Colleges offer both BA and BS in CompSci--we're lost!

College Majors Math/Computer Science Majors
1

I’d love to hear some general information from knowledgeable people about what to look for in a Computer Science program at a college. My background is Arts and Humanities, so I’m at a loss here, and my nephew has asked for my help. Computers are part of everything we do! There are programmers at NASA, and at the main office of an insurance company. How different are their undergrad experiences?

We’re also wondering about math for his Senior year. He struggled Soph year in Algebra II, but is doing well in Pre-Calc this year. He wanted to take Calc next year, but his advisor said he should take Statistics. He’s in a half-day program at Vo-Tech school, getting high As in Comp Sci classes there. There are high school grads in these classes, too, and the program would count for 13 credits at the county college. So, he’s doing college-level work, right? In general, he’s been a B+ student in high school.

Please share your insights and suggestions! Thank you.

2

Difference between BA and BS (Technically): One is a ‘Bachelor’s of Art’ and the other is ‘Bachelor’s of Science’
Difference between BA and BS (in real life, grad school, and what not): None. Absolutely none.

There is no difference in BA and BS except that if you graduate with the bare minimums, the BS will have more science and math courses while the BA will have more humanities courses.
That said, companies really do not care and grad schools probably don’t even know the difference (they only care about grade, research, recommendation letter).

<skip start=“” (if=“” this=“” quote=“” does=“” not=“” matter)=“”>

There are many majors outside Computer Science that utilizes computers. A ‘good’ computer science program might not even program after the first year of college and especially true if your son decides to go in pure computer science.
This statement is as analogous as ‘Math is part of everything we do! Engineers use math all the time in NASA and at main office of insurance company…’ In other words, though most do not know, many upper level computer science courses don’t use a computer at all.
The study of Computer Science is the study of effective computations. Not computers. Effective computations. How do I sort exams (alphabetically) in the most efficient way possible? That’s the study of Computer Science.
Hence, just know in advance that Computer Science != programming especially after the introductory courses.

I personally recommend taking Calculus senior year. If you can do AP Calc and get credits for calc credits in college, scheduling is generally easier. That stated, your son will have to take both anyways for a Computer Science degree so it should not matter.
Computer Science program requires some proficiency in mathematics. Depending on the school, it will require Calculus I, Calculus II, Discrete Math, Linear Algebra, ODE, and Statistics for all students. It’s only for certain students that Calculus III, Modern Algebra, Complex Analysis, Modern Analysis, Topology, Fourier Analysis, Differential Geometry, Number Theory, etc. are useful. These tend to be graduate courses in machine learning (calc 1,2,3,fourier,linear algebra,ode,complex,stats), algorithms(modern algebra,modern analysis,linear algebra), cryptography (number theory, linear algebra, modern algebra) etc. (don’t know the other sub-fields as much)

Hence, getting ‘accustomed’ to Calculus in high school is of huge benefit for college. Plus, if all goes bad, he can always retake it in college and by then, he would have a 1 year advantage over his peers.

And as of what to look for in ‘Computer Science’ programs in college.

  1. It is ranked within top 100 in USNews Computer Science grad school (if grad school for computer science exists).
    Exceptions to this rule is: Harvey Mudd College, Williams, etc. etc. (elite undergrad schools are tickets regardless of major so it should not matter)
  2. Okay, this will be a very biased (and I will get lots of hate for this but) but here it goes…
    don’t go to the school that has a degree in ‘Software Engineering’. Regardless of having computer science, I would honestly stray away from such schools with such programs. It tends to bring forth a poor reputation to the school in the computer science field for some reason.
  3. Nothing more. That’s honestly it.
    Also, in case you don’t know, for computer science, ABET does not matter. So ya, honestly, it doesn’t matter. Just make sure you don’t have your son attend some profit school and at end of day, allow your child to schedule the courses he wants for senior year regardless of what you or the adviser might think.
    I generally take adviser’s tips with grain of salt and I think I haven’t done that badly in life so far and I’m sure I would have regretted had I followed what my advisers wished many of the times.

Also, do know that computer science is now slowly getting saturated.
I know data shows otherwise (and I’m sure someone here will rebuke me for this) but within the past year and half, computer science has been becoming ‘super-super-super popular’.
Getting an internship is extremely difficult now with some of my peers applying to 200~300 places (very extreme case) and still praying for some sort of success.
It is still some of the best major overall to get a job outa college related to the field but know the ‘everything is now computers’ hype is starting to hurt incoming CS students by quite a bit.
That stated, I’m sure your son loves CS for the sake of CS most likely and not for jobs so this shouldn’t be of much issue.

Anyways, don’t fret too much.
Just know your instate flagship will also be a phenomenal choice for computer science. Big state flagships tend to bring forth a lot of recruiters though for computer science, it’s pretty much ‘apply online’ at end of day.

3

If he completes precalculus in 11th grade, calculus is a better choice than statistics for 12th grade.

BA versus BS does not really matter by itself. When a school offers both degree titles, you need to look at the specific school to see what the differences in degree requirements are.

4

I’m noticing some CS programs are cutting back on the amount of math needed to graduate, at least compared to all the math I had to take when I getting my CS degree in the early 80s. Try to look at as many CS programs as possible in order to compare the amount of math required.

In reality, one semester of Calculus, one semester of statistics, and one semester of linear algebra are more than enough math for 98% of the programming jobs out there.