Hello, I am currently choosing between Hamilton and Northeastern. I would appreciate any advice or comparing and contrasting, not just related to the CS programs, but also student life and atmosphere in particular.
With respect to Hamilton’s atmosphere, you might want to read or watch The Sterile Cuckoo to get a feel for the collegiate tradition with which Hamilton would connect you. In the case of the film, its visual aspects, in particular, remain relevant to the current Hamilton experience. In general, Hamilton is notably academic as well as sporting – a place where you will find students in the library and labs; tennis, squash and lacrosse balls in flight; sculls dipped in the nearby canal; and winter snow suitable for the adventurous.
Both of these schools offer top-notch CS programs.
As you are hopefully aware, these are drastically different environments regardless of CS programs. Hamilton is a LAC and Northeastern is very much on the preprofessional side of the college spectrum. Northeastern is in the middle of Boston, Hamilton is in a more rural area of upstate NY. What makes sense is highly dependent on what atmosphere you’re looking for.
Northeastern’s upper level CS offerings look significantly more extensive than Hamilton’s.
https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/catalogue/department-display?id=4
http://catalog.northeastern.edu/course-descriptions/cs/
If I am to choose I will go for Northeastern, but at the end of the day, it will still be your preference.
Re #3, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a school of fourteen thousand offers more courses in computer science than a school of two thousand. However, Hamilton’s program would offer the OP considerable choice in CS electives beyond the core group of courses required for the major. Additionally, he might see the benefit of classes that generally enroll no more than 6 to 26 students.
@apple23 That’s a bit of a disingenuous claim.
First, a large university has nothing to do with the number of CS upper division electives, classes not taken by the vast majority of the student body. The size of the CS program is far more relevant, and that’s in the hundreds, not 17K.
While Hamilton certainly offers a sufficient number of CS courses for the major, excluding seminars and special topics catch all courses (offered at both), there are only three courses that Hamilton offers that are not part of the required CS courses for a degree, and both of those are options for a capstone course. In addition to those, Northeastern offers 19 different undergraduate upper division electives, to make no mention of graduate courses that undergrads can enroll in as well.
It should also be noted that most upper division electives at Northeastern will also be close to 25 students. Computer Graphics currently has 8 students this semester. While intro classes will be larger (50-100), there are also much larger staffs and tutoring networks in addition to lab time that is in the 25-50 student range.
But why exclude them? Hamilton states,
Therefore it would would seem entirely appropriate that Hamilton partly emphasizes current readings, special topic and research-based courses.
I can only interpret this as a misreading of Hamilton’s curriculum. For example, while Hamilton does require concentrators to take four unspecified 300 level courses at the 310 level or above, Hamilton offers six courses that would meet this criteria. In effect, all six classes represent choices that can be based on a student’s interests (beyond that which can be found at other levels of the curriculum).
Seeing as the curriculum requires exactly zero of these courses, I’m not sure it’s fair to say it is an emphasis. Research and lab-based classes are foundational to most CS programs, as you’ll find at Northeastern with required lab sections.
Not a misreading, sorry I left out “Northeastern CS degree”, not just any degree, doing a comparison of depth and options. Hamilton offers the following 300 level courses:
Compilers
2 courses related to systems (Computer Architecture and Operating Systems)
Algorithms
Databases
Artificial Intelligence
Northeastern requires students to explicitly take Algorithms, Systems, Networks (not included at all in Hamilton’s course offerings) and a capstone that includes AI and Compilers as an option among three other courses and project/research options. In addition to all that is two additional CS electives. If one was required to complete the CS degree requirements of Northeastern at Hamilton, there would literally be no classes but seminars/special topics left, while Northeastern would have a dozen or so electives remaining excluding seminars/special topics.
Again, Hamilton offers a plenty sufficient CS program, particularly for an LAC. But to go back to your original claim:
I just wouldn’t describe choosing 3 classes from 5 topics that would be required anyways in many other CS degrees to be “considerable choice”. There are benefits to that model (increased flexibility outside of CS being a big one, space for Hamilton’s SSIH requirement being another) which I think go back to the general environmental differences here, which absolutely should be the focus. But upper division elective class sizes are not unique to one and if a large amount of CS electives is desired, Northeastern is simply going to offer more options here.
