How is the placement opportunities for computer science students?

College Majors Math/Computer Science Majors
1

Does any of these universities offer a decent computer science program? I have seen data that these universities meet pretty decent need based need. How is the placement opportunities?

Duke University
Emory University
Georgetown University
Northwestern University
Rice University
University of Chicago
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
University of Virginia
Vanderbilt University
Washington University in St. Louis
Johns Hopkins University
Tufts University
University of Southern California (USC)
Northeastern University

2

Good at all. CS is a hot field, all of these schools have solid to great programs.

3

Emory’s CS offerings do appear to be somewhat more limited, though.

4

@ucbalumnus So Emory is limited but Georgetown is not? Predictable really.

@ultapradesh All of these CS programs place very well. Google is the 6th largest employer for Emory College. Emory also is the only school that offers QSS on your list, so you might want to look into that. Lastly choose based on fit,as that is most important.

5

What is QSS? How do you define based on fit? I am so glad asking question now, not next year. My daughter is very bright, have great achievements, have summer internships in computer science and not like girls who code hut wau more technical than that, and she is very active socially

6

@ultapradesh
Quantitative Social Science

7

Emory’s CS offerings are listed at http://www.mathcs.emory.edu/site/courses/general-information/ .

Did not initially notice Georgetown in the list. Georgetown CS appears to have a strong specialization emphasis, based on its course offerings (see https://cs.georgetown.edu/academics/numbering ). It may be more or less suitable to a given student based on subarea interests.

8

@VANDEMORY1342
Northwestern has been offering MMSS with the rigor of graduate courses since the 1970s.
http://www.mmss.northwestern.edu/

9

@IWannaHelp
Similar but not the same Mathematical methods and quantitative theory are not the same, which is what QSS is based on.

10

There’s no need to go to an elite university for computer science. It’s an employable degree out of college. You don’t want to take the risk of taking out large loans, because the payments would just offset any potential salary gains. I would go for as much scholarship money as I could get. In the professional world, employers are interested in what you know

11

@VANDEMORY1342

Just because the name has the word “theory” doesn’t mean it’s special. The majority of the QSS core are “intro” classes available to all majors (so they are not tailor made for QSS) and you can find similar if not equivalent classes fairly easily in all the schools listed in the first post. For comparison, Northwestern’s MMSS is far more rigorous and fairly theoretical despite the word “method”.

12

@IWannaHelp
Emory is known for having a strong core curriculum, similar to Columbia (probably not as rigorous) . However the elective classes (usually a 6-8 class requirement per major) are certainly theoretical in nature and highly respected. I’m not privy to NW so I won’t speak on them.

13

Have come across some really impressive graduates from UChicago, and JHU. UChicago faculty had some very nice young hires recently. Don’t know about placement though.

14

Thanks @4thfloor

15

For Duke University, there is incredibly high respect in general and maybe it is because of its biomedical engineering being so phenomenal that there’s this perception that Duke Univ in general is excellent at undergrad engineering/sciences.

Emory University. No idea. But this reddit post seems to imply that if you are opting for Emory for CS, you might want to look elsewhere. Having Georgia Tech nearby probably doesn’t help as the students interested in CS would probably choose Georgia Tech over Emory. reddit post of : amiunderratingemoryscsprogramshouldifocus/

Northwestern University. Friend I know is graduating there. Heard great things of CS program (more applied than theoretical learning in general). Solid reputation just like Duke Univ so there’s also high respect in general.

Rice University. Heard its curriculum in CS is actually very rigorous. Like Harvey Mudd rigorous. Very well reputed overall and Rice in general has good reputations in the engineering/sciences.

University of Chicago. So uhmm… in case you don’t know, U Chicago is a bit weird in that they start right off in functional programming unlike other schools. For most people, it means “super difficult” curriculum at start for CS. It seems this would be ideal for preparing for high end exclusive CS jobs like in Jane Street in which you actually have to know much about functional programming like OCaml to do something. It’s curriculum is tough. I don’t know much about its placement but I personally have high respects to anyone that has to go through a functional programming experience from semester 1.

UNC-Chapel Hill. Well reputed.

UVa. No idea.

Vanderbilt Univ. You can search their placements in Computer Science every year. They place extraordinarily well so I must assume solid reputation.

Washing Univ in St Louis. According to my friend and those in past posts on forum, the Computer Science program here is a wash. Same to be said with the math department. It has multiple choice exams for their calculus courses. Multiple choice. Like really, c’mon. That said, if you want to work for Epics after graduation, it’s one of those feeder schools to that company though I do believe U Wisconsin-Madison does feed better in that company.

Johns Hopkins Univ. School with solid reputation in general.

Tufts Univ. According to my friend who transferred from Tufts, he told me it was nowhere near as rigorous as it should be. Don’t know much about its placement though.

University of Southern California. Really well reputed in the CS graphics/gaming part. So I have to assume that it’s extremely well received though there seems to be UCLA / USC rivalry if you like that kinda thing.

Northeastern Univ. No idea.

For those I said “well reputed”, what I mean is the school is so well known for solid academics that like recruiters just consider it top tier. Johns Hopkins being one of them for sure for instance.