For CS especially tier is not as important as long as you have the skill set. The only advantage would be on campus recruiting and maybe a slight boost in prestige when going through the process. However for CS especially no one is a shoe in. You mentioned your son is very possible for 2 of those 4 and to be quite frank a lot of very qualified people will get denied.
@ProfessorPlum168 I got my CS undergrad degree in 1983, an IE graduate degree in 89, and worked in software development for 35 years. Just recently retired. Go through my other comments and you’ll see that’s the case.
And your industry experience is? From what I can tell, the people who think CS isn’t mostly about programming are either students who haven’t had a job yet, parents of such students, or people with little or no practical experience in the field.
As mentioned, jobs like QA, database administration, and systems administration are dying out,. In the past there was a separation between software developers, i.e., “programmers”, and those other specialties. These days, programmers handle much of that themselves. And even if you’re concentrating on field like AI or UI (which was what I focused on), you spend most of your time thinking about and writing code in order to implement something of practical value.
Sorry @simba9 … my degree from UT Austin 1987, specialized in communication systems. Son currently CS studying AI, so he makes sure I stay current 
Things are just different now. As I’ve said before, any student whose main value proposition is that they are a good “programmer” will be at a competitive disadvantage. The days of the “programmer for hire” learning what needs to be done on-the-job are over. Specialization is now key.
And companies are now, and increasing will be, looking for people who can bridge tech and business. It’s a big world out there - much opportunity. The more interesting argument is that general-programmers will be be in decreasing demand.
@Rivet2000 I never said anything about programmers being generalists. I specialized in graphics and UIs, and spent the bulk of my time sitting in front of a computer writing code to implement graphics applications or the UI portions of applications.
What is it you think your son is going to be doing if he gets a job in AI? He’ll be spending the bulk of his time sitting in front of a computer, writing/debugging code to read and process the data he needs to train AI algorithms, writing/debugging code to try out various algorithms, and writing/debugging code to output the results.
@simba9 Let’s put this back into context. This thread is “Does the college matter for a CS major?”. My position is yes it does, for many reasons. To others it does not because a “programmer is a programmer.” The question is not if my son will be using code - he will. However, the ability to program is not the value he brings to his startup. It is his understanding of machine learning in a specific domain that differentiates him. Programming is simply a means to an end, not and end in itself. What differentiates a novelist from a copywriter?
BTW, happy retirement. I retired last year. Its great. I can watch my daughter as she starts high school while my son invites me out to the bay area to listen to interesting speakers.
I think the college you go to really matters. It doesn’t matter so much for the skill set you learn as the contacts you make
@collegedad13 what skillsets do you think are most important?
I think this really depends on your bigger plan for the future. Your best choice VARIES GREATLY depending what you want to do with your CS degree. If you are considering doing academics, definitely go to one of those toptier schools. On the one hand, they have more rigorous program, giving you better foundation to go into grad school. On the other hand, you can meet similar students who are also interested in academics, giving you more collaboration opportunities. If you are considering going into the industry, toptier schools wouldn’t be necessary. To begin with, their so called rigorous program could take up tremendous amount of time, forbidding you from putting more time into projects and internships. What’s more, unlike hardcore technical skills, a diploma from toptier schools can only help you get in a good firm but doesn’t guarantee your promotion and success within the firm. That being said, I wish you make the right choice that fits your personality and needs.
@Dustyfeathers I think the most important skill is “data structures and algorithms” followed by coding skills in c++, Java, Python and R. If you also know probability and statistics that helps. A lot of regression seems to be done with large data sets
Most organizations today are under pressure to have a diversified workforce. It no longer makes sense to recruit solely at top-tier colleges.
For CS jobs, portfolio makes a big difference. Ofcourse, CMU, MIT, Berkeley can get you much higher starting salary
Top-tier colleges are no less diverse than most other schools. The issue is that top-tier colleges don’t provide enough graduates to meet demand, so organizations have no choice but to cast their recruiting nets widely. Plus,most people who have worked in the field for more than a few years will have noticed that there’s little or no correlation between how productive you are and where you went to school.
That is incorrect. I’ve been involved with lots of hiring over my 35 years in the field, and the last time I saw salary partially determined by where you went to school was back in the 1980’s.
