<p>I don’t necessarily see much of a difference based on my experiences as a writing tutor and from working in the computer technology field. </p>
<p>If you have good written communication skills or are serious about trying to improve in that area, it can easily be carried over to other fields with some basic adjustments that shouldn’t be too difficult with the most basic critical thinking/analysis skills one should expect from college graduates. </p>
<p>Incidentally, some of the best technical writers I’ve worked with were former classics and/or English lit majors who had a second major/minor or otherwise took a few courses in STEM fields…including CS. At the very worst, the ones who took no STEM/technical writing courses rapidly picked up the few unique aspects of technical writing from learning on the job within a matter of weeks…sometimes even days.</p>
<p>Yes, but those are the best technical writers. I have seen plenty of mediocre technical writing (e.g. incomplete or imprecise as to how something like a computer program is supposed to behave). CS majors with poor writing skills and humanities majors with poor understanding of CS can both produce poor technical writing.</p>
<p>Writing is a ‘gift’ as much as coding, singing, or throwing fast pitches. Even without the ‘gift’ tho, I theorize that more humanities and such classes at least make one receptive to writing more otherwise they would not survive much past the drop date…</p>
<p>Typically, the last thing a typical software dude wants to do is write, and it shows. It matters not one iota whether they understand the material or can write coherently if they don’t want to do it.</p>
<p>not sure why anyone would ‘settle for Yale CS’ when someone with those numbers could easily get into Cal-Berkeley (#2), which is higher ranked than CMU (#3). Such person would also be extremely competitive for Stanford which too, is higher ranked than CMU. More importantly, such a student would be shoo-in, plus money, at UCSB, UCR and Michigan State, numbers 6, 11, & 15, respectively. Then of course, there is always other great schools, such as Cornell, #9, Duke #13, Rice #14, or oter publics with excellent CS programs-- Illinois (#17), Maryland (#18), North Carolina (#19), and even a SUNY (Stonybrook, #21)…</p>
<p>@bluebayou
There are no CS undergrad college rankings. As for the grad rankings, US News put Stanford, Berkeley, CMU, and MIT into a 4 way tie. Not sure what list you’re referencing. But lists are largely useless anyways.</p>
<p>You are correct, Dr. Google. There are no undergrad rankings for most majors. But to me, the default is grad programs, because IMO, that is where most/all prestige arises (for Unis).</p>
<p>At a certain level of school, one could not “just as easily” get into anything. There are too many qualified applicants for the slots at HYPMS. So why not look for other great schools?</p>
<p>As far as “rankings” I recall seeing (about 8 years ago, when first CS son was looking) somebody’s rankings for CS that put MIT, CMU, UIUC, and probably Caltech and/or Stanford in the top 5 or so. That was enough for S to start looking seriously at UIUC!</p>
<p>As far as diff. in income, it depends where you apply, not so much what UG you went to. You will not get $70K in OH right after school. Other palces - maybe, I am not familiar. But again, take into consideration cost of living. And again, many companies in OH will not care much about getting Ivy graduates, they hire from local schools, they also hire very very limited number right out of college, most places are looking for experience. This includes very small companies as well as huge interantional companies, leaders in their respective industry. Again, this situation could be completely different in other places.
