Getting a top education in Computer Science from a non-top program

Parents Forum
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<p>tokenadult, think of it this way: your S is continuing his explorations in self-directed education. Congrats to him and to you and your DW for raising a young man who is mature enough to know what he wants, knows how to get it, and can manage his life as well. I am sure he will complete his degree in a couple of years (and would not be surprised if he tacks on a couple of classes in addition to working just to challenge himself).</p>

<p>When S1 attended the CS department’s lovefest at UMD-CP way back in early <em>2008</em>, the department head told us the average salary of CS grads was $70k and that most CS majors had jobs in hand by the end of junior year. And yes, FB, Google, Microsoft, etc. recruit and hire their grads. We know several of them. </p>

<p>He picked UChicago over MIT and majored in math. He wanted to experience the Core. He chose <em>not</em> to major in CS – he tends towards the theoretical – and instead focused on the math courses that would enable him to be a better computer scientist. He also had covered a lot of UG CS at his HS program which got him into accelerated work. </p>

<p>He had no trouble getting interviews, internships, offers, etc. Decided after doing academic research and an internship at two top places last summer that he wanted to work for a few years to hone his skills on cutting edge stuff and narrow down what he wants out of grad school. The process he undertook in making this decision was all we as parents could have hoped for – he talked to a lot of folks in industry, academia, recent grads, more experienced SWEs, did his HW, and clearly thought about short and long term goals. It was the decisionmaking of a mature young adult. </p>

<p>He even has a delightful fiancee who’s a CS/math grad and can speak his language. Who woulda thunk it? :)</p>

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<p>Not sure why the Core would be a reason to choose University of Chicago over MIT, since the latter’s GIR has a roughly comparable number of courses in most areas (adjusting for quarter versus semester system), although the MIT GIR required math and science courses appear to be more difficult ones than the University of Chicago Core ones, but the MIT GIR does not include a foreign language requirement.</p>

<p><a href=“https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/academics/core.shtml[/url]”>https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/academics/core.shtml&lt;/a&gt;
[MIT</a> Course Catalog: Undergraduate General Institute Requirements](<a href=“Welcome! < MIT”>Welcome! < MIT)</p>

<p>There may, of course, be other reasons to pick University of Chicago over MIT.</p>

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<p>Chicago’s Core is more classically/humanities inclined compared with MIT’s. The extra language requirement only adds to that. </p>

<p>If one wants a more classically/humanities influenced undergrad experience, they would be much more inclined to attend UChicago or Columbia over MIT. </p>

<p>It also doesn’t help that MIT has had a reputation for having gut humanities/social science courses with the exception of their strengths in Linguistics, Political Science, Economics, etc. </p>

<p>Knew of many Harvard undergrads who used the Harvard-MIT exchange agreement to take advantage of easier humanities/social science courses at MIT and MIT students doing likewise at Harvard for some STEM courses.</p>

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<p>What do you do when you are not talking about CMU or Yale or even Rutgers and Penn State but a very average CSU (California State University), CSU Sacramento? Both my sons attend there where the older one is a Geology major and the younger one just finished his freshman year as a Physics major but is thinking changing his major to Computer Science after taking an introductory CS class which he found extremely easy but also interesting.</p>

<p>He shows traits of Asperberger’s syndrome and had a poor high school GPA but when he took the SATs as a Junior in HS, the only time he took it he had a Math 760 and CR 660. He is getting much better grades at Sac State than he ever did in high school and breezed through Calculus I, Calculus II, Calculus based Physics (Mechanics) and Computer Science. I am sure he could get a degree in CS from Sac State but after reading this thread it looks like graduates from a very average CSU would not be considered for positions for CS jobs at most employers and he would be stuck with a very specialized degree but few employment prospects if he switches to CS. If he stays with Physics he will have a degree with broader applications and might find some kind of job in the technical field. </p>

<p>A couple of unfortunate things about CSUs is it is impossible to transfer out of them so he will not even try. He is considering graduate school but even with excellent grades and a top Physics GRE score a UC is very unlikely to accept a CSU graduate into one of its graduate programs in Physics or CS.</p>

<p>If he does change his major to CS and gets good grades is it a matter that his salary will be much lower than graduates of other schools mentioned in this thread but will be able to find employment, or will he be unable to find a job at all since there are so many graduates in CS from respectable schools on the market?</p>

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<p>Lemaitre1:
I poked around on Sac State’s website but couldn’t find placement stats for CS grads from there. You or your S might want to check with their career center to see if they can provide you some specific info on this - for example which companies recruit for CS on campus there, where some of the grads from last year’s class went to work, etc.</p>

<p>It seems that especially with the location of Sacramento so close to the Silicon Valley there’d be some decent opportunities.</p>

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<p>Chicago: 9 quarter courses of humanities, arts, and social studies (equivalent to 6 semester courses), plus foreign language (equivalent to a year (3 quarters or 2 semesters) of study in college, or AP or IB credit)</p>

