If you are a prospective student who interest in CS major and care about your education. Do not come to this school. I don’t know how the hell it is even top 100 in CS. It should be way lower than that. The department is full of part-timer professor who don’t even own a PHD in CS. The best professor in the CS department is a guy who held a PHD in Applied Science with 3 research publish papers unrelated to CS. Even worse there huge lack of diversity in the faculty. 99% of your class will be taught by someone who graduate from SMU, some has less than a year experience in the industry. I transferred out from this school and couldn’t be more happier because now I get to learn from professor at school like Cornell, Brown, Oxford, UT Austin, and GA tech with legit research scene going on. Please take a look at the faculty roster before commit in here. All the money they get is for the cox business. The CS department barely have any funding. You will get an education below state’s standard according to my new professor, who was nice enough to sit down and explain to me why my credit wouldn’t count.
Could you clarify a little bit? Which school (Cornell, Brown, Oxford, UT Austin, or GA Tech) did you transfer to, how long have you been at your new school, and how long were you at SMU? It might be helpful for students considering SMU to know how much time you spent at each of the schools you are comparing.
I spent two years there. I completed all my of the general education there as well. I have so many student debt from SMU, so I can’t pick expensive top school at my state. Luckily, Augusta University just got funding by the government to build a computing department. The dean who which from Cornell did a mass hiring and was able to scout some top notch researcher in the CS industry. Regardless, my point is SMU had a lot of part time faculty and the curriculum is only cover 70%-80% of the subject being taught at other state school with a decent faculty. I also became very suspicious around my third semester where I keep seeing recent smu grad student with a master degree taught almost every single of my classes. I did an investigation and pull up all the syllabus. Turned out, approx 90% of people who taught courses at smu are part timer. Since I got accept to all school at my state, some didn’t take smu credit at all, so I have to be picky with my budget. I ask some of them why certain CS can’t be use as substitute, they did a syllabus comparison with me, and believe I did not go over a lot of topics. Here is the lesson I learn, take a look at the faculty first before commit, so you know who teach you. Compare syllabus from different school of the same class, see what topic they cover vs the one you interest in.
I found two lecturers on the CS faculty website. The others have PhDs from Washington, USC, SMU, Maryland (2), Pitt, Oregon and UIC. The BS in Computer Science at both SMU and Augusta U are ABET accredited. The BA in Computer Science is not ABET accredited. The BA is usually combined with other majors as a double major. I definitely agree to visit and research departments before committing. Also explore how difficult it is to get into another major if one wishes to transfer.
Only two of them taught undergrad. The other taught grad school primary. I have access to all the past syllabus from the database, so i know who teach what class. For example, dr alford will be your assembly instructor, and dr fontenot will be your main instructor for data structure and algorithm analysis. The rest of other classes will be taught by either recent smu grad with master or a visitor professor. With that tuition cost and endowment I would expect them to hire a lot of full time like tulane. It kinda sad but they look even weaker than UNT and UT arlington. On the other good new, they have a decent ECE department.
Full version about the school, include job prospect. Note, this is my experience and opinion.
Background:
I’m a student at SMU for two years, who recently transfer out of the program because I find it absolutely overpriced and weak. It is absolutely a waste of money with the quality you have to pay for such amount of tuition.
Department of CS:
90% of your undergrad classes will be teach by part-time professor or visitor professor. How do I know? I have access to the database, I pull up every single past classes to confirm my suspicion in the CS curriculum. This is not even where it get worse, some of them have less than 2 years experience in the industry or don’t even own a PHD in CS. Your two main professors who are the full time do not own a PHD in CS, and one only have 3 publication research papers unrelated to CS. Now with that kind of endowment and tuition fee you would thought they would have a well establish CS department, but nooo. The best department is the Cox, and where you would be able to network. Don’t just think you can come here to network, because the faculty roster is a wasteland since only two actually teach undergrad courses. Not to even mention how snobby the professors are. They always brag about how they better than TCU. Even write on the white board “SMU > TCU” during the lecture(I have the screenshot). Not gonna lie, TCU kinda looks like ass as well, it is not ABET accredited.
Weak curriculum compare to state college:
So after I transferred out from school, I spoke to lecturer from the school I have been accepted to, and majority of them do not accept SMU credit. Some even nice enough to explain to me why credits don’t even transfer. It is because most of the class skipped on a lot of topics. For example, you will never touch Dijkstra’s algorithm in the data structure class ever. Not sure why are they even top 100 in CS, which absolutely meme. UGA and Ga tech both didn’t take a single of their CS classes due to of it being underwhelming. I ended to settle for AU since it is the cheapest option with a pretty good full time faculty. Even that, they do not take all CS classes at SMU either. I also got my ass a lot of student loan from attending SMU.
Job Prospect:
You will struggle to find job around Dallas area unless you grind multiple courses from UDEMY. They taught C++ as primary language. The job market for C++ in dallas texas is less than 1000 compare to Java(>3000). Yes you will have to compete vs people who take data structure in java like UT Dallas for job. I also interviewed with multiple companies there, 85% of them ask for experience in either Java and Python. Oh and almost every engineer interviewers know SMU CS is not that great.
