Rice is in TEXAS, not too far from Austin and Dallas, and there are relationships there to help. Come on, man. “I can do this all day,” said Captain America and Billy Beane in Moneyball. 
Tech has been moving away from Silicon Valley. Something about our taxes and home prices being too high and politics being too liberal or communist. 
Just posting information.
22 minutes reading time is way too long for my attention span these days, but I really enjoyed the photography!
The original article you cited is 4 years old (so the data they reviewed is likely even older). Tech wasn’t moving to Tx 4+ years ago. Will be interesting to see a newer survey in a few years, when some of the companies move their headquarters to Tx, or Colorado, or what have you.
I believe that Michael Dell started his company Dell Computers in his UT dorm room in 1984. Tech has been in Texas for a while now. Relocations and start-ups have just picked up more speed in the last several years.
Rankings and surveys have flaws. But the article was posted for informational purposes only.
So what? One tech company was started in Tx. This is irrelevant and has nothing do do with the OP’s question, and the OP seems to be long gone, presumably because his thread has been hijjacked.
Feel free to NOT respond to anything I post or take it to a PM. Or better yet, just block me.
No, it’s still one huge killer final project in lieu of a final exam!! And a huge time suck!! At least the last couple years that’s been the case. Fall 2018 is already outdated for the most part since that is also pre-covid and they’ve changed a lot around since they’ve gone to no partners. But Professor Bracy is one tough cookie for that class.
Off-topic, but I can’t resist. My apologies to the OP.
I have been reading the headline “Death of Silicon Valley, this time for real” since I moved here over 20 years ago and it is much older than that. Austin has had tech companies for decades, but it’s still not Silicon Valley.
This time it could be real, but national media really enjoys predicting the imminent collapse of… well, anything in California, but particularly Silicon Valley (oddly, they don’t predict the death of Hollywood as much, nor of farming in the Central Valley). This region has strong fundamentals, much older than many people realize (pre-WWII), some of which are staying put, such as Stanford and Berkeley. VC firms are still here, as well as the social and professional connections that provide credibility to startup companies. People who can afford a large enough house around here (a small subsegment to be sure) are usually not eager to move.
On the flip side, COVID-19 and the sudden increase in remote work has changed things, so it could be different. But many of the companies moving away are larger, established companies. Oracle is moving? Well, Oracle has already had offices all around the world. It has not really been a cultural presence here, nor set any trends I can think of in nearly 20 years. Their relational DB is feature-rich and reliable, if expensive, and they own Java. So I don’t dismiss them, but they don’t have the status they had during first dot-com boom.
When I moved here, Silicon Graphics was downsizing out of its offices in Mountain View (guess who’s there now?). Sun Microsystems was big, but I knew a lot of people who had just left (oh, and guess who hermit-crabbed their Menlo Park offices?). HP was larger but gradually withering (and Carly Fiorina did her best to speed that up).
There is an ongoing cycle, and companies should not base themselves here unless it’s worth the money, because it’s an incredibly expensive place to operate. Still, you get what you pay for. There is no massive exodus of talent, at least not so far.
Also, the state prohibition on non-competition agreements for ordinary employees means that people are more free to change employers or leave to start their own businesses on their own ideas.
It’s relatively easy to affiliate in CS at Cornell, however, the more weedout courses are CS 2110 an 2800 as you mentioned and there is actually a different math sequence for Engineering students which is more difficult because they have to take it with all the ENgineers, not the CAS students which means much harder curve, etc. Also, other weed out courses in general there are Chemistry and for a few the Physics although their Physics department is fantastic. You don’t however need a certain grade in those courses to affiliate into CS. There is however a capacity issue 100%. Courses are huge, TAs are not really all that great in many cases, it is hard to get in with the TAs and you have a whopping 15 mins with them before you go to the back of the line which recently was 4 hours. It’s really not efficient and many kids can’t work on something for 15 minutes before they hit a wall again and then have to wait 4 more hours to have something looked at. Also, TAs are often wrong which can then screw up the code and cause more wasted time.
@pbcparent My son works in silicon and he used to do a lot of interviewing for his company and they typically passed on MIT applicants who often failed their test. It sounds odd since they have a top CS program, but the skills that are needed at some of these companies, are not skills they are taught or perhaps can be taught with those brilliant minds of theirs. I forgot what he used to tell us about it.
@sushiritto That’s correct re Michael Dell. He lived in Dobie when my brother lived there and was pre med at the time. Didn’t want to go to college but parents made him is my understanding. My brother remembers him always tinkering around with computers/gadgets etc. Well, he dropped out right away and there you have it. The housing market thanks to all the tech companies coming to Austin is through the roof. We bought a condo there only 2 years ago for my daughter to attain residency and it’s already increased by more than 30% in value. We rent it out and have such a great ROI that I’m not interested in selling it yet, but it is such a hot market.