<p>MIT: 8 semester courses of humanities, arts, and social studies (both breadth and a concentration required)</p>

<p>Looks like about the same number of courses (adjusted for quarter versus semester system) for each school.</p>

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<p>However, a student who wants more rigorous courses can certainly choose them (or perhaps even use cross registration agreements with other nearby schools).</p>

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<p>Re: CS at CSU Sacramento</p>

<p>It probably is not as targeted by recruiters as Berkeley, Stanford, UCSC, and SJSU, but that does not prevent him from applying to every Silicon Valley computer company and other companies that he can find. But he will have to do more work to find and apply to them instead of seeing them at the career center. A two hour drive to an interview is somewhat of a hassle, but less hassle (for both him and potential employers) than airline flights, hotel, etc…</p>

<p>But once he has a job or few of good experience, the experience becomes more important.</p>

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<p>The impression I get about physics majors is that they tend to be acceptable but not first choice candidates for many types of jobs in CS, engineering, finance, etc…</p>

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<p>Unfortunately, most universities do not have good career survey information (a lot of them just point to NACE surveys that are not specific to their schools). Berkeley and Cal Poly SLO are the only two California public universities with good career survey information; San Jose State University has some information (just average pay levels of those employed, not placement rates).</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl, thank you. I think I meant Pennsylvania. I travelled to Philadelphia a lot so I should know that. But I checked the time and the post was made in a hurry before I left for an appointment. My old brain doesn’t always work. Still I do not appreciate snarky comments about my kid should check out liberal arts education because of my mistake/typo. Lots of people in the Mid-Atlantic with a liberal arts degree don’t have a clue regarding some cities in California. Maybe the liberal arts from the Mid-Atlantic should have the smart to keep their mouth shut sometimes. Definitely not cool.</p>

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<p>His salary, IF LOWER, will NOT be much lower than any of the schools mentioned. It won’t matter if the top-paid fresh grads are from MIT with a 4.000001 GPA.</p>

<p>Again, and any EXPERIENCED software engineers can chime in but the #1, most-important factor in software engineering salaries is the engineers ability to learn the latest technology (basically what is hot) at the right time.</p>

<p>Not if you are a CS major…
Not if your school was in the top-10…
Not if you had a 3.9999999 GPA…
Not how many co-ops, internships or incoming AP credits…</p>

<p>That is the beauty with software engineering. You don’t have to go through what business majors go through with the “what was your B-School” junk.</p>

<p>With your 2nd job and after, your degree(s) are merely “check off the box” requirements. In some cases, industry certifications may help also.</p>

<p>This is real simple. There are more jobs available than there are qualified candidates. There are times when I was recruited for jobs and I only had 5 of the 7 or 8 “bullet points” of experience/expertise and recruiters were still like “So when can you interview?”.</p>

<p>There is WAY too much over-analyzing of surveys, college comparisons and the like. I have to post my last statement in CAPS…</p>

<p>IT’S FRIGGIN’ COMPUTER SCIENCE!!!</p>

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<p>"What is your point? I misspelled Pittsburgh? It’s NOT in Philadelphia? Confused emoticon here. "</p>

<p>It wasn’t just the misspelling of Pittsburgh. It was the dismissing an ENTIRE CITY because of its name (“Pitts”) and mistaking the City of Philadelphia (where the Declaration of Independence was signed!) with the state in which it’s located.</p>

<p>“Lots of people in the Mid-Atlantic with a liberal arts degree don’t have a clue regarding some cities in California.”</p>

<p>I’m going to hazard a guess that the majority of those clueless liberal arts grads from the mid-Atlantic states know that California is a state and that San Diego and San Francisco are cities.</p>

<p>And one can get a CS degree and still study the liberal arts, where they teach irrelevent stuff like US geography and not to judge a city by its name.</p>

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<p>Not to get off-track, but S picked Chicago > MIT for a few reasons. He was very certain of his major and what he wants to do with grad school. Chicago’s math is heavy on the theoretical side, which is what he wanted. He felt that if he was ever going to dive into the humanities and classics, it was in UG, and he <em>wanted</em> to be out of his comfort zone. He had to take a FL for some PhD programs and some programs wanted French, Russian or German. Since he had three years of HS ending in 9th grade, he had no intention of taking the FL exemption exam. (Advantage MIT. German kicked his tail.) He found his people at Chicago.</p>

<p>He does have some regrets about not going to MIT. A number of the kids going to MIT from his HS tended to certain personality characteristics and he felt it might not be a good match. Found out later that his people were indeed there, and he found ways to take advantage of opportunities at both schools. </p>

<p>It all worked out fine.</p>

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<p>Did it occur to you that the comment was made tongue in cheek. It’s obvious not all liberal arts major are smart.</p>

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<p>Please read my comment that I mistyped(because of my old brain). I travelled regularly to Philadelphia so I don’t even have to have a liberal arts degree to know that Philadelphia is a city and Pennsylvania is a state. You obviously never made any mistake or typo or at least don’t think you do so perhaps that is the folly of your liberal arts degree or maybe just you. My apologies to the liberal arts fan out there.
It’s obvious that you took a comment I made about your city or state and turned it into a liberal arts vs non-liberal arts education and it has nothing to do with it. You just want to make a snarky comment period.</p>

