Georgia Tech or Northeastern for CS?

I am stuck between choosing Georgia Tech or Northeastern. My major is computer science although my cs experience is very minimal. I live in CT so I would have to take out a total of 30k in loans to attend GT, but no loans to attend Northeastern. However, I believe that GT is worth it because it has a stronger CS program and it has higher starting salary around 90k for CS grads. Northeastern’s coop program is fantastic, versus at Georgia Tech after talking to students I’ve found that CS students favor internships. I am also worried about the academic rigor at Tech. I have visited both campuses and I love each one. I don’t know whether to go with Northeastern for its strong coop program and it’s flexibility, or Tech for its well known CS program. If you were in my position, where would you go?

@PengsPhils should be able to advise you.

Hey! First, Northeastern student here, but I looked at both of these schools when applying.

I can’t find specific data for Northeastern CCIS starting salaries, but I don’t think the difference between GT is very significant for CS. I would be guestimating here, but the 80K-90K range or so would be my estimate for Northeastern. For some scale, check out the co-op pay for CCIS (under suggested salaries). This is pretty much in line with my experience.

http://www.ccis.northeastern.edu/experiential-learning/employers/

As you are likely aware, CS is not usually about the name of your school but your experience and abilities, which is why co-op/internships are such an important part of both programs. Connections are also important, which are also built through co-op/internships.

Something to consider here is regionality - if you plan to stay in ATL, GT is probably the better choice. In the Northeast, NEU. Beyond that, I think the schools will offer similar reputations. You won’t get into a company because of the name of either, nor will you be pruned out of a resume because of it. Both will offer good connections as well. There are co-op’s here at all the big names (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Snapchat, etc) just like there are at GT, as well as plenty of other smaller name companies that offer great experience.


Shifting away from the career prospects tough, I think Northeastern offers something more important when it comes to CS: an amazing teaching program. As said, it’s all about experience and ability in CS. Having good resources to learn the subject, especially for those without prior experience, is really important. Northeastern has a really unique approach to teaching CS, best described in this essay by the program creator, who still teaches the intro course. This curriculum was created and founded with professors from a few schools (Brown and Rice have various ties to it) and is maintained by Northeastern.

Link: http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/Thoughts/Growing_a_Programmer.html

I’m a TA for the introductory course here because of how much of a difference this curriculum makes. We had over 60 professors, TA’s and tutors on staff last Fall, all trained in this specific curriculum, with round the clock office hours and help available. It’s a huge focus here.

The program has been very successful and has been adopted at other schools, noted in the footnotes. Notable ones would be U of Waterloo, UChicago, Brown, Northwestern, and WPI. There’s now research in the department on improving on this approach with a new teaching language.

GT is very rigorous as mentioned, and has struggled to get its graduation rate up because of it. It’s worth noting that it is improving, but the 5-year graduation rate is still around 80% currently. It could be potentially at 85-90% by your graduation. I think that Northeastern’s CS will be a better learning environment that will offer similar connections and experiences.

Add in that you’d have to take on debt at GT, and I think Northeastern is the best choice here from my view.

Of course, I’m coming from the perspective of a Northeastern student, but I tried my best to be as objective as possible. For context, just a few days ago I was making the case for GT with 20K of debt over Emory, because it offers the co-op connections and the like that Emory simply doesn’t. In this case, GT and NEU are very much peers in that department for CS. Go with the better teaching environment and less debt, easy.

@PengsPhils Thank you so so much for your response!!! I read through the links you mentioned and I am now definitely leaning towards Northeastern