@Sue22 -
Yep, agreed. I TA’d a couple classes when I was at Williams, and I was really just an assistant for the prof. I didn’t grade or teach, I just helped him out with stuff. Good gig.
Carleton, Bowdoin, Amherst, Williams, and a few others are some non-tech-specialised LACs with great CS departments and job placement. Oberlin and Vassar have good programs as well. Brandeis, Brown, and Tufts, while not true LACs, are fairly close and have great CS.
You do not need to go to MIT or a state flagship for good to excellent CS. It’s rarer at LACs but seek and you shall find.
Amherst actually does not have that many course offerings in CS on its own; CS majors there may need to supplement their CS courses through the cross registration agreement with the nearby University of Massachusetts - Amherst.
Of the other three named above, Carleton and Williams appear to have more CS offerings than Bowdoin.
Particularly at smaller schools, be sure to check the schedules to see how often each course is offered. Also, check if the schedules indicate how large and how full the classes are – the rapid rise in the popularity of CS may require smaller schools including LACs to choose whether to increase class sizes, limit access to the classes, or hire adjuncts when the demand exceeds the existing departmental capacity.
@ucbalumnus Well yes, a school with 1,700 undergraduates is simply not going to have as many courses as frequently as a school with 20,000 undergraduates. That’s a trade off you would have to make for smaller class sizes and generally closer/better access to professors as well as (generally speaking) a more well-rounded education. Graduates from these schools almost always have jobs lined up after graduation (can’t put links because I’m on my phone, but if you search the web for some articles about Bowdoin CS grads, etc, you’ll see what I mean) and end up doing just fine. As long as you’re willing to make the trade off & truly believe that a small-school education will better facilitate your success and happiness, someone can make LACs work (not all of them, of course, but some).