<p>Son had applied and got deferred to RD at gtech. He is keen on CS, and had applied for CompE in Engineering.</p>
<p>Recently found out from a student there that the the CS track at College of Computing is very good and offers 8 different threads, leading to many areas and not just programming. He is interested in Software but does not want to limit himself to just that.</p>
<p>My question is that if he has applied for Engineering but wants to consider College of Computing as well, does he have to do anything now or inform them?</p>
<p>He has to send in updates by Feb 12th (mid year grades, plus a letter of interest).</p>
<p>He can pretty easily change his major after he is accepted. Since admissions is not based on major, I suggest that you wait to officially change majors until after the decision comes in.</p>
<p>^ You mean from a students prospective? Nationally it’s a top program. In the top 15? I was CmpE myself and took many CS courses. I found the labs to be too involved for the time (usually 1 hr) and the auto-grader was a PITA. My TAs were *generally pretty helpful. Most use IM so I could just drop a msg when needed. Teachers usually don’t have much office time so the TAs are very important. Generally, around campus, the CS program is viewed as a tough time intensive program.</p>
<p>College of Computing used only offered CS degree. Now it offers Computing Media degree. </p>
<p>Computer Science is math based degree. Half of courses are math and half of courses are Computer Science. </p>
<p>Computing media is more liberal art based degree. Half of courses are liberal art and half of courses are computer science.</p>
<p>Computer Science is more software related major (Java, smalltalk and higher level language) while computing engineering is hardware related major (C or lower language).</p>
<p>CS ranked 9th and Computing engineering ranked 7th, according to USNews. </p>
<p>College of computing has its big building, a spaceship like building called Klaus Advanced Computing Building and another building called College of computing building. wikipedia Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing.</p>
<p>I meant from a students perspective, yes. Since there well kids doing CompE in Engineering and then the whole lot in College of Computing. I am wondering if a student whose main interest is software but wants to do other things will be just better off in the C of C, since there will many more students there.</p>
<p>Does the CompE have a tougher reputation than CS in C of C.</p>
<p>Every student has to take two computer programming courses at tech. Since those two are generally considered weed out courses (Management and Liberal Arts major apparently can take easier version starting a couple of years), I doubt anybody consider CS easier major. Also, COC and Computer engineering facilities are next two each others and there are a lot of coordination between two majors (network and operating system areas in particular). I would say that CS and computer engineering major are gathered similar respect among students.</p>
<p>I’m sort of in the same predicament (whether or not I go to GT in a couple years). I cannot pick - CS or CompE? I really love math, science and computers, but I recently feel like (after looking at sample schedules) I’d enjoy all the math courses and CS courses than having to deal with circuits (Signal processing, circuit analysis, microelectronic circuits, electromagnetics?) - I don’t have a great idea of what these classes entail yet, so my idea might change.</p>
<p>Then on the CS hand, (obviously this has plenty of time to change), but I feel most interested in Devices/Information Internetworking or Devices/People threads. In those, I get to take tons of Math/Statistics classes and CS classes. I feel like I’d enjoy that more, but again, I have no clue yet when it comes to deciding between these 2.</p>
<p>Would a Computer Science degree generally leave me out of a job? I’d probably get a Masters in Business (or maybe Computer Science/Engineering) after Undergrad.</p>
Engineering is typically known to be tougher than CS, but not by much. It really depends on where your interests lie; if you code for fun, you might find ECE difficult and CS easy; if you like building circuits and dealing with hardware but have trouble coding, it might be the opposite.</p>
<p>
No. Lots of CS grads have great jobs with companies ranging from Google/Microsoft to local businesses.</p>
<p>
This is a very important point to remember: if you are interested in circuitry and software, you can incorporate those into a CS degree by choosing related threads. For those who don’t know, there are 8 threads and a typical CS major choose 2 threads for his/her degree. Devices and Information Internetworking are the most electrical-oriented threads, and you can get everything you need from that and you get lots of software experience too. If you’re not really into coding/software, I recommend ECE, but if you are, I definitely recommend CS with electrical-oriented threads.</p>
<p>Yes, son is more into software he loves coding!! </p>
<p>Infact, he is an iPhone App developer and has 4 products in the Apple store, right now as I write this he is writing code for a new App which is going on live and Macworld Online is talking about him!! Gosh I am so nervous!! I hope he can do this challenge (of coding in a week and documenting for the world to see). </p>
<p>Since middle school he has taught himself programming and the iphone software has learnt it all on his own during the summer from Stanford’s Opencourse Ware.</p>
<p>So is it possible to double major in CS and CompE? My son has been accepted into CS, but is thinking about double majoring in CompE to give himself more flexibility in the future job market. </p>
<p>From what has been said earlier it sounds like, depending on which threads you choose in CS, there may be a number of similar/common courses between the two majors. Plus he will have a number of AP credits when he starts in the Fall (Chem, Calc B/C, Eng Lang, Eng Lit, US Hist, World Hist, Stats, French, Spanish, US Govt). So would it be possible for him to double major, and approximately how long would it take him to do so (without overloading on credit hours each semester)?</p>
<p>Assuming your son passes or has already passed the mentioned exams with sufficient grades, he will come in with 26 hours towards his degree and 32 hours overall. The second language exam will not count towards his degree, because he would have already fulfilled the humanities requirements with the first language exam, but he will still get credit. Statistics will not count towards anything, because Tech does not accept credit for AP Stat since it is not calculus based, and there is no need to take the second English exam if he already scored a 4/5 on the first one, because Tech only allows students to exempt English I. </p>
<p>This means he could double major in four years without too much difficulty. The ECE degree allows for 10 hours of ECE or CS electives, so he could use these electives to get both degrees without extending his stay at Tech or taking more than the recommended number of hours each semester. Your son might also want to consider the possibility of forgoing a double major in favor of completing the BS/MS program in ECE, which would allow him to get a bachelors and masters in ECE within four years (while still taking a good number of CS courses) Generally, an MS is more useful than a double major. He can talk about all of this with his academic adviser once he gets to Tech.</p>
<p>Thank you, InPursuit. That was very helpful.</p>
<p>Actually, my son will probably have even more credits than that because he has also taken Calc III, Intro to Java, and Discrete Math at NC State. But he is not sure if he will accept the credits for all of these as he is concerned that he might find the follow-on courses at GA Tech more difficult if he doesn’t retake them.</p>
<p>You mentioned a BS/MS option in ECE. Does CS also have such an option? My son is more interested in the CS end, so I am thinking he would probably not go for the BS/MS option in ECE, even if it does involve a number of CS courses, because his degree would not be in CS. Any thoughts on this?</p>
<p>If Tech accepts the credits, I would take them. Your son sounds like he is academically strong enough (and dedicated enough) to adjust to any differences in rigor he might face when he comes to Tech. He may wish to take it easy his first semester to test the waters, but I don’t foresee him having any difficulty adjusting. </p>
<p>The CS department does not currently offer a joint BS/MS program. However, your son could talk to his advisor to see if designing such a program of study is possible. They might not entertain this thought until he has an established record of success though. With that said, it sounds like your son will be coming in with enough hours to make it possible to complete the BS and then the MS as separate degrees and still finish in four years. The Masters of CS program is 36 hours.</p>
<p>If his main focus is CS (as opposed to an equal interest in CS and ECE), I would advise against double majoring. Unfortunately, ECE does not currently offer a minor, but he would be able to take ECE courses for elective credit. </p>
<p>You can visit the following sites for a better idea of major requirements and opportunities within the CS department:</p>
<p>Though this is technically true, they DO offer “fast track admissions” to the MS program for GT CS undergrads. This is fairly similar, as it is easier for them to slide right from BSCS to MSCS.</p>