<p>Hi guys I'm an Illinois Resident transfer student who was admitted to UIUC's computer science program for Spring 2014. I've also been accepted to UIC's program and I wanted to get your opinion on weather's UIUC is worth the extra ~25-35k I'd pay in housing/food/driving (4k/year of which is extra tuition+fees) over 2-2.5 years. This will all be out of pocket, I don't qualify for any financial aid or scholarships and my parents will not be giving me any money.</p>
<p>I would basically be paying no commuting costs for UIC because I am in a unique situation where my dad works downtown and I could drive with him everyday and live at home. I know the top companies recruit from UIUC and UIUC's program is ranked 5th in the country whereas UIC is 57, but I've heard from other that where you went to school doesn't matter after you 1st or 2nd job. Also based on UIC's COE career fare page it seems like Microsoft, Motorola, etc also recruit from UIC, but no Google/Apple like UIUC for internships.
Can any top school CS students and alumni advise me on if it was worth the extra money going to a top school or if I should just go to UIC and save the extra money (how have you seen the low ranked school CS alumni fare in the career world compared to yourself and other top school alumni?).</p>
<p>When you guys were doing your internships, did you see many no-name CS students as well?
Thanks guys!</p>
<p>I am a contractor for NSA. Most of my work has been in software engineering (with some pure systems engineering at times). I wish I could take a picture of the parking lots here and photos of workers here with their alumni lanyards around their necks…but cameras are not allowed. With pictures, I could show you the vast number of schools represented from here. I can tell you with confidence that I have worked with, sat by or been in meetings with graduates from EVERY state flagship school.</p>
<p>I repeat: A UIUC CS degree is NOT WORTH an extra $25,000-$35,000.</p>
<p>UIC is a great school for a CS degree. Save your money.</p>
<p>Based on listed costs of attendance, it looks like the difference between UIUC living on your own versus UIC living at home without being charged for food and utilities is probably around $36,000 for two years.</p>
<p>UIC appears to have a perfectly good CS department. Are you sure G and A don’t come recruiting? They are big companies that recruit widely. It is usually the small and midsize non-local companies that recruit less widely. But I don’t see the UIUC recruiting advantage to be worth $36,000 (especially if debt) if you are willing to search for and apply to companies on your own.</p>
<p>Thanks GLOBALTRAVELER, that makes me feel a lot better!</p>
<p>ucbalumnus, yes the difference would be $36k if I were to live in the dorms, but I’d rather live in an apartment which is cheap in urbana-champaign $500/mo → $6k/year + 4k/year more tuition+fees at UIUC than UIC and maybe another $2k in food/gas/etc = $24-30k more (depending on if it takes me 2 or 2.5 years to finish). $35k was a bit of an exaggeration, I don’t think I’d spend $10k/year on apartment + food/gas/etc. Either way though it’s more money than I’d spend at UIC and living with my parents. </p>
<p>I was thinking though, wouldn’t UIUC offer more higher paying internship opportunities that I can use to close cost difference? Or would UIC offer be able to same paying internships? If I were to go to UIC I feel that 2 years of internships would be enough to pay off most of the cost of UIC and I could graduate with very low debt.</p>
<p>Another reason I’d prefer UIC is because of the convenience of not having to look for an apartment/moving my stuff down there/etc plus the cost savings</p>
<p>Pay difference in internships and co-ops should not be much (relative to the price difference between the schools), unless you don’t get one at all. Chicago area employers will find it convenient to recruit at UIC, so if there are enough employers with internship, co-op, or new graduate jobs around, there should not be too much issue with that.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info ucbalumnus … I had one more quick question for you though: Judging by your name, I see you graduated from UCB, ranked #1 in computer science.</p>
<p>Do you think your coworkers, friends, etc that went to lesser known schools have trouble finding a job compared to yourself? Do they receive less attention from recruiters, etc? Harder time getting promotions, etc? Do you feel that your school name even matters now that you’ve got experience under your belt?</p>
<p>Also some other commenters in another site mentioned that I should go to UIUC because I would be with peers that are motivated/passionate about CS which would help my education. I don’t know how much this would help me because I am a very motivated learner myself, but I feel that I may miss out on cool student projects. Another said that UIUC would have better equipment to learn the newest technologies. Is there any truth to this - did it have a big affect your education?</p>
