Good quality CS schools

<p>Well it really depends on what each person defines as “a good school.” It has to be at least a respectable program that people have heard of. UCLA is not the best CS school or in the top 10, but it is definitely a very solid program with notable innovators like Alan Kay (who won the Turing Award in 2003), Leonard Kleinrock (the inventor of the internet), and has great professors like David Smallberg and Carey Nachenberg who have definitely hammered in the basics of CS instruction to students.</p>

<p>"The only thing I’d be careful of is a college that (a) isn’t very well known, (b) offers a CS program in association with its engineering program, and (c) isn’t accredited or seeking accreditation. " Can someone elaborate on this? Is there some issue with CS programs in engineering schools? I thought that was preferred to CS programs in Arts and Sciences schools?</p>

<p>There is no “preference” on which internal department offers CS. At some schools, CS is part of engineering. At some schools, CS is part of Arts & Sciences. Hey, at U-Maryland-College Park, CS is part of the College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences.</p>

<p>IT DOES NOT MATTER!</p>

<p>Just make sure that the CS program (at least a “State U”) offers within the curriculum:</p>

<ul>
<li>1 year/2 semesters of Introductory Programming (C++ or Java ideal, but Scheme is OK)</li>
<li>1 semester of Discrete Mathematical Strucures</li>
<li>1 semester of Computer Organization (would be nice if Assembly Language is included)</li>
<li>1 semester of Data Structures</li>
<li>1 semester of Operating Systems</li>
<li>1 semester of the Theory or Organization of Programming Languages</li>
<li>1 semester of Algorithms or Analysis of Algorithms (may be part of Data Structures)</li>
</ul>

<p>In my humble and personal opinion, a good CS program has elective courses in:

  • Database Systems
  • Computer Networks
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Graphics
  • Software Engineering
  • Parallel Algorithms/Programming (may be offered by Math dept)
  • Numerical Analysis (may be offered by Math dept)
  • Cryptology (may be offered by Math dept)</p>

<p>The Math requirements for the CS degree should be AT LEAST:

  • Calculus I
  • Calculus II
  • Linear Algebra (needed for Computer Graphics and Numerical Analysis courses)
  • Probability & Statistics for Engineers (needed for Computer Network course(s))</p>

<p>^^ Agreed. It doesn’t matter if the CS department is run out of engineering, math, wherever.</p>

<p>(Well, I suppose I wouldn’t want it run out of the Art Department.)</p>

<p>Schools which house the CS program in an Engineering department are almost certainly aware of the existence of ABET accreditation. The job of people administering the program is to know about these sorts of things.</p>

<p>Schools that aren’t well-known for having strong programs can - and, arguably, should - use accreditation as a way to ensure that a certain standard is being met.</p>

<p>A school that knows about ABET accreditation, and does not have it, and is not seeking it, is essentially making the following claim: our program is good enough that we don’t even need to bother having the program’s quality checked. Some schools - MIT, CMU, etc. - are probably well within their rights to make such a claim. It’s up to <em>you</em>, however, to determine whether you’re prepared to take an unaccredited program at its word.</p>

<p>Frankly, with 264 ABET-CAC accredited CS programs to choose from, I don’t know why you’d go to an engineering-flavored CS program without accreditation unless it’s internationally recognized to have an excellent CS program. And let’s not pretend that only mediocre programs are getting this kind of accreditation: Georgia Tech, MIT, UCB, etc. are all ABET-CAC accredited, even though they probably don’t need to bother.</p>

<p>Now, don’t get me wrong: there could be a very legitimate reason to go to a CS program that isn’t housed in an engineering department and which isn’t seeking ABET-CAC accreditation: programs with a strong liberal arts flavor, which may be more like math or applied math degrees, or which involve substantial interdisciplinary study, might not qualify for ABET-CAC accreditation, but may be worthwhile pursuits. That said, these sorts of programs may not be optimal if the goal is to get a 9/5 job working as a vanilla software developer right out of school.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>However, sometimes, a combined math/CS department is very small, with limited or infrequent course offerings in one or both of math and CS. Check catalogs and schedules.</p>

<p>Of course, CS can also be its own department within an “arts and sciences” division, or a school focusing on such without engineering.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Non-ABET-accredited CS majors need to be evaluated individually. I doubt people would question the quality of a non-ABET-accredited CS major from Stanford, Berkeley L&S CS, or CMU, but the sparse or infrequent CS offerings at Emory or Amherst may make them less than optimal choices (students at those schools may have to use the cross-registration agreements to get all of the CS courses they want).</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>The organization of introductory level CS courses covering these topics can vary considerably from school to school. The number of courses or credits’ worth of courses involved can vary as well.</p>

