My son likes everything about university of South Carolina. The size,weather,school spirit, and we do know of some kids who go there and really like it from our state. We will be going to visit it over spring break. He got in and also received a nice scholarship. My question is does anyone know about their computer science program? If anyone is currently in it or has graduated I would love some feedback. Or any thoughts in general. Thanks so much.
I took a quick look at South Carolina’s CS program page, and it looks pretty good actually.
It’s ABET, which isn’t as big of a deal in CS as it is in engineering disciplines, but pretty much takes away any worries about course content.
If the visit goes well - IE the campus doesn’t look like the “after” pictures of the Animal House set, can’t imagine it would be a bad choice.
When we looked at schools for CS I asked about coursework in the following areas:
- languages that involve pointers
- Operating Systems
- Linear algebra
- Some experience with the OS and applications at a command line level.
- normal stuff like data structures and algorithms.
Others will have different opinions of what’s important, but I work with a number of EE and ME grads who do embedded controls work, and these are the things I get tired of explaining to each new hire.
Thanks for the information. I appreciate it. We are meeting with the computer science department so we will be sure to have a list of questions for them.
My close friend’s son is there. It came down to Villanova for $50k a year or USC for about $20k.
He really likes it there.
That’s good to know On The Bubble. Villanova is a beautiful school. Do you know what he’s majoring in?
I don’t know anything particular about CS at U of South Carolina, but I imagine that there are often CS students who change majors there, as there are elsewhere. CS is often a tougher major than kids think it will be. DS estimates that at least 1/3 of his CS classmates shift to something else.
So, I would recommend thinking about what else is on offer at the school.
In 2006, our kiddo was accepted to University of South Carolina with McKissick scholarship. It was a fabulous offer.
The school really is great, and we all liked it…a lot. Nice facilities, beautiful campus, many options for majors, etc.
If you haven’t already done so, contact admissions…and tell them you are coming. They arranged an awesome day for out kid (who was not able to attend their scholarship weekend for accepted students). The school really knows how to roll out the red carpet for acceoted students.
Thanks for bringing up the point about changing majors. Your absolutely right about the High rate of CS majors changing. My older son is studying it right now and I’m hoping because this one has taken numerous CS classes in high school he has a idea of what he’s getting into. That being said, it’s a great point to consider. Thumper, I do have tours arranged but I have not actually contacted admissions. Should I just call and let them know we’re coming and see what they can arrange? I would really like to get as much out of the visit that I can considering we are flying out there for it.
When our kid went for her visit,Mae specifically asked for a student who was from the north…so our kid could talk to them about SC…and being from New England. She had one tour guide in the morning…and an individual one in the afternoon. In our case, this was in lieu of the scholarship weekend…which lie kid could not attend. So they arranged a personal weekend for our daughter. They even saved her “goodie bag” that was handed out on the scholarship weekend.
So…I would call…esoecially if there is something in particular you want to arrange.
Our kid also had an instrument lesson in the music department, an interview with the ad ine from the music department (she was NOT a music major) and tours of the engineering facility…which may be new since our kid was there.
We would have been delighted for her to attend. She actually chose a different college…but USC was terrific!