I want to major in Computer Science and I visited a few colleges so far.
I really like Lafayette College, but is it a good idea for me to go to a liberal art college for Computer Science?
Or I should go to school like Rutgers University or school that has a bigger cs department.
What are some of the pros and cons of majoring cs at a liberal art college?
Thanks!
ignore this…
Pro: LACs are purely undergraduate focused.
Possible Con: A LAC CS program will offer fewer courses than a university, but a good one will still offer at least six to ten more courses than you will ever take. Whether this is a true con or not depends on whether the electives you might be seeking are available.
The Liberal Arts Computer Science Consortium has established a model CS curriculum for liberal arts colleges. Information about this organization is available online.
Should you have missed it, you can search for a recent thread in this forum that may be helpful: "liberal arts / computer science.:
Lafayette specifically has many of the common advanced CS courses, although it does not have compilers, security/cryptography or the specialty electives found at some schools, and most of the advanced CS courses are offered only once every two years (so you really have to take them when offered, because you may not have a chance to again before you graduate).
http://compsci.lafayette.edu/courses/
Lafayette’s class schedule indicates that its CS courses are not overflowing like at some other schools where CS has surged in popularity, which have had to either increase class sizes greatly or limit access to them.
https://bannerselfservice.lafayette.edu/pls/bprod/bwckgens.p_proc_term_date
Other schools may vary. You really should think in terms of specific schools, rather than whether LACs in general are good places to study CS. Some LACs are good, but others are not so good.
I love LACs and CS, so I’ve probably put way too much time into seeing which ones have good CS departments and which don’t.
Williams, Swarthmore, Carleton, Grinnell, and Harvey Mudd (STEM focused) probably have the best LAC programs. They all have different vibes, though, so keep that in mind.
Bowdoin’s department is small but they have an extremely successful robotics team and their grads routinely go on to do some pretty impressive things. Amherst, likewise, has a small department, but you can supplement some upper level courses at Umass Amherst.
I thought Vassar had a pretty robust program but it is a school that certainly is not for everybody; I would look more into fit and culture for this one. Oberlin falls into this category too.
There are some LAC-like universities: Tufts, Rochester, Brandeis, and at the highly selective end, Brown.
Lafayette is also part of the LVAIC consortium and if there are any courses at Lehigh (or other schools in the consortium) you want to take that are not offered at Lafayette you can do that. My D is at Lafayette and has taken one class at another consortium school and has friends who have do so as well.
oops… should read “who have done so as well”.