<p>Also about your question about if Apple/Google recruit at UIC … I feel that although UIC is a solid school, its often lives in the shadows of UIUC (its flagship sister school in the UI system) so I feel that UIC doesn’t have the pull yet to attract Google/Apple just yet. Although I’m surprised how far UIC has come though as it’s such a young university. </p>
<p>Thanks! I’m just trying to be practical about how much debt I go into instead of racking up tons of debt like my friends did! :)</p>
<p>Once you have some experience, the importance of your school (or even your major) fades, if you know enough of the CS stuff to be able to adapt to new things. It is not that unusual for people in the industry to have learned a substantial amount of CS from self-education after studying something else in college, although if you are going to school to study CS anyway, you may as well choose one with a reasonably good offering of CS courses, like either UIC or UIUC.</p>
<p>Yes, there are plenty of Berkeley graduates around, but also graduates of many other schools around. There is a significant bias toward schools in the state or region, simply because recruiting is more convenient, and many people prefer to stay in their state or region after school.</p>
<p>CS is not like investment banking, management consulting, or law, where the school you graduated from is the main factor in hiring throughout your career.</p>
<p>You may also want to consider DePaul. They have a great CS department that is well recruited in the Chicago/tri-state area. Depending on your stats, you might get some scholarship money there (don’t know what they give for transfers), and you will at least save the living on campus costs. Their CS classes are all held downtown Chicago walking distance from the train station. I did my Masters and MBA there, and with 25+ years of IT experience, it was well worth it. </p>
<p>Also, have you visited UIC? The vibe on that campus is very different than UIUC or Depaul. You might or might not like it.</p>
<p>You want to work in Silicon Valley. UIUC will give you more interview opportunities simply for the name recognition but it does not guarantee a job.</p>
<p>You should also consider what kind of college experience you want to have. Living at home and living in a college town are very different.</p>
<p>JCCsMom, yes I checked out Loyola and Depaul, but they largely seem to be unranked for computer science and seem like they’re mostly liberal arts schools rather than engineering. In Illinois only UIUC, Northwestern, and UChicago seem to be ranked higher for CS than UIC with UIUC being the highest. Plus the tuition is cheaper at UIC/UIUC than Depaul</p>
<p>irisss, I’m not really sure where I want to work, but I definitely don’t want to lose out on any opportunities, but I was hoping to make up my lack of brand name school with other stuff like side projects, open source contributions, and being very knowledgeable and motivated? Would that be helpful?</p>
<p>I’m not too concerned with the whole college experience thing though :)</p>
<p>^^^ Mostly local companies recruiting at UIC isn’t be a problem if you’re looking to stay local after graduation. It might even be an advantage!</p>
<p>As a parent and a university professor, I echo what the others are saying. If the cost is a lot more, it is not worth it. UIC has a fine program as do the other schools mentioned and other universities in the city of Chicago. One of my sons went to UIUC and the other to IIT, they both have done fine and the best thing was that we were able to get them out of college with no debt (UIUC tuition was a lot lower 14 years ago and IIT is free for children of faculty).</p>
<p>The thing about undergraduate education is that what you get out of it is dominated by what you put into it. You can go to a lower ranked school and if you challenge yourself and take the right courses and do the right things to build your network and career, you will be fine. My second son, graduated from IIT in 2010, at the height of the recession with a degree in Computer Engineering and got a job within a month. He got the interview because of contacts he made at IIT but he impressed the interviewers so much that they hired him instead of the Senior Engineer they were looking for. Now, 3 years later, he is the Senior Engineer.</p>
