<p>Hi! I'm currently stuck with my college decisions. I want to major in computer science and I'm looking at Brown, Duke, Berkeley and UW. I know Duke is a great school but does anyone know how it fares in terms of the size of its program/how well-known the program is/research opportunities/jobs, etc? My parents' main qualm is that Duke and Berkeley cost about the same for us and they'd rather pay for Berkeley (which is ranked higher), do they have a valid point or would you say Duke makes up in areas other than rankings?</p>
<p>For Berkeley, were you admitted to EECS in College of Engineering or CS in Letters & Science?</p>
<p>Here is the latest employment survey of Berkeley EECS majors:
<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm</a></p>
<p>Here is a list of companies that recruited at the Fall 2012 EECS Career Fair at Berkeley:
<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Fairs/EECS.pdf[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Fairs/EECS.pdf</a></p>
<p>You can compare these results to Duke.</p>
<p>Faculty strength in engineering for Berkeley greatly exceeds Duke as can be seen from the National Academy of Engineering membership totals:
[NAE</a> Website - Home](<a href=“http://www.nae.edu/]NAE”>http://www.nae.edu/)
Cal = 74
Duke = 5</p>
<p>[NAE</a> Website - Members Directory](<a href=“NAE Website - Members Directory”>NAE Website - Members Directory)</p>
<p>[NAE</a> Website - Members Directory](<a href=“NAE Website - Members Directory”>NAE Website - Members Directory)</p>
<p>Duke’s Computer Science department is fantastic and undergraduates are able to form a lot of intimate relationships with professors and get involved with research pretty easily.</p>
<p>[Computer</a> Science - Duke University](<a href=“http://www.cs.duke.edu/education/undergrad/]Computer”>http://www.cs.duke.edu/education/undergrad/)
A Duke team has advanced to the World Finals in nine out of the last thirteen years, placing as high as third in the world in the ACM Programming Competition. Its very common for Duke undergrads to be co-authors on major publications alongside with faculty.</p>
<p>[Duke</a> Computer Science C-SURF](<a href=“http://www.cs.duke.edu/csurf/]Duke”>http://www.cs.duke.edu/csurf/)
The above program is designed to give Duke undergrads independent research opportunities and its pretty extensive with regards to the type of projects you can be a part of.</p>
<p>[Computer</a> Science - Duke University](<a href=“http://www.cs.duke.edu/people/alumni/news/]Computer”>http://www.cs.duke.edu/people/alumni/news/)
[inDuke</a> TechConnect 2013 Spring](<a href=“http://www.cs.duke.edu/induke/techconnect/2013_spring/companies.php]inDuke”>http://www.cs.duke.edu/induke/techconnect/2013_spring/companies.php)
<a href=“Duke University Fall Career Fair Registered Employers - Google Sheets”>Duke University Fall Career Fair Registered Employers - Google Sheets;
The above link gives you an idea of some of the companies the Duke grads end up working for. As you can see, all the big names like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Oracle are represented.</p>
<p>PM me if you have any questions. All your other options are great-all of these schools have top 25 Computer Science departments so they will prepare you for graduate school well. I feel like its easier to gain interaction with your professors at Duke as supposed to at Berkeley.</p>