As far as management goes, many people in management positions are missing their “programming gigs”, which is the most fun in this field. Fun is what making this job so special. Not many of other fields would enjoy it at th esame level. Fun is basically the same for CC graduate and for Stanford graduate, that is only if you personally enjoy it.</p>
<p>I go to SUNY Binghamton, am a rising senior, and am a computer science major. Let me tell you, it doesn’t matter what school you go to. I interned at a large banking firm for two summers, and recently accepted a full time offer from Amazon with starting salary almost 90k w/o bonus/benefits.</p>
<p>Go to whichever school you like the best that will give you THE MINIMAL AMOUNT OF DEBT! Don’t be elitist - state schools are 99 times out of 100 better than dumb private schools, especially small private schools no one in industry has ever heard of.</p>
<p>School really does matter only because most companies are not like Amazon and don’t hire hundreds of people a year. My nearly 30 year experience as a code monkey indicates that any company that hires hundreds of people a year has some secret ‘sauce’ they’re looking for. </p>
<p>Local hiring with a few openings and hundreds or thousands of applicants is quite different. I’ve done it, and don’t recall even getting many resumes from outside the ‘approved’ schools list…</p>
<p>It’s possible if one is a purple squirrel (I was one in 1985, not many people knew PL/1 back then) things could be different, but in this day and age…</p>
<p>I’m pleased to see that getting into a top program like CMU is great while settling for a less known program but otherwise a great school is just fine. Any reputable school will do as well.</p>
<p>I’m definitely interested in this thread as my S is starting college this fall and is certain he wants to major in CS. He was accepted to CMU Humanities but not CS, so he decided to go to a small, well-ranked LAC instead that fit his personality better. It was a hard decision because CMU is known for their CS, but we don’t know anything about the level of the cs dept. at the LAC - makes me a little nervous. However, since it’s a highly ranked LAC, I would think that the classes would be up to par to teach all the basics, even if they’re not at the level of CMU. I think the difference is that they don’t have as much to offer in the way of electives, and the breadth of what they teach will be minimal. He may have to search elsewhere to get an education in the creative side of cs that he’s looking for.</p>
<p>I think for him, a LAC may be a good thing because he can not only become versed in the language and engineering of cs, but he can become a well-rounded individual by studying in many different areas that interest him. Then he can use that information to apply to his cs knowledge and come up with all kinds of interesting ways to utilize computers. He’ll be a creative thinker rather than just a programmer.</p>
<p>Since you did not mention which LAC, you may want to look at its CS course catalog yourself to see what it offers (and how often, since some smaller schools offer some upper division courses only once every two years).</p>
<p>A good CS department should offer upper division courses like these:</p>
<p>algorithms and complexity *+
theory of computation +
operating systems *+
compilers +
networks *
databases *
software engineering *
security and cryptography *
computer architecture and digital design +
electives like graphics, artificial intelligence, etc.</p>
<ul>
<li>= useful courses for industry software jobs (plus any CS or non-CS courses relevant to favored types of jobs)</li>
<li>= often recommended courses for graduate school preparation (plus any preparing for the student’s graduate focus area)</li>
</ul>
<p>They do offer most of the courses, but as you said, probably not every semester. He’ll be attending Haverford College, so he will be able to utilize the consortium if he needs to and attend BMC, Swarthmore, and Penn, but it will definitely be more difficult than if he had gone to a larger university. </p>
<p>I have a suspicion, however, that he’ll be taking a lot of varied classes and not just focusing on cs. He has a lot of other interests as well, which is why a LAC was a good fit for him. He will probably end up having to attend grad school to complete the courses he’ll need.</p>
<p>On the one hand, one should try to get the “best” CS education possible. On the other hand, my H was an Urban Planner who was just good at programming and by being in the right place at the right time, got a job with an aviation consulting firm. He was perfectly capable of doing the programming necessary to simulate taxiways etc., yet also had the planning background they wanted. As time went on he did less programming & got into project management (which is the ideal track for a programmer anyway, I gather.)</p>
<p>The other advice I would offer is to be good at math and take all the courses you can (math minor?) Maybe more important than being good at CS…it indicates above average thinking ability.</p>
<p>I got my CS degree almost 30 years, and can attest that where you went to school generally doesn’t matter. I look at lots of resumes, and might give a little more weight to those that have Stanford, MIT, CMU or Caltech on them, but beyond that, it’s all about whether they have the skills we’re looking for, where they’ve worked, and what kinds of applications they’ve worked on.</p>
<p>Even what kind of degree you have doesn’t matter that much. Most programmers I know don’t have CS degrees, although they do have some kind of STEM degree.</p>
<p>From my experience, large companies don’t hire anyone without a college degree, but that doesn’t necessarily go for start-ups.</p>
Realistically, his options are Haverford and Swarthmore. I hope he knew that before he decided to attend?</p>
<p>CS at Bryn Mawr is not as… rigorous as it could be. The department is on a mission to make its major accessible to students who would not normally consider studying computer science (or any other STEM major). Bryn Mawr students who are serious about learning CS take a majority of their CS classes at Haverford. It’s rare for Haverford students to venture to Bryn Mawr.</p>
<p>CS at Penn is part of the engineering school and the regular cross-registration agreement only covers arts and sciences. Every now and then people do take CS classes at Penn, but it is my understanding that someone needs to pay for those classes. At least that was the situation a year ago.</p>
<p>We were looking to BMC more for the graphics design and creative courses that Haverford doesn’t have. He’ll take the basic courses at Haverford, and he can always branch out to Swarthmore if he needs to. I have a feeling he’ll stay at Haverford though rather than bother to travel on the long bus ride to Swat!</p>
<p>You don’t happen to know if the new 4 and 1 engineering program with Penn includes comp sci do you?</p>