How is CS department at Trinity? I would like to know the quality of education, internships and job prospects for Trinity CS undergraduates.
@ACT2017 My D is looking at majoring in Business there. We toured Trinity yesterday as part of their Trinity In Focus open house. There were about 250 students in attendance and we were told by our tour guide the CSI Building has just been refurbished. It was pretty impressive! Our area GC has been most helpful and very quick to respond to questions. D applied EA1 and we should hear back around mid December.
https://new.trinity.edu/academics/centers/center-sciences-innovation/csi-building
The CS Dep’t is housed in their $231M Integrated Science Building that opened a 1.5 years ago.
They have a great faculty, and they pay their faculty very well to keep the good ones.
My S did a Summer Research Internship after his freshman year doing research with Dr. Hibbs on genomic sequencing of the naked mole rat, which they are exploring due to immunity to cancer.
The CS Dep’t is ranked Tier I in Rugg’s Guide, the best you can get.
Every class is taught by Prof’s–you wont find a TA in sight. The Prof’s are extremely accessible with generous office hours. CS majors will form strong relationships with those Prof’s over their 4 years.
Every CS major had a job before they started their Senior Year. As I posted on the other thread, they placed a kid into Harvard grad school last year, and another into Google.
The bottom line is that you will receive a superb CS education. My S has compared his first 1.5 years with friends attending multiple other schools also majoring in CS, and he is way ahead of them.
Hope this helps.
@Mum3kids @ColdinMinny - thank you both. We are planning to visit soon.
@ACT2017 At the Admissions session yesterday, the VP of Enrollment encouraged students to apply as soon as possible if they are remotely interested. They are looking to enroll a total of 640 students for the 2017 freshman class. Last year they had a spike of 30% in application (to about 7000ish?) and they anticipate another surge with as many as 8000 applying this year. FWIW, application is free on Apply Texas or Common App.
There’s also a Semmes Distinguished Scholar award of full tuition plus $5k stipend for students choosing to major in the sciences. Deadline for that is 1/1/17. All the best to your son!!
Thanks again @Mum3kids.
@ Son got in to TU and UT for Computer Science. He will be attending UT.
Why UT? Trinity is #2 in Texas.
Well, UT and TU are completely different animals. One is huge, one is small. One has D1 sports, one is D3.
UT has a superb CS Department, as does TU. No bad choice as far as the CS academics are concerned, but much different environments.
Good luck to your Son!
@ACT2017 Just curious what your conclusions were about CS at Trinity (before your son chose UT). My son unfortunately did not get into UT. He is looking seriously at Trinity as well as OU, UNT, Northeastern, and Boston U (all of which provide NM scholarships, unlike UT). (If it seems like an odd list for CS, it’s because he wants to do music composition, as well). Anyway, if you have any thoughts to share about CS at Trinity, I’d appreciate it.
@TexasMom2017 - I believe you will have flexibility for double majors in TU and small class size is an advantage. For us TU was not in the top of the list. My son was planning to attend either UTD or UIUC (OOS) in case if didn’t get accepted to UT.
My son is a sophomore CS Major at Trinity. He is taking, among other classes, Cyber Security, taught by the head of the Department, Dr. Meyers.
There are 7 students in the class.
That is what you want, IMO.
@ColdinMinny I hear you. That would never happen at UT (or any of the other schools we’re looking at)!
@TexasMom2017, my Trinity student is involved in science, music, theatre and some other interests I would have thought unlikely. Trinity appears to encourage entrepreneurial spirit and freedom of exploration, and provides opportunities to pursue uncommon combinations of majors, minors, interests. There seems to be no limit placed on students except the number of hours they can squeeze out of each day.
@lots2do thanks, good to hear! We are visiting this weekend and looking forward to hearing more about it. I do like that approach versus schools that seems to want to pin students down immediately.
@TexasMom2017 perhaps this is too late for your son,but: Boston University has a top computer science program with research options. There is a very strong PhD program there, and that can be an advantage for undergraduate students who want to get involved in cutting edge research. Northeastern has a strong co op program and now the go to school, in Boston, harder to get in compared to Boston U, but I still think for CS, Boston U is the better choice.Boston has the best computer music start ups outside of Los Angeles. Kurzweil was there, for years so lots of CS music geeks are all over the Boston area and they keep starting new companies!
For CS specifically, Northeastern is a big step ahead of BU. I’ve interacted with both departments and CS students at both - even the CS students at BU are in agreement. They have a professor known as “the trap” because he is a great teacher that convinces students to do CS from the intro course, and then they have left with the rest of the department the rest of the three years.
Northeastern’s curriculum and teaching approach is unique and gives a great undergraduate experience, and combined with co-op which gives you top industry connections.
A detailed overview of the program: http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/Thoughts/Growing_a_Programmer.html
BU’s graduate program isn’t particularly well known either, placing in the high 40’s according to the US News peer opinion survey. And again, that focuses on research, not the undergraduate experience. Northeastern ranks a bit below there but not by much, and top 15 in the concentration for programming languages (part of the reason for its undergraduate strength in teaching approach).
Of course, that’s just CS and part of a bigger decision and comparison, and BU is a very solid school overall and I think likely better for music. But BU is not really a top option for CS, graduate or undergraduate, in my experience.
@PengsPhils US News and World Report ranks Boston U at 48 and Northeastern at 60. Many Boston companies preferred BU’s program for masters degrees and BU has hired a lot of outstanding faculty from MIT Lincoln Labs, and Bell Labs lately.
@Pengsphils That Northeastern curriculum does look fantastic. Perhaps repost that under Northeastern U. for others to see ,as its buried here in the Trinity page.
Northeastern has come a long way from the night school days of 30,000 commuter students. Thanks for letting me know about that. DEC used to send everyone to BU, for masters in CS, but I bet now Northeastern is also popular with employers. Computer security research is outstanding at Boston U by the way. There is synergy with MIT Lincoln Labs. I am seeing your point that for undergrad, Northeastern is very organized about its curriculum.