<p>I was wanting to major in computer science. I heard the fail rate was high though. I consider myself skilled in computer science (I won a UIL CS state championship my sophomore year and got 2nd my junior year.) Should I be worried? Are the ones who fail the people don't try? What type of material should I know?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Do you truly like cs, have you taken both A and AB levels? (and if so what AP scores if you took them? )</p>
<p>My friend says it’s pretty hard (he’s having a hard time getting an A avg). I wouldn’t let it scare you off though. He never won a UIL CS state championship. If you want to major in CS, do it!</p>
<p>The failure rate for the first class is around 30% (varies 25%-35% by semester). Only 50% who start make it through the whole program.</p>
<p>CS is a self-selecting major. Not many people even attempt it unless they’re willing to try hard and are convinced they’ve aptitude for it; it’s a given that it’s extremely demanding intellectually and in terms of work load.</p>
<p>If you want something easy, try McCombs. The average graduating GPA is 3.5.</p>
<p>Hey picox what would you say about me:</p>
<p>I took AP Comp Sci A and got a 4 on the exam (kinda studied)
Took AP Comp Sci AB and got a 3 (did not study)
Taking Independent Comp Sci now.</p>
<p>I am very interested in it (not for the $ that some people mistake it for granting).
The theoretical side interests me greatly especially in applying it to the real world. </p>
<p>Will I most likely pass? Or are the early failures the ones who take cs for stupid reasons?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>“If you want something easy, try McCombs. The average graduating GPA is 3.5.”</p>
<p>Schools aren’t ranked top ten in the country because they’re easy. McCombs students have a high GPA because they’re the brightest kids in the state. Are there some kids that have no business being there? Absolutely. But just because kids perform at high levels doesn’t make it easy. The quality of the student is extremely high at McCombs. </p>
<p>If Colt McCoy averages 300 yards a game passing, does that mean it’s easy?
If Texas’ defense only gives up 60 yards rushing a game, does that mean it’s easy?
Of course not. Give credit where credit is due.</p>
<p>I’d suggest that McCombs has dramatically higher GPAs due to grade inflation and the easy of understanding business administration as so-called “education.”</p>
<p>If you think the brightest kids go to business colleges, you’ve a serious disconnect with reality. There’s high demand for it because it leads to high paying (if boring) jobs, but the truly brightest kids want to study something that has intellectual challenge.</p>
<p>Accounting and finance and marketing are vastly easier subjects to learn than engineering, computer science, or physics- for basically anyone.</p>
<p>CS isn’t bad. Grad CS at UT is world class (leaders in Artificial Intelligence.) </p>
<p>My CS knowledge is limited (I’m EE) but I’ve taken several overlapping courses that you are required. A 4.0 would be very hard, but not flunking out is quite easy. I’d say a smart hard worker can make a 3.2-3.5 without too much trouble.</p>
<p>But as far as gaining admission into the school with cs as your first choice, is it that competitive?</p>
<p>Picox - when you’ve taken Advanced Cost Accounting, I want you to come back here and tell us all how easy it is. You’re talking out of your a@@ because you’ve got a grudge against business school people, it’s shown through in all the time you’ve been on CC.</p>
<p>Get over it.</p>
<p>Well, I always took business to be fundamentally different. The subject matter is easy, thats just how it is. For every hard class a Biz major has (accounting) we can throw one back that’s harder (Solid State Physics). We also have a higher work load (I’ve yet to meet someone who wastes as much time on labs as EE majors).</p>
<p>That said, business has other requirements. Presentation and personality is more important. Class rank is also much more important to biz majors. I can graduate last in my class and still get a good job, same can’t be said for you guys.</p>
<p>They’re different, thats just how it is (But Cockrell>McCombs :P)</p>
<p>Jacob, I’m not at UT, I’m a parent who has a kid in the MPA program in McCombs and another who will be in the EE program in Cockrell next year. </p>
<p>Yes, they are fundamentally different kids. But, the one who is in McCombs was a valedictorian, with amazing stats, who very easily could have gained admission to EE and most likely excelled, accounting just suits him better; the one who will be doing EE is a salutatorian, with amazing stats, who could have gone to McCombs, but chose EE because it suits him better.</p>
<p>To say that EE students are somehow smarter, or that: </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>is simply not true. Nor is it true that accounting is easy.</p>
<p>And to say that:</p>
<p>
implying that business cannot be intellectually challenging :rolleyes:</p>
<p>is speaking out of his a@@. :)</p>
<p>Both statements are unfair characterizations, over generalized, and patently unfair to people who choose McCombs. Nuff said.</p>
<p>(oh, and my above post was not directed at you, it was directed at picox, who contributes alot of trollish and mean spirited posts)</p>
<p>^ I agree. I think it is all about preference. I know a lot of kids who are amazingly smart who want to go to the Liberal Arts/Business school instead of Engineering because Engineering just doesn’t interest them.
