Yeah, the title says it all.
There are at least two other threads with the same question, look them up.
I had a very similar problem and decision. I chose UR because of the community. Both programs are strong, but UR is much more collaborative than Northeastern. The co-ops for Northeastern are a plus, but UR has a much more supportive community. Also, at Northeastern, I felt like much of the time and resources went towards the honors program, so if you’re not in that program, I would definitely choose UR.
Honors doesn’t make much of a difference at NEU, though Scholars is an amazing opportunity. There are only a hundred or so per class.
Here’s one of the same thread: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-rochester/1762212-northeastern-university-or-ur.html
My comment there is slanted towards said OP. In a vacuum, I would choose NEU CS over Rochester CS.
Northeastern CS is a better program, Rochester is more medical based.
Where do people get this stuff? The UR CS people I know all work for top tech firms.
http://colleges.startclass.com/compare/1982-2915/Northeastern-University-vs-University-of-Rochester.
Northeastern top majors are more related to CS where as UR is more medical.
That has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the CS curriculum. I’m gobsmacked.
For academics, and computer science in particular, I’d pick Rochester. However, if you really want to live in Boston for college and you really like the idea of coops, then Northeastern.
Huh? Did you actually read the site that you cited?
My opinion.
Rochester is more academic, Northeastern more preprofessional.
Rochester CS department is ranked really high nationally.
Northeastern co-op is a great way to get practical experience while doing your CS degree. CS department is good, but not in same league as Rochester.
If you are really academically strong, I’d prefer Rochester because it will prepare you for a graduate program and a 40 year career, and I believe that the professors are more accessible to undergraduates for research. Northeastern has more of a co-op culture, so students tend to work in industry rather than pursue research.
If you aren’t as strong I’d prefer Northeastern because the co-op will prepare you for your first job.
No road is closed to you by choosing the other one.
- While NEU is focused on post-graduation, and UR will be the better pure academic experience, NEU's CS academics in particular are very well done.
- I went through many different ranking sites and the majority had NEU significantly higher. The only one who had UR higher was graduate school, by 8 spots, both in the mid 50's. Do you have any sources? On top of that, NEU's graduate Programming Languages department is ranked 11th if you were looking to research in that field.
I made this choice myself last year and picked NEU in a heartbeat. While UR will certainly offer the better pure academic and balanced education, NEU’s CS department is significantly better. The department is it’s own entire college, but also the smallest college in the school allowing for very close attention by the advisors. Each student’s advisor is specifically a CS advisor, as well as co-op advisors who are also specialized in CS. The professors are incredibly accessible and knowledgable. My freshman level CS professors have graduated from Yale, Carnegie Mellon, UT Austin, and MIT. One is currently working with Brown on more PL research.
At UR, the department is simply smaller. They graduate 40 students a year. NEU has half that many CS/IS degree options alone. NEU undergrad has at least 150 per class, and enough teachers to offer similar class sizes to UR. Size means resources, more faculty, more going on, etc. There are advantages to small departments, but I don’t think NEU fails to offer any of those.
If you focus is pure academic, yes, UR is the place. But CS wise, NEU has the better department easily, coming from a student who looked at both just last year. Honestly, I love UR’s academic model (the clusters concept was a very big draw to me applying), and for many majors they are the better choice over NEU, but not CS. In the end, despite UR’s level, I considered it a CS backup option to schools like NEU, WPI, etc.
My source was the NRC national research council survey on faculty quality. Survey is by other faculty.
Go onto Phds.org under computer science and then just select survey quality.
Rochester #22
NEU #78
Rochester computer science department is more highly regarded if you may want to go to graduate school.
No question Northeastern co-op program is terrific and program is good too.
I always wonder why a student from one college posts in another school’s forum. I generally don’t like it because it only starts arguments, but I think Pengs post is very interesting.
That said, some of the differences seem to be organizational: certain affinities, like informatics, are handled differently by UR than NEU.
I also think that getting a job in this general field is not that big an issue given the demand. In many cases, people worry - often weirdly - if school x ranked 10 or 20 places better than y means a job while y means no, as though actual achievement is secondary to the idiocies of undergrad rankings.
And in general, the rankings that matter are graduate school, though again in this field many people don’t go to grad school so that doesn’t necessarily have as much meaning.
I don’t think attending a school should limit you to only mentioning anything about that school. I looked well into bothy schools just last year, as I did with a handful of other schools I also applied to for CS. I think that knowledge and the resulting insights have just as much value as they did before I enrolled in one school, especially if any bias is clear as I think I have made it.
While getting a job in CS isn’t that hard, and either school will allow you to, NEU’s program is definitely more practically slanted. From day 1, program design is the most important concept over other branches that would lead more towards research. As you said, most people in CS don’t go for PHD’s. The importance is really in your undergraduate curriculum and your experience, both of which NEU focuses on compared to UR.
Even graduate rankings have NEU ahead in some places, and equal overall. US News PL specialty has graduate NEU CS ranked 11th. Overall, UR is ranked in the 50’s on US News for graduate CS and NEU is ranked less than 10 spots away. I don’t see any large discrepancy in graduate rankings, and undergrad slants to NEU.
Obviously, co-op and research is simply a big difference in philosophy. If OP is slanted to research and doesn’t want PL, then yes, UR would be preferred probably. But if OP wants to go into the field with an undergraduate degree, I simply don’t see how UR is better than NEU. And that’s before the co-op program is factored in, because as you said, in CS isn’t the biggest factor, though having 18 months+ work experience certainly doesn’t hurt a software engineer’s resume.
I think this thread has done a very good job of highlighting the differences between the school because they are very different in their philosophies. In the end either school will serve a CS student well.