Conclusion:
At the end of the day, I picked the school but if any of you interesting in LAC college for computer science. Make sure you do massive research at that department first, compare the class syllabus vs other schools, and who is going to be your instructor. Don’t just went blindly in because of the high ranking because of the other department.
Honorable mention:
The place has a lot of racist background and history. They even create a movie about it. I guess they are as dirty as the football scandal despite being a religious college. Stereotype is extremely accurate, professor did flexing how many tesla they own during a lecture.
Tldr; CS department full of part-timer, undergrad professors don’t have phd in CS or neither have publication paper in the CS field, extremely snobby environment, bad job prospect(ROI), overpriced
There’s actually no reason to have a PhD in computer science to be an expert in the field. Virtually everything you learn will be on the job. The degree only teaches the basics to get an entry level job with zero years of experience. In fact, most CS graduates go into IT jobs and never work a math problem their entire career.
Glad you found a school that’s a better fit and can keep the debt down. Reliance on prestige and rankings doesn’t usually end well.
Well, here is a thing either have 20+ year experiences or have PhD in CS to teach topic. Majority professors have none, some are recent graduate with Master degree, some don’t even have many paper publishes. Also, top department in computing discipline in the US all have professor either hold PhD in engineer, cs, all related discipline with at least 10+ research paper under their belt. At SMU you don’t have those, the best people are in the Electrical Engineer department. SMU CS is like a bootcamp training, but more expensive. They don’t have theory of computing class offer either so technically you are paying to do project based stuff like a coding bootcamp. And also too many part timer is pretty bad for student. They won’t have a chance to network with professor, and won’t have any chance to work with professor on their research. But I disagree with you about not having no reason to have PhD in CS to be an expert in specific topic. CS is broad, if you throw random guy who work as Software Engineer to teach you, the best thing he could do is just teach you how to be a coding monkey, compare to people who done research that actually try to develop a new algorithm or solve brand new problem in computer discipline.
Are you saying that there is no need of bachelors in CS? Because the basics can be learned without going to college at all.
“In fact, most CS graduates go into IT jobs and never work a math problem their entire career.”
This is why we have a shortage, and exactly reason why not everyone will land a job in CS industry even with a degree due to weak program. Top company often hire people from top school because they have strong foundation in theory and math. This is because everybody can code but not everybody can applied math with code. And you do realized you are comparing CS and IT right? which is not the same. Regardless, strong CS degree will heavily emphasized in math + theoretical concept, which have been use by many universities.
I also want to add that there are position required a PhD in CS. And those people solve like world problem in computer at large company or government. Go watch some CS colloquium video see how much math is in there 
here are two example:
CS vs IT
Did you go to high school in Georgia? What other universities did you consider for computer science? Did you live on campus both years?
Yes, I did. I applied for GA Tech, KSU, GA State, UGA, AU, GA southern, and Emory. Most of their CS program is pretty new beside tech that why I choose not to go state school. Now it has been improve, for example Augusta University just got funding like 2018, back then there was only 3 professors. UGA and Ga state both deal with the same problem. PolyTech university unfortunately merged with KSU, so all the poly tech professors left the school, so they also in crisis. Nope, I did not live on CAMPUS, that would rekt me financially lol. They raise tuition by $3k-5k every year
Thanks for the detail and I’m glad you found a great place to transfer where you’ll be happier. I guess SMU let you live off campus the first year for some reason and then you studied from home last year when it was mostly remote. In normal years there’s a two year residency requirement. Best wishes at AU.
First and second year students at SMU must reside on campus.
However,exemptions may be granted for various reasons including age.
I wonder where you’re getting this information. Unless they’re extremely mismanaged, top companies generally hire for entry level jobs locally and regionally because it’s cost effective. Entry level jobs mostly suck and they have a have a high turnover rate, so it makes no sense to fly people from all over the country to hire someone that’s going to move to further employment after 2 years. Big companies don’t recruit because they don’t have to. All they have to do is post a job, and they’ll get hundreds or thousands of applicants for seasoned professionals. Entry level jobs are more a charity than anything else.
When you get into the professional world, you’ll find out how diverse the job market is. Math intensive CS careers aren’t “better,” they’re just different careers. Companies, especially top ones are looking for people with business sense than the ability to do differential equations. For instance, a DBA will make twice as much as a math intensive developer, but their job has zero math. The direction you take really depends on where you’re offered a job.
People with a PhD don’t solve world problems. They only think they do, because other academic people say they do. In fact, there’s very few, if any, positions that have use for that degree at all. And seriously, who wants the government to solve our problems anyway?
Yep I request to living off campus due to budget. I do know that.
We’ve exhausted the conversation. The OP expressed a PoV, and now it’s simply ranting. Closing thread since there is nothing left to say.