Computer Science major?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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<p>So I'm really interested in University of Chicago because it seems to be a really awesome atmosphere and student body, but my main question is about the computer science department there. I want to major in computer science but I've heard form various people that computer science at U of C isn't really.. that good. The people who have told me this never actually went to the school there so I'm not sure what to think of their opinions..</p>

<p>My other question is about biology at U of C. Computer science is definitely my most important focus but I also really like biology and am thinking I might do a double major or a minor in biology. How is the biology at U of C? How is double majoring in general? And on another note, do biology and computer science degrees have any practical use together in the job/grad school world after college? </p>

<p>My main concern after college is getting into grad school, so how is the grad school path from U of C? How many people go to grad school and which schools do they generally go to? How likely am I to get into Caltech or MIT, for instance, for grad school after undergrad at U of C?</p>

<p>If anyone can answer any parts of my questions I'd appreciate it. ^^</p>

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<p>Hey there, I’m a first-year majoring in Computer Science and Economics, so I can say a bit about our CS department.</p>

<p>I’m currently in the second quarter of the Honors Introduction to Computer Science. My professor founded the CS department at Chicago, and we’ve had a fair bit of conversation about the department.</p>

<p>First off, a CS education at UChicago is nothing to scoff at. Alumni go on to top IT firms (Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.) and trading firms; I’m not as aware of placement in academia.</p>

<p>However, I can understand why one might discount our CS department. After all, we’re only ranked 35th on the US News ranking of CS departments ([Rankings</a> - Computer Science - Graduate Schools - Education - US News](<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-computer-science-schools/rankings/page+2]Rankings”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-computer-science-schools/rankings/page+2)). Thinking of top CS schools, Chicago doesn’t really come up against places like Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, etc.</p>

<p>The discrepancy between Chicago’s status as a world-class university and the perhaps lacklustre public opinion of its CS department can primarily be attributed to the size of our department.</p>

<p>We currently have about twenty professors ([Department</a> of Computer Science](<a href=“http://cs.uchicago.edu/faculty]Department”>http://cs.uchicago.edu/faculty)), more than a quarter of whom are shared with the Mathematics and Statistics departments, whereas at say Carnegie Mellon, you might have five or six times as many faculty with the corresponding increase in breadth.</p>

<p>As it stands, CS at UChicago is very, very heavily focused in theory (although I’m sure you could have guessed that, us being UChicago :wink: ). We also have a solid contigent of professors in systems, but otherwise the faculty is thin-spread across CS. As a result, course selections and more importantly research opportunities can be sometimes sparse.</p>

<p>Of course, there’s also the part where we have an awesome time, learn until our brains explode, bond over monads, and curse the fact that the professors are hipsters just like the students. :)</p>

<p>If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me.</p>

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<p>Wow… this sounds exactly like me. I want to go to UChicago to do CS but also want to do Bio and maybe Psychology. Thanks for the answer Rny.</p>

<p>In general I think if you want to go into CS, it’s good to double major with another subject since CS is very applicable in almost every discipline. Being a small department has its advantage. a.) you feel special, b.) you get more attention, c.) you get more research opportunities because not many will be competing with you.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the response Rhys, was very helpful. I’m still a little hesitant to go with U of C for computer science but I’ll be visiting this April and be able to see for myself what it’s like. I don’t mind the idea of a small department and since I’m more concerned with grad school than with getting a job right away, I’m just worried about not being able to take the courses I’d like to in computer science if the school just doesn’t have them.</p>

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<p>If you need a list of the courses they offer look no farther than this: <a href=“http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/pdf/CMSC.pdf[/url]”>http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/pdf/CMSC.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Computer science here is awesome, but a LOT of work. If you have the want, you can learn applied (i.e., programming) CS here through some of the classes (Stuart Kurtz’s Honors Intro to CS 16200, a.k.a. “So you want to be a programmer…” is excellent. You learn MANY languages, although it is anywhere from 15-25 hours of work a week.). On the side of course, you can learn more applied programming. Outside of applied cs, the CS department here has an excellent theoretical side to it, and mixes in with the math department as well.</p>

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<p>Yeah, Sean’s right. CS 16200 is one of the best classes in the Comp Sci department, maybe even in the physical sciences. You learn a new language every other week (We’ve done shell scripting, awk, sed, python, C, and are now starting yacc/lex and XML at some point in the future). Along the way, you learn tons about computers, from finite state machines to Unicode to memory management.</p>

<p>Oh, and the best part? 50% of your grade is work on a class wiki, where people propose programming projects and you work together to solve them in whatever way you want, in the vein of Project Euler ([Project</a> Euler](<a href=“http://projecteuler.net/]Project”>http://projecteuler.net/)).</p>