Iowa State, Miami University, Ohio State or Ohio University

Hi all, My son is trying to decide between Iowa State, Miami University, Ohio State or Ohio University for Computer Science. Any thoughts?

Are you an Ohio resident? Is the cost similar for all of these schools?

Has he visited? What does he like or dislike about each school?

The cost is similar and he likes all of them. Right now we are trying to narrow it down to which school will afford him the best job opportunies.

I would probably lean toward Iowa State or Ohio State for CS recruitment, based purely on intuition.

Have you and he looked at the computer science offerings at these schools? Are the opportunities for upper division electives similar? Are required classes offered every semester or only once a year or less? With nearly 1000 CS students, Ohio State probably has quite a number of classes and multiple sections offered every semester and probably the same with Iowa State. You can often look at class schedules online to see what is offered during the current semester and even sometimes previous semesters. A lot of times you can also see the maximum class size. Looking at the interests of the faculty can also be enlightening if your son has any idea of what area(s) in computer science might be the most interesting to him.

I would agree that the on-campus recruitment from companies across the US will be better at Iowa State and Ohio State, again mostly because of the number of students in engineering/computer science at those schools. So many potential candidates all in one location is a big draw to companies.

I can’t speak to the other schools but we visited Iowa State last weekend and we were very impressed. In doing a little bit of research, Iowa State has plowed more money into hiring faculty than any other university in recent years so it also shows a dedication to teaching. They do hold large career fairs each year as well specific to the different colleges at the school.