<p>I've heard people saying that SEAS has a specialty at CS AI & Robotics, but then why is it that Columbia is not ranked high(in fact it's not even on the list), on undergraduate computer engineering in USNEWS?</p>
<p>there are many things a CS department does. The CS dept in SEAS isn't particularly remarkable at anything except AI & Robotics. It may also not be considered a traditional "hard" engineering school. At the same time, a number of people I knew from the dept ended up working for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. It depends on your understanding of what your needs are.</p>
<p>I don't think anyone on this board can tell you why a particular school is or isn't on a particular ranking list. that's the job of the USNWR people.</p>
<p>computer engineering and computer science are two completely different studies, as a potential CS student, thats the first distinction you have to make.CS department in columbia is one of SEAS's largest departments (biomed, cs, OR) the CS department quality may not be that of stanford, carnegie or mit, but its pretty decent for undergraduate study. I dont think there is an undergraduate computer science ranking anyways?</p>
<p>computer engineering on the other hand is a combined program between the CS department and EE department. like denz said, SEAS is not exactly a traditional engineering school therefore some of the traditional engineering sides are slightly weaker.</p>
<p>computer science studies the mathematical properties and application of algorithms, where as computer engineering focuses more on the hardware realization.</p>
<p>actually, the columbia administrators did a study, and they found a direct correlation between the schools ranked above them and school size. majority of the schools ranked higher than columbia have larger departments and larger overall engineering schools.</p>