<p>Note that this can make transfer credit more difficult for students who transfer from one school to another.</p>

<p>[Top</a> 20 colleges for computer science majors, based on earning potential - Network World](<a href=“http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/091713-computer-science-college-ranking-273910.html]Top”>http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/091713-computer-science-college-ranking-273910.html)</p>

<p>Do not worry about accreditation. Employers don’t.</p>

<p>Back in June, I went through the ARWU list of top CS programs to see which were accredited. </p>

<p>Of the US universities in the ARWU top 50, 13 are accredited, and 18 are not accredited.</p>

<p>Of the US universities ranked between 101-200, there were 11 accredited and 11 not accredited.</p>

<p>1) Stanford - no
2) MIT - yes
3) UC Berkeley- yes
4) Princeton - no
5) Harvard - no
6) Carnegie-Mellon - no
7) Cornell - no
8) Texas - no
9) UCLA - yes
10) USC - yes
11) UC San Diego - yes
13) Caltech - no
14) Illinois - yes
15) Maryland - no
16) Michigan - yes
19) Purdue - no
20) Rutgers - no
21) Columbia - no
21) Georgia Tech - yes
25) Washington - no
29) UC Davis - yes
31) Ohio State - yes
31) UMass Amherst - no
33) Yale - no
39) UC Irvine- yes
41) UC Santa Barbara - yes
44) Duke- no
48) NYU - no
48) North Carolina - no
41) Virginia - yes
50) Boston U - no</p>

<p>51-75
Brown - no
Colorado - yes
Penn - yes
Arizona State - yes
Northwestern - no
Rice - no
UC Santa Cruz - no
Florida - no
Houston - yes
Minnesota- no
Notre Dame - yes
Utah - no
Wisconsin - no
New Jersey Institute of Technology - yes</p>

<p>76-100
Michigan State - yes</p>

<p>North Carolina State - yes
Northeastern - yes
Penn State - no
SUNY Stony Brook - yes
Illinois Chicago - yes
Pitt - no</p>

<p>101-150
Clemson - yes
Colorado State - no
Iowa State - yes
Rensselaer- no
Texas A&M - yes
Johns Hopkins - yes
Arizona - no
Rochester - no
Vanderbilt - no</p>

<p>151-200
Dartmouth - no
Drexel - yes
Indiana - no
Indiana - Purdue Indianapolis - no
Oregon State - yes
SUNY Buffalo - no
Temple - no
Central Florida - yes
Chicago - no
Nebraska - yes
Tennessee - yes
Wisconsin Milwaukee - yes
Virginia Poly - yes</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Agreed.</p>

<p>What I wanted to get across is that in order to take the courses that use the areas that are in most actual working projects (operating systems, databases and networks), one needs to have a background in programming, data structures/algorithms and computer organization in some capacity.</p>

<p>True, the initial concepts will vary from school to school. I was pretty much using how the state of Maryland and its community colleges are set up. I know it will vary from state to state.</p>

<p>20 colleges for computer science majors, based on earning potential - Network World</p>

<p>Angry Pigs (a spinoff of Angry Birds), Clash of Factions, and Poker Free Casino.</p>

<p>Does anyone know which colleges in Massachusetts would be best to apply to for CS? I’d like to apply for a full ride to school. I know there’s many good schools here, I’d like clarification from people either way… It’s been a while since anyone posted in this thread, I don’t know if starting a new thread would be appreciated</p>

<p>shreyasmiscool— where did you go to school since you said the school is important?</p>

<p>I feel the school is important but my son went to a state school and CS was his minor and got a good job. Friends of mine that have worked as CS for a long time tell me you learn it on the job and not school. OF course, going throught the intense interview programming screening process isnt easy and you have to know something from college.</p>

<p>Yay! UCLA has an accredited program :)</p>

<p>[Best</a> Schools for Computer Science - 2013 - 2014 College Salary Report](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/best-schools-by-major/computer-science]Best”>http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/best-schools-by-major/computer-science)</p>

<p>^^ wow 7 of top 20 are CA schools ? I couple are obvious candidates, but Santa Barbara ? Why does this list have such a CA bias ?</p>

<p>Payscale, Glassdor, US News and all the rest of those “Who is the Best” surveys should be taken with a grain of salt. Many employers don’t even know about these surveys.</p>

<p>mitchklong</p>

<ol>
<li>California has a lot of CS jobs (probably more than any other state), and local companies hire locally.</li>
<li>California (CS populated areas) is very expensive so local salaries are a little bit higher. But I know that $82,000 from Berkley and $64,000 from UT Austin are very different lifestyles. :)</li>
</ol>