Computer Science

Colleges and Universities A-Z Johns Hopkins University
1

Hey guys,
I’m really interested in computer science and somewhat business. I was wondering how well JHU ranks in computer science. I visited the campus and loved it. Is JHU a school I should go to if I want to study computer science and work at Google or Facebook? How does JHU’s computer science program compare against other top engineering schools? Thank you

2

I’m a computer science major at JHU (rising sophomore) and I really like it. What’s nice about the program is that it’s small, so you really get an opportunity to get to know your profs and the other students in the department. I believe the department is getting larger as well, with more students declaring CS, and the university has built a brand new building (2014) that houses the CS department and the Extreme Materials department.

Another great thing about CS at JHU is that it is EXTREMELY interdisciplinary. There are so many different tracks within the major, and each one is pretty highly ranked (don’t know exact rankings off the top of my head); but ultimately it’s not really the ranking that matters but rather the networking and experience that you gain through the department. Personally, I’m very interested in computational medicine/robotics, and because of the highly-ranked BME department and the emphasis on research, there are plenty of labs where you can land research positions.

Finally, it’s very easy to double major at JHU, particularly with another engineering field where there’s a lot of course overlap. I was initially planning to double major with CS and political science, but decided not to for my own reasons - it was, however, doable. That really gives you a multifaceted view of your field (CS or any other field) that you don’t get from many other CS/undergrad degree programs in the country.

Ultimately, it’s your decision, but I can tell you that it’s a great program and you have a lot of great opportunities if you choose to come here. Rankings tend not to matter that much when compared to the experiences you have. Also keep in mind that you might (probably will) change your mind - God knows I did. JHU is unique in that almost every degree offered is highly ranked with brilliant faculty- International Studies, Neuroscience, Writing Seminars, Computer Science, Classics, Biology/Chemistry, Mathematics, etc. You’ll have a lot of difficulty finding a department that’s not strong. Even if you stick with CS, you’ll have a lot of opportunities to explore other subjects at a very high level, which not a lot of other places can offer. You’ll end up getting a high-quality CS education along with great experience in other fields you’re interested in. You can’t lose.

3

I’m also a CS major at Hopkins (with a BME double major) and a rising Junior

  1. Hopkins's' CS rank Accusing to USNews, Hopkins is ranked #28 for computer science.
  2. Should you come here if your end goal is to work at Google, Facebook, and the like? It really depends on a. Are you interested in learning about more than pure CS? The Hopkins CS department's, and indeed Hopkins in general's, strength lies in it's interdisciplinary program. Sure you can pursue pure CS and load up with classes in operating systems, databases, parallel processing, etc - and you should take some of those classes - but at Hopkins you can also take classes in video game programming, computational medicine, robotics, cryptography and security, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and there's probably more than I'm forgetting about. There are plenty of other schools that teach plain CS, and a few that teach it better than us, so if you choose to come here take advantage of the wide array of classes we offer. b. Are you prepared to chase job opportunities? Job recruiting at Hopkins isn't the best - especially for someone looking to go to silicon valley. Those companies tend to focus their recruiting efforts on Berkeley, Stanford, and while the larger companies do come out to Hopkins we aren't a main recruiting pool. So if you come here you're going to need to be prepared to be proactive in your job search. Apply for the Microsoft and Google freshman and sophomore internships, look for research or other progressing experience early, etc.

Honestly if your end goal is to work in the valley, Hopkins isn’t necessarily the BEST option - if you can get into Berkeley or Stanford that would be ideal, but a Hopkins degree in CS will definitely help in the job search.

  1. How does JHU's computer science program compare against other top engineering schools? Like I said before, Hopkins is ranked #28 for engineering. However most schools teach, more or less, the same brand of pure CS. At Hopkins you have the chance to explore lots of different and interesting aspects of computer science which you generally wouldn't get to touch unless you were a grad student.

Good luck. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask.

4

Those are graduate ranks

5

@QuestionsMate I am aware of that and if you’d like to post the undergrad specific rankings be my guest.

In my experience subject specific grad rankings are analogous to undergrad rankings. And since reliable grad rankings are easier to find / free on USNews I’ll take them at face value.

