The aim is to find Liberal Arts Schools in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic Regions that have solid Computer Science Programs.
To complement the schools that are more focused on the Major and renowned for such (e.g., Northeastern, Drexel and Lehigh) want to add in some LACs to offer some diversity in our search. Right now, working from a list that includes Lafayette College, College of William and Mary and College of New Jersey…but am stumped otherwise.
Any suggestions for programs to research?
Hamilton performs well in coding when competing against other liberal arts colleges and smaller universities:
https://cs.hamilton.edu/ccscne/
https://my.hamilton.edu/news/story/comp-sci-department-hosts-college-computing-conference
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/math-computer-science-majors/1814245-computer-science-at-some-smaller-schools-including-liberal-arts-colleges.html may be helpful, although offerings may have changed since then. Check on college web sites for current offerings.
Haverford is very good for computer science.
Which may or may not be reflective of the quality, breadth and depth of the CS curriculum.
Students representing MassBay Community College placed third in the competition. .
OP, if you are looking for a great liberal arts school with a very strong STEM program and where students earn top salaries then Hamilton is a great choice; Hamilton was ranked #24 in Business Insiders “The 50 best colleges where students earn high starting salaries”
http://www.businessinsider.com/colleges-with-the-highest-starting-salaries-2015-8/#24-hamilton-college-27
A great article from Forbes on STEM at LAC’s https://www.forbes.com/sites/chadorzel/2015/04/10/why-small-colleges-are-great-for-science-students/#7d42d9037b9a
Thank you for the responses above, food for thought. Bumping for additional feedback.
Union College immediately came to mind.
Also Marist, although that may be a little bigger than what many think of as a traditional LAC. IBM has a lot of operations in the area, and is very involved with Marist’s CS program.
Would these programs be similar, curriculum-wise, to the CS programs at the top schools like Berkeley, Stanford etc - ie, same course sequences? Or fewer CS courses because there are more requirements in humanities etc?
You’re going to have to compare the programs individually. The core courses for most CS programs are generally similar, but LACs do have a reputation for requiring more more general ed-type classes.
Also, do the LAC’s tend to allow direct admit to CS major?
Re #8
Smaller schools may have fewer upper level course offerings because fewer faculty can only offer so much, especially if they need many instructors to offer small class sizes in lower level courses instead of letting class sizes get bigger if student demand increases. It is not related to humanities and social studies requirements (at LACs, these can range from none at Amherst to extensive at Harvey Mudd).
See reply #2 for more information.
+1 to Haverford.
What GPA and test scores are we talking about? Haverford will require very high stats to have a chance.
Generally, all majors will be open to all students at most liberal arts colleges.
This varies by school. However, it might be possible to take nearly half of one’s courses in computer science at some liberal arts colleges. This might include a senior thesis.
One difference may be class size. Lecture classes at some universities can exceed 1000 students. Liberal arts colleges may cap their class enrollments in the twenties.
What do LACs that intend to offer small class sizes do if student demand exceeds the originally intended capacity for the CS courses (particularly the introductory level courses)?
a. Increase class sizes to accommodate all interested students.
b. Deny some interested students entry into the courses.
c. Add more sections for each course, at the cost of eliminating some other courses that the faculty needed for the added sections would otherwise teach.
d. Add more sections for each course, using adjuncts.
Obviously, not all LACs or departments make the same choices. For example, Harvey Mudd’s introductory CS course has about 200 students, although that may be unusually large for a course at a LAC.
In my experience they do A, B, C and D - when a course is consistently full with long waitlists they add more sections. Some intro courses are pretty big at a LAC - I think D had over 100 in Gen Chem lecture, though 3 professors shared the teaching and labs.
I’m sure the big U’s do something similar if they can. There may be super high demand for a course at a LAC but even if that course is limited to 30 students, there are only 2k students total, or so. If a big U limits a course to 300 students but have 20K students, the issue is similar…or worse possibly.
I can talk about my LAC’s CS department’s response because we’ve had issues with not enough spots in the past in classes.
The department has been expanding by hiring more tenure-track professors in order to accommodate (NOT adjuncts); this is obviously something that does not fix things immediately, because hiring takes time.
The first thing they do is expand section sizes, if possible. We can’t really accommodate more than say 25 people in a CS class because our computer labs don’t have a large number of computers. They generally won’t go above 23/24.
If they can, they will open a new section if it’s a much-needed course (ex. required for current majors to make progress). They will only do this if they can get a current professor to teach it, and will NOT cancel another course to do so. They usually have to do this with about one course every semester (you can’t always predict which one though), so I think they try to build a little give into the faculty schedule.
In the case where they can’t open a new section/course, then they will deny students entry. It’s no use letting people in if they won’t have access to the equipment necessary for the course. Last spring, I was one of only 4 juniors that got into a 300-level CS elective (and I got in off the wait list). There simply wasn’t enough room (too many seniors), and they did not have any professors free that could provide an additional course.
There was, however, one semester that was an exception. Fall of my sophomore year, there was originally extremely low enrollment in computer architecture because the corequisite class filled. The corequisite course was only offered in the fall, so this would have affected spring registration negatively as well. They ended up essentially doubling the size of the corequisite (33 students I believe it ended up being) and reserving two computer labs at the same time, so that there were enough computers for everyone. We still only had one professor though (they couldn’t truly create a second section). This problem won’t happen in the future, though, since the corequisite course is now offered every semester.
I would suggest Bucknell. I don’t know much about Richmond, Trinity, or Union, but maybe take a look at those as well as I believe they have CS too.
A lot probably depends on the specific LACs. Very well funded LACs can be more flexible than big universities when dealing with the shifting sands of course popularity. They can quickly adjust their budgets to bring on more adjuncts and even more permanent hires in order to keep class size small without impacting course availability. They can add more lab capacity to compensate for slightly larger lecture classes. And they can do this without taking away resources from other departments. More budget-constrained LACs have to make different decisions.
CS courses are highly sought after at my son’s LAC. The major is popular and the department is well regarded, but something us older folks don’t always pick up on is that young people at LACs (and elsewhere) view CS as a natural part of a well rounded education. And yes, it provides real world skills. So it’s inevitable that the intro courses get a lot of traffic.
My son’s experience is that the high level of interest among non-majors even goes beyond just the first few courses in the sequence. The school has anticipated the interest in intro courses but my sense is that they have been a bit surprised by the level of interest that’s continuing into the intermediate level courses.