I am a Northwestern freshman that recently was accepted as a transfer student to Brown for Spring 2017. I applied because of the computer science facilities (based on my online research) and culture being better at Brown. Northwestern does not really have a strong hacker culture and is a big consulting school. If there are any Northwestern or Brown CS grads I was wondering if they could speak to the benefits of the respective programs. Please be specific as possible. Benefits of the schools for CS don’t have to be related only to the CS departments. For example, one might make the argument that Brown’s open curriculum allows students to free up time in their schedule by choosing less time-consuming classes, which creates chances to work on CS side projects. I should also say that my girlfriend of almost 2 years is at Northwestern with me currently as well as other friends I’ve made here. At Brown one of my very close guy friends is a CS major and in my grade and I also know another friend from middle school who is slightly older that studies there. Thanks in advance for your advice!
At Brown, almost every class you take will be taught by a professor, not a graduate student or adjunct. I don’t know what Northwestern does in this regard, but among the Ivies, Brown and Dartmouth have the most undergrad-focused programs. For example, the undergrad teaching assistant program is a unique feature of the Brown CS program; it will give you the opportunity, if you get one, to assist the professor in teaching the class, mostly through help sessions, grading, and one-on-one meetings with the students, whereas at other schools this role is taken by graduate students. The UTA opportunities are highly coveted and have rigorous interviewing processes, but there are also a lot of them out there. One introductory class had to hire over 25 UTAs for the class. This is just one facet of the CS program at Brown, which is very well regarded in Silicon Valley, but it is an important part of how Brown teaches.
@spayurpets How do you know the program is very well regarded in Silicon Valley?
The strength of the undergrad CS department at Brown is a well established fact within tech circles.
One just has to look at career fairs on campus where all the big companies are falling over themselves to attract students. Then a couple months later you hear all the CS seniors trying to decide which job offer they’re going to take. My class graduated during the height of the recession. During the 2008 election I remember hearing almost constantly that college graduates were struggling to find jobs. The only job struggle my CS friends had was the struggle to decide whether to work at facebook, or google, or microsoft, or apple, or pixar, or adobe, or…
@iwannabe_Brown I visited Brown today and my friend showed me around while he’s fine I just got the sense that people at Brown are a little weird. For example, he told me about the naked donut run which is when naked students give people in the library who are studying for finals donuts to relieve stress. Also, I interacted with a good number of his friends (some of which I knew a little from before) and they struck me as strange. Even the people I walked past. Something just didn’t seem quite right. I know that Brown is an ultra-liberal school (even more than Northwestern) so maybe that’s part of it, but I personally am not that person. How should I weigh this in my decision making process? I don’t think (on first impression at least) that I vibe too well with the kinds of people there.
If you are at Brown now, it is the end of finals and the end of the school year. People might be acting up a bit. I have visited my very normal CS-major daughter at Brown several times, and met a few dozen of her very normal Brown classmates. Only one strange one in the bunch. The naked running thing is not unique to Brown. (Maybe the donut delivery is!) But nobody has to participate or observe. If you were to transfer in, I think you would find Brown students run the spectrum of normalness and eccentricities, and range from ultra liberal to conservative. There are 6000+ undergraduates, all kinds of people, and if you fit in at Northwestern I am sure you will find people you will fit in with at Brown.
The CS department at Brown is fantastic. It is both rigorous and friendly. The intro classes are so good that a lot of sophomores pass the coding interviews for summer internships at major tech companies based on what the learned in CS17/18. As an example of how well it is regarded in Silicon Valley, etc., the CS department has an Industry Partners program where tech companies support the CS department in order to get preferential access to Brown CS students faculty and alums. https://cs.brown.edu/about/partners/partners/
I’m not sure the startup culture is a big thing though. I know my daughter would never have time to work on outside projects during the school year when she’s talking a couple of CS courses that both have multiple projects, exams, labs and other assignments. (Although, she is an undergraduate TA and that can take up to 20/hrs a week.) The open curriculum generally doesn’t mean that students seek out easy classes outside of their majors; they take classes in any area they’re excited about. The S/NC (satisfactory/no credit) option is available for all classes.
Here is the link to CS Department Magazine “Conduit” where you can learn more about the department. https://cs.brown.edu/about/conduit/
If you were an incoming freshman, I would say absolutely come to Brown. As a transfer, I can understand there are a lot more factors to consider.
@ciervo So your daughter doesn’t structure her schedule to work on side projects or you’re saying there simply isn’t a way to do that at Brown because all coursework is that time consuming. Side projects are incredibly fun, a great learning experience, and a big part of the interview process and it wouldn’t be good if the structure of CS/courses at Brown prohibits people in terms of time so much so that they can’t work on outside stuff. Please clarify. Thanks!
@SS126 said:
I wouldn’t be too overly concerned with the interview process and job placement at Brown.
Here is Brown’s 2015 placement data: https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/careerlab/post_grad_data/concentration/COMP
Graduate School
Brown Alpert Medical School, MD
Brown University, MS, Computer Science
Princeton University, MS, Computer Science
Stanford University, PhD, Computer Science
University of California, Berkeley, PhD, Computer Science
University of Pennsylvania, PhD, Linguistics
Employment
Associate Product Manager, Google
Associate Product Manager, Google
Data Scientist, Censio, Inc.
DevOps Engineer, Kyruus
Developer, Microsoft Corp.