6

Yeah but schools such as UW Madison, University of Maryland College Park, and Purdue are highly ranked for computer science graduates but don’t have a competitive admissions process for undergraduate computer science. Also if you look at undergraduate starting salaries from those schools, they are not as high. There is a top 15 undergraduate computer science ranking from US news, but you have to pay for access to the last few. I don’t really know it works

7

It really depends on how you view rankings as a whole. From my perspective rankings are useful as an indication of

  1. Quality of education (expertise of professors, quality of grad students/TAs, richness of curriculum, etc)
  2. Quality/quantity of resources (labs, software, career centers, advising, etc)
  3. Prestige and reputation
    These factors are generally ubiquitous through undergrad and grad programs within a department.

As to your points

  1. Yes it’s true that some of the schools on the top 15 list don’t have competitive admission processes - Purdue is at 49%, UW is at 55%, and UMD is at 48%. But this honestly has nothing to do with the quality of their CS programs for a couple of reasons
    a. Getting in is one thing, staying in is another
    Many large public schools have a GPA cutoff below which you can’t declare a CS major. So while getting into Purdue may not be as difficult as getting into Hopkins, maintaining a high enough GPA might - in the long run - be a bigger selection barrier for undergraduate CS majors than the undergrad admission process.
    b. More students doesn’t necessarily lead to lower quality of education:
    Keep in mind that the schools you’ve listed are large public flagships. They’re used to having large student bodies and provide resources to scale to their population. More students doesn’t necessarily mean the school slacks off on providing an education.
  1. I see starting salary as an unfair metric. For example, a large percentage of Hopkins undergrads choose to go to graduate or preprofessional school. Thus they don't contribute much to Hopkins' starting salary metric. Similarly (and this is more conjecture) UW Madison, UMD College Park, Purdue, etc are huge public schools with many different departments - and the average student is not an engineer. Thus most students at these huge schools will "weigh down" the average starting salary metric. So this metric favors schools like Georgia Tech, with a large number of STEM students, and actively weighs down larger and/or grad school focused schools.
  2. USNews offers a paid, premium subscription which gives you access to more rankings and lists and whatnot. I refuse to pay for that because, as I've mentioned before, I'm fine with extrapolating from grad school rankings.
8

Thanks for the insight and clarification. I was looking at the undergraduate starting salary for computer science majors at purdue and the website said it was like 70k, which is obviously really good still. But if you look at CS majors from UIUC, the average is 85k. It’s even higher for Berkley and CMU graduates. Anyways, I guess you’re right that it is an unfair metric. The average salary for Rutgers grads (not starting) is among the top 10. I guess it really depends on your ability and how hard you will work.

9

Also btw, UW’s acceptance rate for CS is really really low. Out of the 55 percent that get in, only 20 percent get to declare the CS major.

10

Questions for saif235 and yoloyng:

  1. What %age of students apply and get an internship in CS in the sophmore and junior years?
  2. Are CS internships in any big name companies or are they all in local companies? Not sure if there are any big name CS tech companies in the Baltimore area?
  3. For those seniors who chose to get into the work stream (instead of grad studies), how many offers do they get?
  4. What is the seniors response on the number and quality of companies compning to JHU for CS?

Thanks in advance for your help.

11

@Jerseyshor

There isn’t really any published data on your questions - or if there is I couldn’t easily find it, so I’m going to answer as well as I can anecdotally.

  1. Every computer science sophomore and junior I know is either working as a summer intern or as a research assistant this summer. But I know a very small percentage of computer science majors so I can't be sure if my friend/acquaintance group's experience translates to the rest of the department.
  2. I know Hopkins CS students who are interning at big name companies like IBM and intel, government organizations like NASA, interdisciplinary/R&D places like APL, and small startups both in the DMZ and in silicon valley.
  3. There's no real way to know. In most circles, the guy who brags about about their job offers is considered an ***hole. And most people don't want to be that guy. I personally don't talk about job offers, internship offers, research offers, etc unless I'm explicitly asked - and even then I'll only talk about the one I accepted, not all the offers I received.
  4. Hopkins tends to attract the really big name pure CS companies (Google and the like), government organizations and contractors (NASA, JPL, Applied Physics Lab, NSA, CIA), consulting firms (Accenture, Booz Allen, BCG), and medtech companies (Medtronic, Genentech, etc). However, schools like UC Berkeley or Stanford will attract a plethora of pure CS companies that Hopkins can't compete with - (everything from Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook, to tiny startups) - by virtue of their location in silicon valley.

(Edit for typo)