CompSci Reputation?

<p>I was accepted to the College Of Natural Sciences (Computer Sciences) about a month ago. I know UT has an excellent engineering school, but unfortunately Computer Science isn't part of Cockrell. </p>

<p>What is the College of Natural Sciences reputation? Is the Computer Science major up to par with some of the top computer science schools in the nation (i.e. Stanford which I've been accepted to SCEA)? </p>

<p>I believe Cockrell is academically competitive with Stanford's engineering program. With regards to Natural Sciences, I have no clue, so I am unsure whether I should continue with the UT admissions process (Housing in particular! I'm running out of time! Especially as an OOS student!) :o</p>

<p>Help!!!</p>

<p>I'm posting the computer science rankings from US News below. They are graduate rankings but I don't know of any undergrad rankings. I hope it helps. I've heard undergraduate programs feed off the reputation of the grad programs anyway. Maybe this will be of some help.</p>

<ol>
<li>MIT 5.0</li>
<li>Stanford 5.0</li>
<li>UC-Berkeley 5.0</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon 4.9</li>
<li>Illinois-Urbana Champaign 4.6</li>
<li>Cornell 4.5</li>
<li>Princeton 4.5</li>
<li>Univ. of Washington 4.5
9 Georgia Tech 4.3</li>
<li>Texas-Austin 4.3</li>
<li>Cal Tech 4.2</li>
<li>Wisconsin-Madison 4.2</li>
<li>UCLA 4.0</li>
<li>Maryland 4.0</li>
<li>Michigan 4.0</li>
<li>Columbia 3.9</li>
<li>Harvard 3.9</li>
<li>UC-San Diego 3.9</li>
<li>Purdue 3.8</li>
<li>Brown 3.7</li>
<li>Duke 3.7</li>
<li>Rice 3.7</li>
<li>Massachusetts-Amherst 3.7</li>
<li>North Carolina-Chapel Hill</li>
<li>Pennsylvania 3.7</li>
<li>Southern California 3.7</li>
<li>Yale 3.7</li>
</ol>

<p>Thanks fiyero for the quick response! I saw these rankings, but because they were grad rankings, I wasn't sure how reliable they were. But it would make sense that if the grad school is good the undergrad program is probably pretty good as well, like you said. Of course, always take the rankings with a grain of salt.</p>

<p>It would be great to hear from a current computer science major about courseload, professors, career opportunities, and how well you feel the program is preparing you for the real world :)</p>

<p>Well I am not a comp sci major, but I have taken 2 programming classes as a Computer Engineering major. Both professors have been excellent, the most recent one being the best. I don't know a whole lot, but from what I have seen, it has been pretty good.</p>

<p>The Turing Scholar's Programs, which is the Computer Science Honors program is highly respected. A girl from my school chose it over MIT, for academic reasons, so I think it's a pretty legit program.</p>

<p>You might want to look into that, and they'd probably post some stats on their rankings, opporunities, and other important information on their webiste.</p>

<p>Turing</a> Scholars Program at the University of Texas at Austin: Welcome</p>

<p>I've heard it is suppose to be really good. That will be such a useful major in our technology today..</p>

<p>The Turing Scholars page says it is "housed in the nation's 7th ranked CS department." </p>

<p>Turns out they got that information almost word-for-word from the book Peterson's Smart Choices: Honors Programs and Colleges from 2002. A little dated...but a nice, brief source of information.</p>

<p>Peterson's</a> Smart Choices: Honors ... - Google Book Search</p>

<p>Hmm...thanks for that lead, fzr11017</p>

<p>Foxshox, could you tell me more about your academic experiences as a computer engineering major? seems like you're as close as I'm going to get to computer science here :)</p>

<p>mgm6275, yeah it should be useful in today's society, and it helps to actually like learning about the topic ;) i want to get an MBA later on as well, kind of as a backup plan or supplement to my CompSci degree.</p>

<p>Well its not that bad, I think the Comp Sci part is easier for me in comparison to some of the other people that are EE/CE. Its not that hard for us, because we don't go into the much harder Comp Sci theory. We learn data structures, and if we want to continue with that route, we take upper division courses. The majority of the difficulty for us is in the hardware and circuitry component of the major, so I really am not a great judge on the Comp Sci department. I was turned off years before I came to college, because my sister was a Comp Sci major and she didn't really like the stuff, so I subconsciously took that particular choice from my head.</p>