which case there is a five-year MEng program.</p>
<p>Caltech’s CS is divorced from EE, thus there is chiller requirements. Many CS majors actually graduate in 3 years quite comfortably. When they do, they have great success in grabbing jobs and into Ph.D programs.</p>
<p>This is a bit mysterious since Caltech isn’t overall very strong in CS… but it works out :)</p>