Hello you guys! I am currently a senior in high school and need to make my college decision soon. I was accepted to Case through their EA admissions, however I have some concerns. I have visited the school through their Diversity Overnight Program and I loved it! It has also given me the best financial aid and its currently at the top of my list for that reason. I plan on majoring in Computer Science. However, I have read some very negative reviews concerning their CS department. I thought their department would be okay considering Case is a very techy school but it does not look that way. I would really appreciate it if you guys could shed some light on the CS department at Case. Thank you!
I am a parent and not a student, who had a son study physics and minor in CS, graduated May 2017. Two of his friends majored in CS. One student we know got a full time offer from AT&T St. Louis and the other earned a funded masters degree in CS, and got into a top west coast firm. I know both these CS students had summer jobs for all three summers, maybe after freshman year back home but then in Cleveland or the west coast, after that. There are jobs in Cleveland in medical records software, and that is a great direction to head in for a CS major.
CS Professors at CWRU care about students, and there are options to become a payed grader, for some beginning classes, which will gain you a recommendation from that professor, potentially.
Similar to MIT and Berkeley, CWRU has an EECS department, making it easy for your to try ECE, EE or CS as a major.
http://engineering.case.edu/eecs/node/306
Think Box is a maker space/innovation space at CWRU, including software projects-
http://engineering.case.edu/eecs/node/306
HackCRWU is a software related contest, on campus every February and offers challenging software problems,
and options to collaborate–
http://hack.cwru.edu
Some CWRU students will go to U of Illinois or Purdue for hacking contests as well.
I would search in this subforum…for example: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/case-western-reserve-university/2049816-how-is-the-computer-science-department-at-cwru.html
I am currently a first-year CS major at Case. I remember having the same concerns last year when I was deciding where to commit. Now that I have been here for almost a full year, I have a much better feel for the CS department.
First off, the CS department has grown a lot over the past years, but the school’s funding for the department has lagged behind. It is a well-known fact within the department that we need to hire more professors and we need more funding to expand the program; yet, Case has still been slow to help with this. However, the CS department is working hard to get the attention we need and in the meantime professors and department staff are working hard to make as many improvements on their own. For example, the course requirements for CS majors have been updated and continue to be adjusted to best benefit CS students. We have a lot of really great specialty courses for students who want to specialize (and getting more professors will help them become even more frequently available). On the career-help side of things, our department staff is amazing; their outreach is great–I get about 1-3 emails a day with job opportunities–and if you are looking for anything specific they will work hard to connect you with contacts/companies.
Now, I’ll share some of my personal experiences here…
I came into Case as a CS novice. I had been exposed to programming a little in high school, but I definitely could not actually code anything for the life of me.
As classes started, I knew I needed some direction. Now, this is where I realized first-hand that everything the department currently lacks, the incredible CS student body makes up for.
An EECS club on campus runs a mentor-mentee program every fall and connects any EECS students with mentors that can help and provide them with any advice they might need. I ended up applying for a mentor, and the person I was assigned has had a huge impact on me. She (a junior CS major) was able to share so much advice with me and went above and beyond to help me get ahead. Since then, even starting with no CS experience, I’ve gotten the chance to attend my first hackathon, I’ve managed to secure a paid summer software engineering internship at a Fortune-500 company, and (very recently) I’ve gotten a position at a research lab on campus.
Honestly, I often think: would/could I still have accomplished all of this had I gone to a school with a more “well-known” CS program/department? Although I don’t know the definitive answer, what I do know is that Case’s CS department has given me a very unique experience. There’s a central characteristic that sets CWRU’s CS department apart from other schools, and that is it’s very close-knit, collaborative culture. I think that because all of our CS students know our department lacks a bit in size and funding at the moment, we have adopted this mindset where we view everyone as a family and we work hard together to see everyone succeed. We are all on the same page and so it seems that helping each other just comes naturally. Thus, we are the furthest you can get from a cut-throat or competitive environment. I’ve had both under and upperclassmen reach out to me and my friends to offer their help simply because we’re fellow CS majors. You’ll always find help/support here if you need it.
In the end, although our CS department is not without its faults (which are still important to consider when making your decision of where to commit) college is what you make of it and I think any student has the potential to be very successful at CWRU.
PS. In case it’s important to you, I know several CS students currently here who have worked/received offers at well-known companies like Google, Apple, Yelp, Microsoft, Philips, IBM, GoDaddy, etc. for internships/co-ops/full-time. I believe in general that where you go to college does not limit your job prospects.
@ImmaEatChuNow Thank you for sharing your experiences. I’m glad to hear that you have had a good support network of CS students to help you. Can you just generally talk about the how collaborative (or not?) the environment is at Case? I’m hesitant about college being a cut-throat atmosphere, where everyone is constantly on edge or hyper competitive. Also, do you have any insight as to the possibility of a double major in computer engineering and computer science? Is it do-able or just ridiculous, on top of the apparently heavy workload that Case is known for? Thanks in advance.
@hafamama No one answered you, so I will take a stab at it. I am a parent. As far as double majoring it is doable
at CWRU, especially ECE and CS together. If you have AP or IB credits that will help you double major. I don’t think my son found it hyper competitive at Case. Its more relaxing than many other highly selective schools, and the professors are easy going, but still rigorous. Students at Case can take graduate level classes in some cases for an undergrad degree. Math and physics works that way. Computer science students have chances to become graders if they do well in classes, its a payed part time job. My son’s friend in CS just got an offer from Yelp and another got an offer from AT&T. One did a five year masters degree in CS at CWRU.
Have you asked your questions to the chair of the EECS department?
@Coloradomama @bopper Thanks for responding! In the end, my son decided to commit to another school (just a couple of days ago), though he liked Case and especially thinkbox. I’m very grateful he had a good FA offer from Case and such good schools to choose from. On a bright note, he decline will mean that another deserving student comes off the waitlist. Thank you to the active parents on the Case board.
“…on a bright note, he decline will mean that another deserving student comes off the waitlist…”
Not necessarily, schools build into their model a percentage of wd’s, as they don’t expect everyone to accept their offer