<p>Anybody know what quality of education Northwestern can provide in economics, history and computer science?</p>
<p>And what's Northwestern is most renowned for in the social sciences and engineering?</p>
<p>Most renowned in social sciences: economics; the undergrad team had been national champion for College Fed Challenge two years in a row (beating UChicago in the midwest regional ;)).</p>
<p>Most renowned in engineering: material science (first materials science academic department in the world); the undergrads had won 4 of the 5 collegiate design competition since 2001.</p>
<p>Don't wanna hijack this thread, but what about Interntional Studies as well?</p>
<p>Computer science: It's certainly not MIT, but we have some amazing professors and opportunities for undergrad research. I'd say the strongest research groups are the Systems one and the one led by Ken Forbus (those guys work on some sort of machine learning stuff--that's pretty much AI + cognitive science).</p>
<p>Overall, there's been a lot of progress in the comp.sci. part of the Electrical Engeneering and Computer Science department for the last couple of years. </p>
<p>Given that and our econ department, Northwestern makes a good choice for double majoring in econ and comp. sci. or majoring in one and minoring in the other.</p>
<p>the International Studies department isn't exactly what you would call "renowned" heh, this coming from an IS major.</p>
<p>Northwestern has an exceptional economics program.</p>
<p>"the undergrad team had been national champion for College Fed Challenge two years in a row (beating UChicago in the midwest regional )."
I guess Duke is better than Princeton in math, then?</p>
<p>NU's history dept. is middling--not one of the top ten history programs in the country. Probably about #25.
NU's economics is one of the country's top ten.</p>
<p>daniel,</p>
<p>I assume you are referring to Duke's performance at Putnam. Well, technically, the pre-req for Putnam is nothing more than 1st year Caculus. Since most people in elite schools already have APs, that means a Duke freshman can participate without even taking any class at their math department. Putnam exam isn't a test of how much math you know as long as you got 1st year of calculus under your belt. It's more a measure of IQ or creativity in solving tricky math problems. Another key to success is whether the school has a good coach. Like I said, those problems aren't conventional; so they are difficult to solve even for many math professors. A lot of schools just don't have the kind of professor who can have all the tricks in his head to solve them AND volunteer their time to coach. So the anwer to your question is no.</p>
<p>Winning the fed challenge is highly impressive. Like all of the major academic competitions, however, the results are based on the performance of a handful of students who aren't necessarily representative of the department's students and definitely not of the departments professors. Thus Duke can beat Princeton in a math competition. </p>
<p>This is just an odd way of putting it. NU has one of the top economics departments in the world located in a huge financial center. No matter what the OP's goals in economics, NU is one of a handful of the best places to pursue those goals.</p>
<p>I believe they also have a top winning chemistry dept and music school (my two areas of interest) : ).</p>