Carleton is one of the best LACs for CS, but is a bachelors degree in Computer Science enough to get a job without grad school? I’ve heard liberal arts colleges aren’t the best in the minds of employers…
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19190340/#Comment_19190340 has a comparison chart of CS offerings at various smaller schools.
A bachelor’s degree in CS is perfectly fine for getting employment in computing. However, being at a smaller school (or one with a smaller CS department) may mean that non-local employers may not even know the school enough to do campus recruiting, or may think it is not worth sending a recruiter to recruit the small number of CS majors that may be there. So you may have to be more aggressive at finding and applying to potential employers on your own.
Do you know any details about Carleton specifically? It is ranked really high in CS it appears!
Carleton isn’t associated with being a high-level CS school nationally in the industry. I don’t know the region incredibly well, but when I think CS in the midwest, many other schools come to mind. Of course,that is because of what @ucbalumnus mentioned when it comes to LAC’s and other smaller schools.
Looking at the courses and faculty, they have a solid amount of offering, but don’t have as many requirements as other CS programs - particularly, Operating Systems and Networks are electives that are only offered every other year. Even if you want to take them, it could be hard to fit them into your schedule with infrequent offerings.
The faculty is small - some seem to have a lot going on but others, not so much.
Based on all this, I wouldn’t say Carleton is ranked highly in CS - you can probably get a good CS education there, but you could get just as good of one at tons of other schools, and Carleton’s name won’t carry a ton of weight like others may.
If you’re looking for the LAC experience and want CS, there are probably some better options that do haver highly ranked CS (see Harvey Mudd), but Carlton is as well regarded school overall by those who know it.
Where are you looking at Carleton CS ranking from?