If you believe that the college you go to does not matter, then all you need to do is: find the lowest cost college that confers a CS degree, complete program, then rake in the big bucks. Perfect sense, right?
Most engineers I know had to reinvent themselves. Consulting, management, or law all come to mind as later careers for a computer scientist, who may grow tired of programming or get stuck in a layoff, or follow a spouse to an area where they cannot find a programming position. They may find they lose interest in coding, or were never good at it in the first place.
Bigger colleges have bigger alumni networks, which is why flagship state schools like GaTech, Purdue and UIUC are
very popular for CS majors today, they join a large network of other CS professionals.
There are many CS graduates practicing patent law today. They may become US Patent Examiners who work for the USPTO, and examine software patents, which is largely prior art searching in a database, and then legal writing. Some CS graduates go to law school and become prosecuting patent attorneys, which means they draft claims about software patents and do not program. About half of the typical USPTO patent academy class contains computer and software engineers, the other half are mechanical/chemical/materials engineers.
No programming skills are needed in either position, patent attorney or US patent examiner, but familiarity with the latest software algorithms and understanding of patent law is needed and a desire to help inventors.
Data Science is a big job area, today, look on Indeed, and there are thousands of open
jobs and summer job in this field, and according to Indeed, most require PhDs though, or at least masters degrees.
Math/stats/CS combo knowledge needed.
You’re taking that to an illogical extreme. What is true is that you can go to the #300 or #400 ranked CS school, whatever that may be, and end up making more money and have greater responsibility than someone who went to a top 5 school. What matters most is your ambition and drive.
@simba9 We will always agree to disagree on this one. I’ll use your numbers and edit my comment:
If you believe that the college you go to does not matter, then all you need to do is enroll in the #400 CS school, complete the program, then confidently place your resume next to graduates from CMU, Cal, and MIT.
Everything on a new graduates’ resume is either directly or indirectly tied to the school. Sorry, to some extent school matters.
@simba9 @Rivet2000 I agree with Rivet2000 because of:
- curriculum in CS varies widely and ABET means nothing for CS, the best programs are very mathematics heavy with linear algebra, graph theory, and combinatorics. There are literally THOUSANDS of ABET acredited CS programs that offer about five CS class and are worthless across the USA.
- Alumni networks are KEY for any engineering career including software engineers, because engineers lose their jobs usually once in their 40s and once in their 50s. The ones that go to subpar universities buy a franchise in their 50s to keep working. Or start a business on their own, often failing and losing their retirement. The engineers with top degrees can get a job in their 50s, for the most part, as long as they had no really long unemployment and they kept learning new things at all their jobs, including software skills, management skills, and people skills.
I think that many people believe that CS is a trade though, so you just learn it on the job. There is some truth to that.
But only a small subset of the hundreds of thousands of CS majors will actually become good programmers. Most will stuff off into quality engineering, business, finance, or real estate.
Engineering is NOT what your mom told you. Its just a job, and often it means retirement at 50, if you went to a subpar university and did not build skills in your career.
IT ALWAYS HELPS to have Stanford or MIT on the resume. Maybe even get a better headstone for your burial? !
The one place that thousands of CS grads go that actually is a sure bet, is any federal government job, though, but again university pipelines are firmly in place, but some students from lower ranked schools can and will get federal government jobs. There are 20,000 engineers that work for the National Security Agency in Maryland. You can figure out which schools pipeline into the NSA, if of interest, the usually suspects, MIT , Stanford, etc and U of Maryland and believe it or not RIT in Rochester NY. RIT set up a co op plan with the NSA.
Look up employment pipelines by industry and government agency. It can be tricky to figure out, but ASK where do you graduates get jobs? Look at co op partnerships at co op schools like RIT.
There are many low paying CS jobs in the USA, and they are boring jobs, by the way. The best jobs, go to the top talent in this country as its always been.
Federal salaries cap out, but the job security is good, look at US Navy, NSA, USPTO, for IT jobs.
I agree that it matters to some extent. Our difference is to what extent. What’s consistently said here by the majority, and what I also believe, is that after working for 2-3 years, your school becomes irrelevant and it’s your skills that matter.
I’ve seen plenty of resumes from places like MIT, Cal and Stanford rejected in favor of people who graduated from lesser universities, but had skills more appropriate for the job.