Hi everyone,
I recently attended a Duke regional info session and I really liked it. I never thought about applying to Duke in the fall until now, but I don’t really know a lot about it besides what they say on their website and brief info session.
How is Duke’s CS program? I plan on majoring on CS in college. What makes Duke unique from other schools? How is the social life there? Are the classes small or large?
If there’s anything else I’m missing please let me know.
Thanks! I appreciate the responses.
The CS program is small but top-notch. A Duke professor recently served as an expert witness for Google in a multi-billion dollar case against Oracle. I believe he still taught his intro to CS class via Skype!
Duke professors/graduates have won Turing Awards (the Nobel of CS), founded very successful tech companies (Box, Mint.com etc.) and served the most influential corporations on the planet in various capacities (CEO of Apple, Head of OS at Microsoft, CEO of Cisco, CEO of P&G, Head of Product Development at GM, CEO of GE P&W, CEO of P&G etc.)
Duke is a very tight knit community. Students have a lot of school spirit (more than students at many Ivy and non-Ivy peers). Intro classes can be large (they will be at any research university; Stanford’s intro to CS course has over 500 students) but they get smaller as you progress.
Also, Linkedin recently ranked Duke in the top 10 for employment prospects in software engineering. The average starting salary at Duke is $76,700 (more than comparable numbers from schools like Yale and Princeton). This data was obtained by the federal govt.
@NerdyChica Wow, thanks for all the info! Duke’s CS department sounds fantastic. I’m really excited to apply!