<p>Reed is in Portland (It’s U of O that’s in Eugene).</p>
<p>Colby and Colgate wouldn’t offer as many term-time internships, but students could do summer internships pretty much anywhere in the country. Being well-recognized colleges, I’m sure that they’re pretty competitive for those internships.</p>
<p>Computer science is not my field, but much can be gleaned from glancing at the course catalogs. In addition to a traditional CS curriculum Connecticut College offers a range of classes in interesting areas, like “Multimedia”, “Artificial Intelligence,” “Digital Sound Processing,” in addition to the traditional basic computer science curriculum. They seem to have classes on areas that are “hot” right now like data mining and machine learning and informatics and bioinformatics. They teach their first year programming class in Python, it seems. Connecticut has a pretty big emphasis on undergraduate research; majors are required to take two semesters of research (either independent study or a thesis) and it’s all over the website. The department’s pretty small - 4 full-time professors, 3 adjuncts, one visiting professor - but that’s pretty common for a small LAC. They advertise the opportunity to take joint classes with Wesleyan and Trinity, but Wesleyan is 45 minutes away and Trinity is almost an hour.</p>
<p>Colby’s department seems a bit more traditional. The major requirements are quite similar to Connecticut’s (both traditional CS requirements, nothing extraordinary). Colby also has the somewhat unique opportunity to major in “interdisciplinary computing,” which allows you to integrate CS with another field like biology or theater. Brandeis’s department seems to be kind of in-between Connecticut’s and Colby’s as far as “hot” classes go - they definitely have machine learning; they have a lot of classes in linguistics and cognitive science (“Topics in Computational Linguistics,” “Statistical Approaches to Natural Language Processing,” “Architecture of Conversation,” “Computational Cognitive Science”). Their first year CS class is Java and C-based. There are obviously more full-time faculty members (13) which means a wider variety of research areas with which to work; but Brandeis also has an MA and a PhD program in CS, which could possibly mean that grad students teach or TA some of the lower-level classes and/or that grad students get most of the attention from professors, whereas undergrads mostly get mentorship from grad students. However, that may not be the case; it’s something you need to ask about. The location also means that you could take classes at MIT’s CS department (accessible by bus; it’s about a 40-minute ride) or at Harvard’s (ditto), or any of the other Boston area schools.</p>
<p>Colgate’s first-year class programs in Python too. A traditional major very similar to that of Colby’s, Connecticut’s, and Brandeis’s, but also some interesting electives (“Software Engineering for the Cloud,” “Economic Reasoning and Computational Design,” “Artificial Intelligence”) I only glanced quickly at each program, but it actually seems like Colgate’s CS major has fewer required courses. Connecticut also has higher math requirements (they require discrete math, while Colgate just required calculus I). The department has 6 full-time faculty members. </p>
<p>When choosing, though, you also need to consider things other than the strength of the department. All four of these schools seem to have fine CS departments that offer what you need, but they have different characteristics. New London is a small city; the closest large city is Providence (56 miles away). New York and Boston are both reachable by bus or train for a weekend trip. Connecticut College is a top LAC and you’d have the more intimate LAC experience there; they have a paid junior summer internship program ([Funded</a> Internship Program](<a href=“http://www.conncoll.edu/life-after-cc/funded-internship-program/]Funded”>http://www.conncoll.edu/life-after-cc/funded-internship-program/)) and some unique offerings include a minor in applied statistics, arts & technology, and public policy.</p>
<p>Brandeis is a larger suburb of a major metropolitan city that’s pretty easily accessible (it would seem) by bus; you also get a nice hybrid of a small liberal arts experience with only 3500 undergraduate and an RU/VH (Research 1) university. They also have some unique offerings for minors like Film, Television, and Interactive Media; Health: Science, Society, & Policy; Language and Linguistics (which is apparently tightly tied to their CS department); and some others. You have the option of doing a BA/MA in five years, too.</p>
<p>Colby and Colgate are more rural; Waterville is a small city/large town and Hamilton is a small town/village in upstate NY. Both cold, but small college towns have their advantages: students tend to stay on campus most of the time and make their own fun, and it can lead to a very tight-knit student campus culture.</p>
<p>Mind you that none of these schools are need-blind for international students, so if you need financial aid keep that in mind.</p>