<p>I applied to Brown as a hopeful CS major. I know that there is information on the quality of Computer Science dept. @ Brown online, but I was just wondering, how is it really like to study CS at Brown? A lot of people have told me “Oh, but I thought Brown was just a really Liberal Arts school…” Any thoughts & insights?</p>
<p>i know it's considered to be one of the strongest departments--particularly for graphics/VR (for instance, most of Pixar is Brown grads and I even think the technology that a lot of Pixar animation is based off of was created by research at Brown)--as well as artificial intelligence.</p>
<p>there are a lot of cool interdisplinary projects in general--here are some relevant Brown links you might not know about</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cs.brown.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://www.cs.brown.edu/</a></p>
<p><a href="http://graphics.cs.brown.edu/home.html%5B/url%5D">http://graphics.cs.brown.edu/home.html</a>
<a href="http://www.brown.edu/Research/IGERT/%5B/url%5D">http://www.brown.edu/Research/IGERT/</a>
<a href="http://www.cfm.brown.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://www.cfm.brown.edu/</a>
<a href="http://www.brown.edu/Research/CCMB/%5B/url%5D">http://www.brown.edu/Research/CCMB/</a></p>
<p>It's 10th in the country last I checked...Expect to be huddled over a computer screen a lot.</p>
<p>For undergraduate it is arguably and in my opinion the best in the nation. At least this is what they said at the Computer Science open house which ruled did anyone else go? Proffessors are really cool too. Yes I believe for graduate they are about 10th and they sounded embarrassed about it. LOL.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that you're going to get an excellent education in any department at any school of Brown's academic calibur.</p>
<p>What you won't get at schools like CalTech, MIT, Carnegie Melon -- those that are "tech" schools and traditionally touted as the best places to study science and engineering -- are the opportunities to do original research as an undergrad, interact with professors on a personal level, and control the shape of your curriculum to the extent that you can do it at Brown.</p>
<p>Yes, it's a great computer science department. True, it has an excellent reputation for graphics in particular (I've also heard what a previous poster said about the percentage of Brown CS alums working at Pixar).</p>
<p>Really, though, the main reason I'd choose Brown's CS department over most (maybe even any) other is the fact that I think I'd get the best undergraduate education there. Having famous professors is great, but only if you can actually interact from them, and from what I know about Brown's CS department, undergraduates actually have a chance to do so.</p>
<p>Just my two cents.</p>