I went to graduate school at FSU and earned an MPH. Later, I earned an MS in Software Engineering at UWF online. For that 2nd master’s degree, I took many courses throughout the state online in computer science: FAU, Seminole State, SPC, FSU, UWF, and MDC. I did that to supplement missing undergraduate courses in computer science. FSU definitely has a very strong, rigorous computer science program. Expect about 15-20 hours per week of study for 3 credits. This is especially true for upper division courses. The courses have many international students and elite local students of FL. The freshman and sophomore year tend to “weed out” those who aren’t serious about studying that hard or do not have the aptitude for CS. The FSU graduates I worked with were very strong in learning Java and applying data structures and algorithms for ORM/Hibernate or similar architecture of development in the “full-stack”.
With that said, there are weaknesses. FSU CS tends to be more “academic” than “industry-related”. By contrast, UCF has had popular and industry-focused CS courses taught by Google software engineers. FSU focused more on C++ and traditional relational databases using SQL. There was not a course on cloud computing either. FAU, UWF, UCF, and USF actually have better courses for such new technologies that industry demands. I also noticed a lot of FSU CS graduates were weak on extreme front-end development using ReactJS, Vue, Angular, etc. That was because there was not a formal set of courses to develop those front-end skills rigorously. By contrast, FAU and USF had very deep coursework on addressing that. So does UF.
The FSU CS program does have an extreme weak spot I can’t help but point out. I have worked in software engineering for over 20 years in different industries. The culture of the FSU CS program often has students and professors with the mindset of “you have to respect our major because it’s harder, but we don’t have to respect yours”. For example, I almost went to medical school years ago and am familiar with advanced, upper-division topics of pre-med courses. So, one day I mentioned that mitochondria was involved in cell metabolism. An FSU CS guy blatantly rejected that and insisted mitochondria was a plant. Now, this guy was very intelligent and did great in the CS courses. I reviewed a lot of his code and can attest to his extreme talent in software development. But (1) he did not respect pre-med as a hard major and (2) because he excelled in CS he automatically assumed he knew more about pre-med topics than the pre-med majors themselves. This is really rude because the pre-med students also study about 15-20 hours per week in their upper-division courses. So, the FSU CS department has a need to bring in a communication course into the curriculum to address such communication breakdowns and problem of rude, condescending behavior common among CS students. Some of the FSU CS professors also have that problem. I also have a hardware engineering background and studied applied physics, so I know those science courses are not easy either. I have seen CS majors disrespect the other engineering fields too like mechanical engineering. It’s ironic because I am pretty sure that fluid dynamics course at UF would weed out a lot of CS majors at FSU with their limited calculus courses. Fluid mechanics is probably the hardest engineering course I have ever taken. Mechanical engineers at UF have to understand tensor calculus to thrive in those courses. It’s a grueling endeavor. They also take about 15-20 hours per week of study. In addition to problems at FSU CS for oral communication, there is also a weak spot in written communication. The uses of UML, ER, written software design, requirements traceability, regulatory compliance, etc. are not in scope of the curriculum. By contrast, USF, FAU and UWF have such courses.
This rude attitude among CS majors can lead to future work problems with accusations of racism, sexism, or ageism. There could be lawsuits, demotions, bad performance reviews, layoffs, etc. I have seen rude lead software engineers wind up with problems like that due to poor communication and blatant disrespect of coworkers due to some self-perceived status of being the “god of programming” with that A+++ in data structures and algorithms. To be fair, not all FSU CS students were like that, but the rudeness was common. I saw one elite lead developer forced into a training session on group communication with performance reviews enforced periodically. Many female co-workers had labeled him as a toxic male. The FSU CS program really needs to adopt a curriculum that addresses communication issues common in the work environment. By contrast, I took a graduate course on communication with many female students in Indiana that specifically addressed communication problems and even discussed the work ramifications of the “Me Too” movement and the reactions of men in engineering. FSU CS really needs a course like that.
So, in summary, a set of courses for industry-based programming and communication to improve relations with workers from other fields would help FSU CS students immensely.
For an industry-related CS program, USF,UCF, and FAU would be stronger. I learned Java REST at FAU with applications of a back-end database using ER and 3rd normal form. FAU had a great course on data structures and algorithms too. USF and UCF are more industry-related relative to FSU. To be fair, I was at FSU in the 2010s for CS. It could have changed since then.
(Disclaimer: this post is informal. I am not submitting it to an academic journal with specific font, spacing, headers, titles/subtitles, using Overleaf, etc. On one recent post a rude software engineer started criticizing my formatting for some bizarre reason. I told him instead of worrying about the formatting of an informal blogger, I would recommend a shift of attention to the massive layoffs going on in IT and the decisions made behind the scenes by executives.)