<p>All that being said, I do have to comment on our idea of being a commuter student. I have seen a lot of students in my 30 years at Illinois Tech and I am convinced that it is a disadvantage to the student to commute throughout the entire undergraduate time. Even if you do not do the “college thing”, commuting impacts your studies because you are not able to work as easily in study groups and network with your peers and faculty. Yes you can be successful but it makes it more difficult. Give it a try for a year and then reconsider whether it might not be worth it to live closer to campus for the last year or two. I insisted that my son and now my daughter live near campus and it was well worth the expense.</p>
<p>If someone asks him where he went to school, and he says “IIT”, do they understand correctly which school he means? Around here, if someone says “IIT” in that context, s/he usually does not mean the one in Chicago.</p>
<p>In general, I agree with the comments above. However, there are some companies that are exceptions and do have a gross overrepresentation of employees from high ranked colleges. For example, Google and Apple are two companies mentioned earlier in the thread that are both located in Silicon Valley and both considered desirable by most CS grads. If I search for software engineers on LinkedIn at these companies, I see very different results. </p>
<p>At Apple, the 5 colleges with the most employees at the Silicon Valley location are as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li>San Jose State</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>CMU</li>
<li>Cal Polytechnic State SLO</li>
</ol>
<p>San Jose State isn’t ranked well, yet they are the most represented college because they are located close to Apple. Most colleges that are ranked well and not nearby do not appear in top 10 and/or top 20, such as MIT.</p>
<p>In contrast, at Google, the 5 colleges with the most employees at the Silicon Valley location are as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Tsingua University (the university in China with the highest CS ranking)
(~6. UIUC)</li>
</ol>
<p>The top 4 are the same 4 colleges that USNWR ranks highest in CS. San Jose State is located much closer than CMU and MIT, yet it wasn’t even in the top 10. The highly ranked UIUC program also does well, even though it is not located nearby.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus - In Chicago, it is understood what IIT is. Now that he has 3 years experience it is not even an issue. However, I get your point, many of our students call it Illinois Tech and I use the full name usually. The initials are a mixed blessing.</p>
<p>I would love to see what percentage of Google’s Silicon Valley programmers went to different universities. If 1.2% of Google employees went to Stanford, 1.15% went to Cal, and 1.1% went to CMU, while Santa Clara grads make up 1% and San Francisco State grads make up 0.95%, it exaggerates the suggestion that it’s important to go to a top university in order to work at a place like Google. (I have no idea what the actual percentages are. I just made some up to illustrate a point.)</p>
<p>I think it’s mostly about location. Stanford, Cal and CMU have engineering programs near Google’s Silicon Valley offices. In addition to Apple, San Jose State undoubtedly places a lot of people at Google, too. </p>
<p>Apple has a big campus in Austin, which would be why they have a lot of Texas alumni on staff. There’s not a big software industry in Pittsburgh, so a lot of CMU’s Pittsburgh CS grads have traditionally gone to Boston and New York, both of which have Google offices. Google’s Boston location would help account for the high number of MIT grads.</p>
<p>This is a great discussion! I was also looking through the average starting salaries as reported by UIUC for CS students and they’re saying 90k whereas UIC is saying 60k. Is this starting salary difference most likely due to more UIUC grads going to silicone valley where the cost of living (and therefore salaries) are higher or are employers just paying more for a top degree?</p>
<p>Software engineer salaries are largely determined by the technology specialty that you are in. That is yet another reason not to get too caught up on starting salaries. The “State-U” CS grad may start off with a lower salary than “Top-10-School” CS grad but after 2 or 3 years, the “State-U” grad may acquire the more “hotter in the streets” skill-set than the “Top-10-School” grad.</p>
<p>Another thing is that this is no longer the age of staying with one company for years. The biggest bumps in pay comes from changing employers while you are bringing an in-demand skill-set.</p>
<p>…and my final statement…</p>
<p>Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Silicon Valley are not the “be all end all” for CS/Software employment. Remember, American Express, Visa, ACME Mortgage, any airlines and just about ANY merchant does not care WHO is direct-depositing into your bank account. They only care if you are making the money.</p>