How do these schools compare in terms of :
Quality of Academics
Quality of Faculty
Job opportunities
Student community
Research opportunities
Any information appreciated!
Are these the colleges (you had other threads now deleted with UMASS, and UC Santa Cruz in them).
Is cost a factor for you?
Yes !Cost is one of the factors but it might not be thank you!
Hard to beat CMU for CS. I assume you mean CMU SCS?
Money is a different thing.
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What does this mean?
Well if its worth paying the money then higher costs is OK
So…your family can pay the net costs at all of these colleges without taking out parent signed or parent loans? Just checking.
CS is pretty even in terms of curriculum at most colleges. From this list, I would say Carnegie Mellon has the strongest program. But I wouldn’t suggest going into high debt for any of these schools.
@mathmom your thoughts?
My son had a fabulous experience at Carnegie Mellon and could easily have paid off loans within a few years on what he was earning straight out of college. They have a fabulous alumni network and it was easy for my kid to get internships. His sophomore year when one internship cancelled at the last minute in the 2008 financial crash his friends helped him find a new one. It was worth every penny we paid.
U of Maryland has a good reputation, but I don’t know anything about it beyond that. I visited Brandeis with my non-mathy kid. We were both impressed by our tour guide, but we happened to visit the campus the day before Passover started and it was pretty deserted.
So what is the net price at each college for you?
There’s no such thing. I do programming for a living. After about 3 years experience, employers don’t even ask where you went to school. 99.99% of what you learn is on the job. The last thing you want is a CS degree with a mountain of debt. First of all, CS degrees are ridiculously employable. UMD is a heavily recruited flagship school. Second of all, prestige is a serious non-factor in tech. All employers care about is how well you know how to do the job you’re applying for. Third, the “big starting salary” out of college is a myth. Salaries are market based. If you graduate with zero experience, you will get an entry level salary, no more no less, based on the local market cost of living. If an employer goes any higher on salary, they’ll hire an experienced professional that they don’t have to train.
My advice, save yourself the headache and go for an affordable school. Your 30 year old self will thank you
Here’s a different pov from a retired engineer (EE,CS) who recently witnessed his son’s (Stanford BSCS, MSCS) very successful launch.
- “After 3-4” years employers my stop asking about where you went to school but they will always be aware of where you went to school. The key phrase here is “After 3-4 years”. What’s important to graduates is how they get that 1st job, who that job is with, and what is their role is in that 1st company. When looking for that second job it’s much easier to move from (say) Google to another company than it is to get into Google from some unknown small company.
- The best thing a student can experience is having zero debt. Fact.
- Posters can discuss all day about the impact of prestige, but what matters is what you know when you graduate and what type of experience you’ve had. The simple truth is that some schools offer more academics, better academics, and more research opportunities. If you consider a new grad’s resume what’s typically on line #1? The university name. Line #2? Summer internships. Line #3 Publications, Line #4? Relevant course work. Your Lines 1-4 will most likely reflect the strength of the student along with the school/program.
- “The big starting salary” out of college is not a myth, but it only goes to those that are in the highest demand (common sense). Just like all colleges are not equal, neither are graduates or jobs. If you look at large employers, CS grad offers consist of: base pay, yearly bonus, equity, and signing bonus. And in each one of those salary components there is a range that will be offered based on skill and demand. Get a CS degree in an in-demand area of expertise and you will either max-out the band or get bumped into the next hiring level. So, there is no “one size fits all, entry salary” in the fastest growing and most desirable companies.
You can probably find something similar for Brandeis and UMD but here’s the CMU SCS fact sheet. Keep in mind that the high average salary is probably skewed up from those taking work in expensive areas like SV.
Google is not the best coverage example, since it recruits widely for new college graduates. Actually, it is the smaller companies and startups with fewer needs and recruiting resources that the specific college is likely to matter most in new graduate recruiting (locality, connections to faculty, and prestige).
Perhaps not the best example but the point I was trying to make is that a students 1st job establishes the initial trajectory.
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I am no doubt biased as my oldest just graduated from CMU SCS, but I think CMU is the strongest of these 3. We live in Maryland and it wasn’t even a close decision for our son. The experience he had at CMU was incredible both socially and academically. He was able to do research on campus, had internships each summer, and is working at his dream job in NYC. He felt more at home there than he ever did in high school. The workload is both immense and intense. But the students work through the pain together and the outcomes speak for themselves. That environment is definitely NOT for everyone, but if it is the right fit, I don’t think there is a better choice.
CS at CMU is the best of the best! It’s not a comparison among others on your list. CMU CS is comparable only with Stanford, MIT, and Berkeley.
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