Growth Marketing Intern, DataFox Intelligence, Inc.
Product Manager, Microsoft Corp.
Product Quality Engineer, Palantir Technologies
Production Intern, Imprint Projects
Program Manager, Microsoft Corp.
Program Manager, Microsoft Corp.
Program Manager, Microsoft Corp.
Program Manager, Microsoft Corp.
Project Manager, Microsoft Corp.
Research Developer, Vision Systems, Inc.
Security Researcher, Salesforce
Software Developer - Big Data Discovery Team, Oracle Corporation
Software Developer, Casper
Software Developer, Jane Street Capital
Software Developer, Surround.io
Software Development Engineer, Amazon.com
Software Engineer, AppDynamics
Software Engineer, Appnexus
Software Engineer, Blend Labs
Software Engineer, Computer Science Corporation
Software Engineer, Delphix
Software Engineer, Delphix
Software Engineer, Delphix
Software Engineer, Dropbox Inc.
Software Engineer, Facebook
Software Engineer, Facebook
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Joyent, Inc.
Software Engineer, MathWorks
Software Engineer, Microsoft Corp.
Software Engineer, Microsoft Corp.
Software Engineer, Mitre Corp.
Software Engineer, Pinterest
Software Engineer, Pure Storage
Software Engineer, Quora Inc.
Software Engineer, Redfin
Software Engineer, Redfin
Software Engineer, Twitter Inc.
Software Engineer, Vistaprint
Software Engineer, Vistaprint
Software Engineer, Vistaprint
Software Engineer, Zillow.com
Software Engineering Intern, Yelp
Summer Imersion Program Teacher, Girls Who Code
Technical Director Intern, Pixar
iOS Engineer, Getaround
I don’t know how I should be weighing the social factors. Obviously I have a close friend at Brown but my girlfriend is at Northwestern and all the friends I’ve made so far here as well. How should I be considering those when thinking about my decision?
My daughter says there are certainly students who are “making apps and chrome extensions and stuff” and the time is there if that is a priority. In her case, she has taken been taking some very time-intensive project classes that have provided a lot of intensive programming experience along with putting in 15-20/hrs week as an undergraduate TA. In her free time beyond that, she is involved in extracurricular things outside of CS. She and many CS majors she knows who have not done side projects have still landed internships and full time jobs at top companies.
The social factors are a totally separate issue. It sounds like in your heart of hearts you really don’t want to leave Northwestern. And that’s fine.
@ciervo Social factors aren’t a totally separate issue for me. I want to do what’s right in terms of balance. What would you recommend I do or how would you factor in social considerations? Do they supersede academics because they’re a prerequisite or should they be weighed less or something else? Thanks
Yeah, I’m guess I’m confused as to why you applied to transfer in the first place as it seems like you like NW just fine but think that Brown CS is better. Yes, Brown CS is going to be better than NW CS, but I find it hard to believe that NW CS is inadequate to get you into any grad program or company in the country. I’m an MD/PhD student in the biomedical sciences, so my background is much more pre-med/biology research based and my CS knowledge is mostly 2nd hand from my friends/what I’ve seen of their careers.
With regard to transferring, I tell pre-meds all the time that, in my opinion, the only reason one should transfer is that the current school is so toxic to your well being that it is hurting you academically or emotionally (and by academically, I mean your grades are dropping). Chasing greener pastures isn’t worth it for premeds because starting over with ECs and relationships with professors is a real issue. I’m guessing in CS that the downsides to transferring are less significant, but there is something to the saying “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know.” If really your only reason for leaving NW is that you think there’s a better CS program out there, and you’re not of the makeup that you couldn’t care about any other aspect of college life than being at the best program, it sounds to me like it would be a mistake for you to leave NW. It is starting to sound like anything from us shy of “NW is a terrible CS program; you will never get a job out of there whereas Brown will guarantee you a six figure starting salary at the company of your choice so who cares how happy you are at NW or if Brown doesn’t feel like a good fit” is going to leave you with doubts about your decision to leave NW. I think that should tell you something.
Or, are you actually unhappy at NW and just afraid to pull the trigger and “make the wrong choice again?”
@iwannabe_Brown I’m just having doubts about potentially not being able to fully benefit from the CS program at Brown because I’ll be focused on readjusting to the new environment halfway through the year (I’d come in Spring 2017) because I’ll be making new friends in a new place, joining groups to see where I fit in, etc. I’m admittedly unhappy with CS @ Northwestern but not Northwestern itself per se, I’ve met some cool people here. I do have multiple people that I know at Brown–like I said, a good friend from high school who got me into CS and a few others I’ve known–but computer science was the main reason I looked to transfer. Also, I’m interested in tech entrepreneurship so being able to build upon my relationship with my friend and other liked-minded people was something I valued. Specifically with regards to CS, I was keen on exploring the Computational Biology concentration. However, at the end of the day I fear that I may not have tried hard enough to seek out people with the same interests as me. The city of Chicago is pretty accessible and I haven’t explored tech opportunities there. Additionally, I want to pair my CS education with a science/engineering field (bio, chem, industrial design, etc) which is overall stronger at NU and NU is a much bigger research institution.
I just don’t know if I’m not trusting myself enough, not being rational enough, or what.
It sounds like you haven’t fully explored what’s available at NU. For example, check out the new program below: