Hi everyone,
I have been admitted to both UMD’s James Clark School of Engineering, as well as Virginia Tech’ Engineering School. Both are great choices, but I am having trouble deciding where to go. I am a Virginia resident, which means UMD will be far more expensive. I plan on majoring in Computer Science Engineering - both schools having great Comp. Sci. programs… Which school has a better program regarding my major? How hard is it to get my major in both schools?
Any advice would be appreciated! Thank you.
UMD is much better for graduate school. For undergrad, it’s hard for me to see how these two large flagship undergraduate schools could be sufficiently different enough to justify paying OOS-tuition for the other one.
You know I’m a huge Maryland cheerleader, but even I have to agree with @ClassicRockerDad. If you were out of state for both schools, I would say Maryland over VA Tech. However, since you are IS for VA, I can’t justify the cost differential, because VA Tech is a very good school.
Having said that, I want to clarify what it is you want to study…? If you were admitted to the Clark School of Engineering, that means you were admitted for Computer Engineering. At Maryland, Computer Science is a separate school (Computer, Math, Natural Sciences), whereas at VA Tech Comp Sci is a department in the engineering school.
The primary difference at Maryland between the CompSci degree and Computer Engineering degree is the amount of coding/programming. If coding is your only interest, then you would want CompSci. Here is a quote from a reddit discussion about the difference:
“I’m a Computer Engineering major at the University of Maryland, and the curriculum is quite literally a Computer Science degree and an EE degree except with a choice of 400 levels between the two fields and some 300 levels. I’m doing like 90-95% of what a CS major would do and about 85% of what an EE would do. I feel I could easily delve into either field, although I’m leaning my degree more towards software.”
Another commentator said
“Computer Engineering is more or less a hybrid of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. It prepares you to work in embedded systems and fields that utilize low-level languages like C/C++. However, you can definitely work in virtually any software engineering position with a Computer Engineering degree as you would be able to with a Computer Science degree. Computer Engineering just specializes you for lower-level/hardware stuff.
Computer Science focuses much more on pure computational and programming theory and application. In CS, you’ll definitely take more courses that utilize programming. If you want to be a more well-rounded software engineer I believe CS will give you a stronger foundation.
Lastly, a Computer Engineering degree will open more doors for you than a CS degree would as a Computer Engineering allows you to work in more hardware/embedded system/electrical engineering fields along with traditional CS fields.
However, a CS degree will ultimately prepare you to be a stronger software engineer as you take much more courses that focus on CS theory and application, whereas a Computer Engineering degree will only partially focus on CS theory/application.
A Computer Engineering degree is more along the lines of a “jack of all trades” whereas CS is more a mastery of a few.”