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<p>Back when my son was looking at schools for comp sci, the average salaries for comp sci majors coming from slightly less known, but still good schools (like RPI and WPI) were about $10,000 a year less than CMU. That didn’t seem like a huge difference to us. Harvard had no numbers, they just said “We’re Harvard, our kids do fine.” I think for comp sci, it’s really important what you do in the summer.</p>

<p>My take on the core at Chicago - was that because everyone is taking the same set of courses and reading the same books is that all the freshman have a common core of conversation. My younger son liked that idea a lot.</p>

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<p>I had hoped that people with extensive knowledge of CS would point out the strength in CMU’s curriculum that other schools might be lacking, perhaps the uniqueness/depth of some courses. This thread makes me think that my focus could be slightly off. It’s comforting to know that other schools are just fine.</p>

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<p>I can attest that we older folks sometime say A while we really mean B. For example, I don’t have too many kids, but sometimes I mentioned one’s name while I thought I was talking about another.</p>

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<p>To quote Edsger Dijkstra, one of the fathers of Computer Science, software engineering has accepted as its charter “How to program if you cannot.”</p>

<p>The ‘academics’ part is all about being able to understand what the customer needs and talk their language, which is by far the biggest failing of even the smartest of the smart. One can be the best coder that ever walked (I have two in my team) but if they do not understand the social, economic, and technical context within which our products belong, their technical prowess is only good for code reviews and tricky C++ compiler warning explanations.</p>

<p>Pair computer science with good minor or double degree and you’re king (or queen). Don’t worry too much about technology because what they teach at school is rarely what industry uses (it’s safe to assume that CMU does not teach Ruby on Rails or PHP or what not). To get jobs, it’s all about hot projects and internships and the like.</p>

<p>Here’s my take as a directional state Comp Sci graduate working alongside more brand name schools… The good schools have better faculty, facilities, and money. The directional states, flagships, and the like, not as much. And, as my former CMU PhD officemate said, "the reality is that the good students at CMU and other top schools are probably good no matter where they went to school. The difference is in the bad students. We had our share of lousy students at Cajun State and some were real baaaaaad. In contrast, in a top school, even the baaaaaad students are good (overall). </p>

<p>Ironically, I had friends at many top schools when I was at Cajun State so we compared assignments and projects. We found out that our assignments were typically at the same level as the better schools. I mean, come on people, everyone has to write the darned compiler or simulator or interpreter or what not, whether at U Waterloo, U Texas, CWRU, or Cajun State… The faculty was decent - we actually had some pretty good profs - but the student body was hit or miss… </p>

<p>So, I agree with my CMU friend here, tho, ironically, some of the lousiest coders from my Cajun State days have stupefying job descriptions in awesome companies, and one can’t help but wonder how someone who could not get hello world to compile made it to Staff Research Scientist at this famous place or that…</p>

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<p>But perhaps the recruiters visiting Harvard are mainly from investment banking and management consulting companies? Harvard may not have enough CS majors to be that attractive to recruiters compared to MIT, CMU, or a big state university.</p>

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<p>While it is very possible that the CMU’s and Georgia Tech’s of the world may get into more depth in certain CS topics, it does not buy you much when employers are not going to use it. Let’s take CMU and software engineering. CMU sets the industry standards for establishing the processes for construction of quality software. Many companies will not follow CMU’s practices to the letter and often times decide to borrow “bits & pieces” of the processes while creating their OWN employer software engineering lifecycle processes. Therefore an employer needs a fresh grad who understands the basic concepts…so they can mold them to their processes. Therefore employers only need folks with a conceptual understanding of a certain topic…who can get that understanding from just about any Top-100 program.</p>

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<p>actually Pennsylvania is not a state but a commonwealth.</p>

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<p>[Commonwealth</a> vs. State](<a href=“http://geography.about.com/b/2006/12/09/commonwealth-vs-state.htm]Commonwealth”>The Difference Between a Commonwealth and a State)</p>

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<p>Harvard comp sci grads when we finally got them to cough up the info seemed to be going to pretty much the same companies yes Wall Street (but CMU grads were going there too in 2006), but also Google, Microsoft and Apple. And more I’m sure. Harvard doesn’t have a big program, but it’s big enough, and it’s you know… Harvard. ;)</p>

<p>The advantage of CMU, besides the fact that even students not doing well, are still really smart, I think is just the shear density. So many professors, so many students. Kids hung out in different computer clusters depending on whether they ran Linux or Macs, or horrors… Windows. There also seemed to be a really nice collaborative atmosphere which extended to getting the word out about internships and recommending students for internships.</p>

<p>I’m no expert, but my son seemed to be pretty employable in high school when he knew Linux, Visual Basic, Java, and SQL which he taught himself on the job.</p>