<p>What’s FWIW?</p>
<p>Fwiw = for what it’s worth</p>
<p>Yea, that’s the CS department for you. Won’t be able to get in until add drop swap. But not tough to get in during that time.</p>
<p>Emory realizes it’s a problem… In my opinion, it’s not working very hard to fix it. But I guess it is working.</p>
I’m a parent and new to this site. Seeking some insider information on the Computer Science dept at Emory. My son (freshman at Southern Poly) is not satisfied with the program he’s in (other students not taking the courses seriously, etc.) and also unsure about the impending merger with Kennesaw State. He’s looking to make a move to Tech or Emory, but not sure he’ll be accepted to transfer into GA Tech (since he was only wait listed last year). He needs to stay in state because of Zell. Would Emory’s Computer Science dept be a good choice for him? We also live close to Emory so he could commute if necessary.
I should also mention that he has other reasons for liking Emory, mainly their acceptance of LGBT students. My son is Trans woman but currently still presents as male. I’m thinking he’d be more accepted and understood at Emory. His doctor practices there and says it’s are a very welcoming campus. What are others thoughts? and what are the minimum GPA’s needed for transfer students, if anyone knows? He was nearly a 4.0 in HS but has dropped a bit in college to 3.6 or so, I believe. Thanks for any help you can provide.
@Amused8 I am also a parent in Georgia. Are you aware that Emory is a private school? The HOPE scholarships are meant to pay most or all of PUBLIC school tuition. At my D’s private Georgia college, she gets a small amount of money for being a Zell Miller Scholar, but it is a small percentage of her total tuition costs.
Emory’s tuition is over $44,000/year. It is important to consider best fit for your child. Just wanted to make sure you were comparing “apples to apples” when considering tuition costs at Georgia colleges. Only you can decide if a private Georgia college is worth the extra tuition costs. For our first child, we are confident she is at her best fit school, even though we have to struggle to make tuition payments. Not sure how our second child will fit into the Georgia college experience. He will be my computer science kid, but we have a few years before we have to decide with him.
Good luck making tough decisions.
You might get a better response from folks if you start a new discussion with your question.
My son was wait-listed at Georgia Tech and accepted into Emory. He is interested in computer science, but also electrical and other areas of engineering. Can anyone share their thoughts on the value of going to Emory to do the 3-2 BA/BS engineering dual degree, as a “back door” way to complete an engineering education at Georgia Tech?
I should add to my previous comment/question, that my son does have some interest in other areas, such as economics, philosophy, and maybe engineering related areas such as patent law, so a liberal arts education could provide some value as part of the 3-2. I guess my question is, if his priority is still getting the best engineering education, is it better to do a 3-2 program ending in a top tier engineering school like Georgia Tech, or do a 4 year more focused program in engineering at a second/third tier engineering school (Rensselaer, Northeastern, UMass, Tufts)
What about transferring to Tech from Emory?
A couple of my friends have done that. I think I recommend that over a 3-2.
aluminum_boat, technically, the 3-2 program is a transfer, but I suppose you are suggesting transferring earlier. Tha’s possible, but somehow I think that you would end up having to do 5 years anyway to satisfy GT graduation requirements. Interesting suggestion, though
Yes.
Transfer after the first year.
The main reason I advise against the 3-2 is that the Emory degree in that program is pretty much a waste of money… Unless 150k is worth it to pursue interests in Econ (Emory’s department is terrible, by the way) and Philosophy, I think he’s better off getting a rigorous engineering education with some GT courses in Econ/Philosophy interspersed.
I’m not completely convinced that the 3-2 even takes 5 years - or if it even goes into depth when it comes to an engineering education. I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes a bit longer.
@powercropper: 3-2 is fine for a stronger student and maybe works if you have lots of aid from Emory (or can afford it). Ivan Allen (the liberal arts entity of Tech) is maybe not as accessible as are the econ. or philosophy courses are at Emory if only because of the fact that freshmen at Tech, to keep up with the demands of engineering pre-reqs have to enroll in some time sucker intro. courses with low grading curves. If anything, this would dissuade them from pursuing additional courses in those areas. Many of those I knew who did 3-2 ended up fine at Georgia Tech because they had rigorous instruction at Emory (in fact, they had enough experience to easily outperform Tech students in most courses. Some of my friends cited that while the homework load was kind of high, often the exams were more predictable than those they received by Emory instructors. This especially goes for chemE 3-2 folks. My mechE person suggested that there wasn’t much of a difference and in fact made the mechE honor society. I believe his GPA was higher there than at Emory) I think they primarily were careful at selecting math and chemistry instructors to make sure they came in with a good background. Most of these folks ended up being chemE or MechE.
Also, the way to work an econ. major at Emory appears to be going through intro (or straight to intermediate) with top instructors (like Banerjee) and then choosing some of the more well revered 300 and 400 level courses (which seem to be more abundant with solid instruction, even if it is because they choose solid visiting professors to teach. Apparently money and banking is such a revered course) OR you can take business pre-reqs (like business econ., fin. accounting, decision analytics, with the rigorous instructor) OR if you are more quantitative and want to build those skills, do a QSS concentration (I’ve actually heard that the more advanced QSS courses are taught at a high level and have solid instruction and do focus on building analytical abilities in the context of math, which not many science or social sciences even do). While I think econ. at Emory is overall not good, I feel you can easily get good out of it, but many students choose not to because the worst instructors are usually the easiest, and needless to say straight up pre-bus people who don’t have AP credit for intro. econ (and thus will take regular intro econ. for b-school pre-reqs) desire exactly that. I suppose that one could find a way to 3-2 via the new engineering sciences program that came out could be good as well http://college.emory.edu/home/assets/documents/proposals/2015/spring/cc-meeting-1/New%20Program%20for%20BS%20in%20Engineering%20Sciences.pdf .
The guy teaching the CS (which will focus on matlab, one of the requirements for Tech) was my physical biology teacher and I can pretty much say for sure that his matlab class will be superior to CS 1370/1371 at Georgia Tech (those who took it for the 3-2 program were not fans, though they did make A’s). That class is the most rote thing I have ever seen. The way Nemenman will run his course is via an interdisciplinary project based approach (you develop a project in a field of interest and use matlab to describe your models. His physical biology course was similar in that you had to use matlab to do the problem sets and describe behaviors of different systems at various conditions/parameters, but the open-ended projects were optional for undergrads) and is more holistic than memorizing code in a vacuum. The other courses, I am not sure. I know that chem 141 is better than general chemistry at Georgia Tech (literally, kind of a soft multiple choice class. Certainly harder than a place like GSU where I am at for my masters’ but still nothing like one would expect for a very selective engineering school. So I guess both Tech and Emory have some underwhelming parts) unless you have a truly horrendous teacher, so it really just comes down to choosing math and physics courses wisely.
In general, Emory is rigorous enough in several areas such that it will not be considered a “backdoor”. Usually those from some other campuses in Ga that have guaranteed admissions policies have students that struggle in their transition and these may be more so viewed as “backdoor candidates”.
I have received a admission letter from Biomedical informatics department in Computer science program at EMORY.
I got a full fund scholarship.
MY major (Biomedical Informatics) is an interdisciplinary topic and it is not a pure computer science track and EMORY in Biology and healthcare is very strong.
Do you think that these features have not the high impact? and just ranking in Computer Science is important; however, my department is a part of computer science program.
Please guide me to make my decision.
Thanks!