Saying that one is better than the other or smarter people go to Engineering is misleading and very unfair to those people who don’t want to choose Engineering as their major.</p>
<p>I know I could have gone into Engineering but I really don’t enjoy the subject and I don’t think I would like being an engineer, and if people in engineering don’t like business then that is ok. But there’s no reason to badger someone else’s major just because you think yours is better.</p>
<p>I wasn’t referring to the mean intelligence of the student in a particular major, I was referring to difficulty. Engineering tends to be more difficult. I’ve yet to see a major with a heavier work load. Business isn’t a cake walk, but you don’t have 10+ hour labs every week.</p>
<p>CS fits into this category from what I’ve seen. Expect to spend a lot of time programming. I know the last EE 316 lab (which CS takes) is between 2 and 10 hours depending on the person.</p>
<p>Picox: “If you think the brightest kids go to business colleges, you’ve a serious disconnect with reality”</p>
<p>I never said that, peterpan. All I’m saying is a high GPA average for McCombs doesn’t mean the academics is easy. It actually makes sense that we have a high GPA because our students went through tougher admission standards. </p>
<p>Whose smarter between business and engineering students? Who knows, who cares. But at this school, McCombs dominates.</p>
<p>ag54, exceptions don’t break the generalization. Only in mathematics does a counter example break the claim.</p>
<p>Business requires little abstraction and is cognitively easy to understand because it’s concrete, even simplistic in many cases. Sure, some business majors require a lot “work”- or busyness- but it’s not intellectual or scholarly. Plumbers have high work ethic too, but not the attitude that BBAs so often have (Big Bull*** Artists.)</p>
<p>I don’t know why this is hard to understand. Any college graduate can immediately enter an MBA program with zero preparation in business because it is indeed that easy. Fields of study that have academic merit require that the student have developed deep analytical and expository skills through a course of study over a body of knowledge that actually stretches the mind.</p>
<p>anieo, </p>
<p>Your hackneyed references to sports and domination only show the extent to which your language limits your world.</p>
<p>picox, that you fail to see how insulting your over-generalizations are is pretty illuminating as to your dogmatism. I am fairly sure that one day, when you mature and are having to deal with your “intellectually inferior” boss, who happens to have a liberal arts degree, business degree or MBA, your attitude might change. </p>
<p>If not, good luck getting promoted. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>IBM Chairman - Samuel J. Palmisano - BA History; his predecessor - Louis Gerstner - MBA</p>
<p>Intel Chairman - Paul S. Otellini - BA Economics, MBA</p>
<p>Dell Corp. - current CEO - Michael Dell - college dropout at 19; former CEO- Kevin Rollins - BA humanities and civil engineering, MBA</p>
<p>Hewlett Packard CEO - Mark Hurd - BBA from Baylor</p>
<p>I could go on, but I think you get the picture. :)</p>
<p>@ the OP</p>
<p>You might want to consider getting a certification from Texas Advanced Computing Center, even if you get into the CS program at UT or not. I think this is separate from CS, because it seems to be part of the college of natural sciences. I’m not a CS major or a EE, but I am ME and I’m considering doing the coursework that TACC has to offer. It seems to be CS-related but it is more applied towards real-world situations (like bio and the other sciences). And, I don’t think it would be too difficult (I noticed that the myEdu grade distribution for the introductory class in this certification program shows that 70% of the students get A’s). </p>
<p>This is TACC’s site:</p>
<p>[Texas</a> Advanced Computing Center: Texas Advanced Computing Center](<a href=“http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/]Texas”>http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/)</p>
<p>anieo, you’re all kinds of wrong, according to the link at the bottom of my post, McCombs admission standards are very similar to that of UT as a whole, while Cockrell has several additional standards. </p>
<p>My guess as to the difference in the GPAs is as follows:
Engineerings low GPA is engineered (get it?) to be such. Teachers intentionally curve low and curve for a higher number of fails in engineering classes than they do in other classes. Its just the way it is. Claiming that you’re more elite than Engineering students is just arrogance. I personally feel engineers work harder, but I’m biased. I do know that b oth engineering and business work very hard. </p>
<p>Most importantly, you’re forgetting the real enemy, COM MAJORS! </p>
<p>[2</a>. Admission | General Information, 2009-2010 | Registrar | University of Texas at Austin](<a href=“http://registrar.utexas.edu/catalogs/gi09-10/ch02/gi09.ch02c.html]2”>http://registrar.utexas.edu/catalogs/gi09-10/ch02/gi09.ch02c.html)</p>
<p>Picox, my sports references were completely irrelevant, but you really brought it with your plumber example. You showed us. How about this, just answer one question and we can drop it and you can go back to playing World of Warcraft. Since McCombs is the hardest school to get into at UT, is there by any chance the high avg GPA is a reflection of the student body as opposed to a grade inflation? </p>
<p>Jacobs Ladder, I think you’re missing what I mean. I externally transferred in to UT with 50 hrs and a 3.82. That would have secured me a spot anywhere in UT, but at McCombs it was well below the average of 3.92. In no way do I think business students are more elite than engineering, that’s just ignorant. I do think McCombs only admits elite students (with exceptions of course). </p>
<p>Cockrell is a great school and a huge part of UT. I just think the business school is the bread and butter of this university. Texas means business.</p>