<p>Between RPI and 2 others assuming I get in. Does it play second fiddle to Enginnering.
thanks</p>
<p>ya RPI’s comp sci program is strong also. You will pretty much be a master programmer and a master of data structures once you take comp sci 2: data structures. The teacher is Barbara Cutler, who was a student at MIT and a got her PHD at MIT and taught at MIT for Computer Science and Electrical Engineering courses. Then she came here and taught some computer science classes. One of them being data structures, the class is tough but you will be ready for any job/internship that requires a mastery of data structures. Also the job opportunities for comp sci majors is fantastic. I am a computer engineer/comp sci dual, and every day I get these emails for internships and job emails, and I am only a freshman. Plus computer science has the best starting salary at RPI. With the 50% range being 55-100K for the class of 2012</p>
<p>Over my 4 years there ('07-'11), I never felt like it played second fiddle. Perhaps the people in charge of finances at the department feel otherwise, but knowledge and opinions of departmental financial situation don’t generally trickle down to the students. Introductory and humanities courses aside, your academics will be more or less disjoint from those of most engineering students, so the majority of your interaction will be nonacademic.</p>
<p>The department prepares you quite well. I can’t comment much on the freshman-level courses since they’ve changed recently, but RPI’s version of Introduction to Algorithms is a pretty solid course for something at the sophomore level (comparing it to Princeton, it covers almost two thirds of the material taught in their <em>senior</em> level algorithms course COS 423). There are also some nice senior/graduate level courses to take, but unfortunately options will begin dwindling down by your senior year if you try to stay within a certain subfield (eg. networks, theory, etc). This might not be the case at places like MIT where there are always more classes to take, but is typical of just about any school with a small-to-medium computer science department.</p>
<p>Over all, I think the CS department does a decently good job at preparing you to be a computer scientist. I can’t comment as to whether or not it will prepare you well as a programmer since I mostly avoided the relevant courses, but as CSMathAsa1994 points out, there are various employers who think so.</p>
<p>Thank you both.
I am looking for theory oriented program so sounds good. Any double or dual major with a finance, quantative angle you might recommend? Do CS majors co-op or intern much? They do have some fun also…?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>In RPI, the CS major is VERY Flexible. The classes are tough but there is lot of room for electives. The CS major at RPI almost demands a minor or a dual (I mean this figuratively, you don’t have to dual) . In RPI, people double major CS with other engineering majors, math, physics, business, psychology, you name it. The only thing with dualing with an engineering major is that the engineering major must be the primary major and CS must be secondary or else you will do more classes than you needs to. It is highly recomended with CS majors to dual with math, information technology, or physics. It is probably the strongest dual you can possibly do. </p>
<pre><code> Yes CS majors do co-op and intern. We have a ridiculously strong relationship with cisco, IBM, microsoft,intel, and oracle. (Especially cisco, we have networking classes which are taught by cisco employers and they use those classes to hire people. ) It is really easy for RPI students get an internship or co-op with those companies.
Ya CS majors have fun, the classes are time-consuming but CS majors usually take less classes than engineering majors so they have more free-time.
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<p>Also, there are also concentrations for the CS major: (theory, networking, robotics, cryptology, and etc.)</p>
<p>Thank you guys
Now back to High School!</p>