Also, for those worried about their kids and steering the into tech careers, your priority should be about their happiness not what is the most fruitful as far as $$. There are still so many things out there that will always earn great paychecks that aren’t purely in Engineering, CS, etc.
Btw, back to the SV and bubble bursting or not, etc. My son’s company (not the one when he was hiring, but the one he formed) is based in SF, it’s a ycombinator company. Last spring they hired their first employee and go figure, that person was based in Austin. I don’t even think he’s a UT graduate. Bottom line, you don’t need to be in SF or SV anymore. One of the airbnb backers is no longer in SV either and is in Austin as well but basically retired. Ultimately though some of these companies will want employees back in person and things may change but for the most part we’ve all seen in that world that you don’t necessarily have to be in person on a daily basis.
And feel equally free to take your own advice and not respond to me or whoever else you said that to who responded to you earlier.
I couldn’t agree more. My kids have two software engineers as parents and had every opportunity to pick up “coding” from an early age. They’re both smart and can do it, but it’s not what they want to do, and I’m basically without a road map because I know there are many great non-tech jobs out there (or non-engineering within tech such as product management). I just have no idea how you go about getting there. They’re going to have to figure this out for themselves I guess.
Guess what? They will figure it out. They clearly have some brains if their parents are software engineers.
I have the opposite issue. I was a business major, my 4 kids (2 girls/2boys )all heavily strong STEM students throughout high school. First was a CS anomaly savant, skipped college altogether and headed to SF and can’t explain what he does other than something with web analytics and something called postgres whatever the f that is. Twins were headed on the same track and I was at a loss not understanding any of it. My college boyfriend had to help me with my one CS class which was in Pascal…lol. The best news ever was when one twin decided to detour and in addition to applying to CS programs also thought maybe she would apply for a Business program, all because she also took Honors Acctg Senior year of HS. Thank god she did because she went that route and I can relate to her. #4 also going into CS (hs senior). So, here I am with 3 CS Stem kids doing something way above my head figuring it out by themselves, and one who I actually get but doing it oh so much better than me. The one twin in CS is switching to ORIE and CS minor and Business minor but happy she is figuring it out now.
But as I said, they figure it out. THey love college, I hope #4 does, #1 knew it wasn’t for him and as a parent it wasn’t what I wanted but I’m not the one who would be going to college and dealing with all of that, etc and ultimately as he turns 24 in May, I’ve realized it was the right choice for him and he can still always go back if he chooses.
It’s one reason Oracle isn’t such a big deal anymore. Less cryptically, it’s a very powerful relational database that you can use for free (at least up to a limit).
“I would hope that both adhere to the fundamentals of computer science as they’ve developed in the past century (starting with the fascinating question addressed by Church and Turing: what is computable?)”
The weed out course for CS or Compute Engineering outside of Calculus freshman year was typically switching theory which was more a hardware course, but I’m pretty sure CS majors had to take it (any course with theory in the title is not going to be fun!).
“At some colleges, students generally need to take it in their first two years”
Automata would be unusual to take in the first two years as ucbalumnus pointed out and typically wouldn’t be weed out.
“Cornell takes in the cream of the crop. Their mission should be to help all of them succeed. That is their responsibility.”
That’s not the way it works most places, especially say in pre-med. Some of the surveys done say that about 20% of a class at private universities are pre-med, regardless of major and I think about 5% of the larger public universities. Given the number of med school applicants and the number of doctors, there’s a lot of weed out that happens, even if it’s not called weed-out.
Edit: Thanks so much everyone for your perspectives! It’s been super helpful to see all these experiences with both schools. I haven’t made my final decision yet, although I’m leaning a bit towards Cornell after reading this forum and talking to several alumni from both schools, but I’ll let you guys know as soon as I do.
One more question I have - how do these two compare in terms of recognition in different parts of the country? From reading different responses, they both seem to have great reputations in SV, but what about other places? I just want to keep my options open in case I decide to go somewhere outside of SV. Thanks again!
In terms of name regognition, Cornell wins that battle nationally (outside TX) and internationally, but it shouldn’t matter very much unless you go to places like Asia.
Please don’t make your decision “prestige” or name recognition. Rice is small and less well known, but those who need to know, know it. It’s like Harvey Mudd. Fabulous school but not well known. Pick the school that is affordable and best for you.
OP, what is the cost of both colleges to you? COA should also consider/include travel costs. Please share the cost to attend each school.
There’re always trade-offs in life. The two schools are dissimilar enough that a decision shouldn’t be too difficult. If you value some extra potential possibilities in CS but don’t mind possibly more intense and less cheerful four years, go to Cornell. Otherwise, go to Rice.