@Pengsphils, you apparently know Northeastern’s programs much better than Hamilton’s. As a result, your comments on this thread with respect to Hamilton have been, in places, incomplete or inaccurate:
Hamilton requires CS 410 Senior Seminar.
Regarding electives, Hamilton provides several through associated departments that offer direct relevance to interested computer science majors, such as,
and
and
Math 361 Number Theory and Applications.
Number theory is the study of the properties of the positive integers. Topics include divisibility, congruences, quadratic reciprocity, numerical functions, Diophantine equations, continued fractions, distribution of primes. Applications will include cryptography, the practice of encrypting and decrypting messages, and cryptanalysis, the practice of developing secure encryption and decryption protocols and probing them for possible flaws.
More generally, the distinction between formalized courses and special topics courses seems somewhat arbitrary, in that the actual material learned may overlap. If anything, I’d think that special topics, research-based and readings classes would offer the added potential of being entirely current.
The chair of the Hamilton CS department received his undergrad at The University of Massachusetts at Amherst in CS. If he has stayed connected there, which often happens, I would venture to guess that Hamilton is doing some amazing stuff in AI.
The courses in other fields will also be offered at Northeastern as well too, but will also still not count towards those CS electives at Hamilton.
That’s my mistake, I counted that as the “capstone software project” course, which would be equivalent to CS4500 (Software Development) at Northeastern and forgot to count it as a seminar in my analysis. Still, the original claim holds that special topics and seminar courses are not an emphasis of the program.
I separated these because often special topics courses are infrequently taught. There are no such courses being offered at Hamilton in Fall of 2019 for example. In fact, the department only offers 7 CS classes in that semester, period. That means that some required courses are not even offered every semester - quite a stark difference from substantial CS offerings. Compare that to 29 separate courses offered in CS at Northeastern in one semester.
So if OP wanted to choose an elective for Fall 2019, they would in fact not have any choice at all that semester. They would have to pick Compilers or wait for another semester.
Again, Hamilton has a good CS program, especially given the size of the school in comparison to the offerings. But it simply does not offer the extensive options of a larger program. That may not matter for the OP, but it’s up for them to decide, not for people to try and sweep under the rug.
Hamilton’s site indicates that 14 computer science courses will be offered in the upcoming fall.
A student looking for an upper-level elective could choose from among Compilers (CS 310), Algorithms (CS 330) and Database Theory and Practice (CS 350), of which all will be offered in the upcoming fall.
Except for the Senior Seminar, all required CS courses are offered every semester at Hamilton.
The information on this thread should be as accurate as possible. Beyond that, the OP should, of course, choose his college based upon criteria of importance to him.
https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/departments/Courses-and-Requirements?dept=Computer%20Science
100, 105: non-major courses
110, 111: introductory sequence
112: accelerated substitute for 110, 111
123: discrete math
200: social aspects of computing
210, 220, 240: sophomore level courses
310, 330, 350, 375: junior/senior level courses
410, 500: seminar, research
In addition, two more junior/senior level courses (320, 340) are offered in the spring.
I.e. a total of six junior/senior level CS courses other than seminar and research.
Where do you see that?
https://www.hamilton.edu/admission/visiting/courses/printable-schedule
Here are the listings of courses actually being taught in the Fall. Existing does not mean it is offered in that semester. In this case, only a single elective is offered (Compilers). I did miscount, there are 8 CS major courses offered, not 7.
I used the source in reply #3. Courses that do not appear in brackets are indicated as currently available for the semesters listed. However, if the course schedule appears reliable and complete, then it would appear to serve as a superseding source.
That is the course catalog, not the course schedule which I linked. There you can see the actual offerings for the current and past semesters.
It appears to be so as far as I can tell. Most colleges use the same model of catalogs and schedules being separated.
Getting into your CS choices at Hamilton can be difficult - there is a lot of demand and it is a small program They just hired another new teacher for next Fall. Based on my student’s experience at Hamilton, which he absolutely loves, I would choose NE for ComSci. I do not believe it is one of Hamilton’s strongest majors.
Hamilton CS students have shown themselves to be proficient coders, @MomInSB:
https://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/comp-sci-department-hosts-college-computing-conference
https://cs.hamilton.edu/ccscne/
Personally, I regard Hamilton’s CS program highly from everything I’ve heard, particularly when considered along with Hamilton’s excellent math department.