<p>If someone who was or is a CS major can answer some Qs id be really grateful -</p>
<p>1) how are the job opportunities? I know the dept is pretty new and not as renowned as economics or math, but will majoring in CS at UC be better than majoring in it at a school like university of MD? </p>
<p>2) kinda like my first Q- Generally, would going to a rly good school like UC but majoring in a less renowned program look as good to companies? Or would they not really care about the fact that I went to UC because of my major?</p>
<p>3) how hard or easy is the major? What's the workload like?</p>
<p>vbball - I am not a computer science major but my son is about to declare that particular major as a rising second year. I would like to share some thoughts with you that I’ve shared with my own son. I may not directly answer your questions, but I hope that I supply some food for thought anyway.</p>
<p>My son did not apply and enroll at UChicago specifically for the CS major, in fact we were somewhat surprised he has gone in that direction. He was not among the many young people today who have been hacking since they were 11. In HS, though he was a strong math student, he was more interested in prose and poetry writing, writing and performing music, and theater. He mostly wanted to go to UChicago for the intellectual environment and for the city of Chicago (minus the cold and the wind!). Nevertheless he has worked very hard and survived his first year taking CS courses for which I am very proud of him. As recently as two weeks ago, however, he still wondered out loud about the wisdom of majoring in a department for which UChicago is not really known. Here is basically how I respond:</p>
<ol>
<li> He is not a computer science major in the normal sense, somewhat vocationally focused on programming skills. He is a student at the UChicago obtaining one of the most rigorous undergraduate educations possible among a cohort of brilliant students. If he continues in CS, he is likely to use the skills obtained in an as yet unknown way, branching out and make a living in the other areas of interest augmented by his CS knowledge and skills.<br></li>
<li> UChicago does not have departments which are not among the top in the U.S. and / or the World. If the UChicago is not in the top 10 right now for CS, they will be. They simply have too many resources and too many brilliant students as well as (critical) the philosophical bent to be the best in every field they offer. They will get to the top or near the top if they are not there already.</li>
<li> The new Provost is a strong indicator, in my opinion, of what the future commitment of the University to CS will be. A physicist and former CEO of Argonne National Lab (managed by UChicago), Professor Isaacs was a founder of the Computational Institute at Argonne as well as a member of the group which conceptualized the new Molecular Engineering Institute. The evidence strongly points to Provost Isaacs and UChicago strongly promoting the growth of CS.<br></li>
<li> There are tremendous synergies to be found at the UChicago between CS and other departments / institutes. Aside from obvious synergies between quantitative finance, economics, computational biology, physics / cosmology, basic math there are more direct synergies such as the aforementioned Computation Institute as well as the Quantum Information and Technology specialty within the Molecular Engineering Institute.</li>
<li> Booth School of Business. I told my son to expect the aggressive businessmen at Booth to start tracking him down next year to help them with business ideas. That timeline has been beaten by several months. He’s already had informal discussions during his first year with Booth students. There’s nothing specific yet, but I see it as only a matter of time before a connection is made.</li>
<li> UChicago CS makes geographical sense. Chicago itself has a fertile computer science employment scene, ranging from quantitative finance to biotech which is clamoring for top CS talent. The city of Chicago is spaced fortuitously between Boston on the East Cost (MIT, Harvard, Princeton), Carnegie Mellon in the Mid-Atlantic, and Stanford and Berkeley on the West coast. It makes sense to have a regional power emerge in the Middle West. I even see the proximity to UIUC as a strength. If both schools are smart, they can compliment each other to create the Midwestern version of Stanford / Berkeley.</li>
</ol>
<p>In short, I am optimistic that CS at UChicago is already strong, but poised to become much stronger.</p>
<p>I’m an incoming first year majoring in math and CS, so I’m also interested in this question. From similar threads I’ve heard that their CS department isn’t bad, it’s just smaller than that of other schools (which makes it’s ranking in CS lower than it should be). But there are more and more people doing CS at uchicago as time goes on, which should be great for the department. The level of rigor of the CS courses is on par with the rest of the school. People tend to place well for internships and jobs, all the major companies recruit on campus. Also, people don’t really care what you major in as long as it’s quantitative and you have the skills needed for the job, so the uchicago name will still carry a lot of weight when applying for jobs. </p>
<p>If one is certain about majoring in computer science then there are many better choices including UMD in terms course selection, faculty strength and research opportunities. However, going to uchicago to do cs will not hinder your chances of getting a job at any well known company. These days you have to be really bad not to a find a good job with a degree in cs. If you want to go to grad school to do theoretical stuff or combine cs with econ or math then uchicago is a very good choice.</p>