Thanks. It does sound like job and intern opps are great at both so no worries there. He will have to dig deeper into the curriculums to see what the differences are. Cost wise, UIUC is $10k more per year.
Culturewise, it sounds like they are both intense but still collaborative. Someone made a good point that UIUC is a much smaller # students in CS major (though bigger university overall). Not sure if that is good or bad.
I need to learn more about the ethnic diversity a bit at both schools tooâŠ
My son is considering GA Tech CS (he did not apply to UIUC), so this is very useful thread for me as well. Thank you for the information.
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Do students pay any tuition when co-oping? Or just for their housing?
So I am not sure how that matters. I have known graduates from both programs. These are two of the best programs in the country for CS. If he doesnât have to have Big Ten then I would save the $40,000 and go to GT. Itâs a nicer campus in a great city. If your worried about Atlanta to to UIUC. Itâs a typical self contained college campus. But in Atlanta, you have a fun hamburger place close to campus and great BBQ and pie. Letâs talk about things that really matter 
Nope. Itâs tuition free. At GT it adds a fifth year. But they normally get paid and decently also.
Co-Ops | Career Center | Georgia Institute of Technology | Atlanta, GA)%20course.
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Sometimes companies will pay for housing. My D banked her entire coop salary. It added up to quite a lot.
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Itâs good that both these places have choices for coop, but Iâd discourage idea of taking these options for a CS kid. It is just expensive. May make sense for a non-CS kid though. The summers should suffice. Three summers properly used will give you time to get exposed to different opportunities in the field before you make a decision. The opportunity cost of a coop year for a strong student could be 150k or more. My kid went to a non-coop school. Placement was not an issue. And except for the covid summer, he got to see different employers in the other two summers.
The last time I mentioned this on a different thread, people got very upset :-).
Iâd encourage any student considering a co op to talk to their schoolâs career office and get the salary data and first destination outcomes. Our experience was that the co op was more than worth it, both in experience and in dollars. Salaries were much much higher than we expected.
I am actual curious what % of a final placement salary does a coop normally pay? In fields like CS? Internships pay something like 50-60%. Therefore I think you shouldnât do any more internships than you strictly want to. Because if you can get a final placement job, youâd rather be doing that than an internship that is paying you 50% or 60%. Of course if coops are paying you 80%-90% there is less harm.
And arguably spending a year in a coop may harm you if you are also parallelly looking for non-engg jobs such as banking, consulting etc. Those spaces have their own rhythm and calendar.
thanks for this perspective.
Iâm not sure my kid is even interested in co-ops and wants to take a semester off to do one but its nice to have options. I wasnât aware it was a big thing at Georgia Tech. Itâs such a selling point at schools like Drexel or Northeastern. Iâll have to look into UIUC more as well. There are always less posts about UIUC than Georgia Tech even though it seems like they are âpeerâ schools. Which school did your student go to for CS?
pmâed you.
Admittedly I know more about UIUC than GT but if coming back to the west coast is a priority then UIUC seems to have a more established pipeline. These are two great schools and Iâm simply splitting hairs but what about costs?
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Can you tell me more about the ties to west coast? Do you mean more companies hire from the west coast at UIUC?
Cost wise, its nice to pay less but if UIUC is better overall for my kid, weâre okay with either.
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I donât think there is a big difference in recruiting. I just know that a greater # of west coast kids go to UIUC vs. GT, and the vast majority land back again in the west coast. My perception is that UIUC has a more established track record of sending people to the west coast for their 1st job out of school. As I mentioned in the last post, this is such a marginal call and it may come down to your preferences around:
- Total Cost
- Setting (Atlanta vs. 2-hr ride from Chicago)
- Weather (Snow vs. No Snow)
- Population mix (in-state vs. OOS vs. International)
- Curriculum (UIUC had very strong depth and breadth when I looked into it)
FWIW, this report from GT shows that <10 respondents reported a 1st destination in CA and 0 respondents reported a job in OR or WA. In contrast, 149 reported a 1st destination of GA.
There are many misconceptions about co ops and thatâs why Iâm encouraging students to do their own research and not make assumptions.
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I just want to comment on an issue raised by @neela1. I, too, think coop is generally unnecessary for a CS major, and probably not a wise investment in time. When my S was a CS major (at another school), not only summer internships were plenty, but also there were many opportunities to intern concurrently during the school year. He only did concurrent internship for about a year (because of his commitments to on-campus CS researches and his TA duties) but some of his CS classmates did it for much longer. They were paid at about the same hourly rate as summer internships but with much more flexibility. These internships can be either in-person or remote, or a combination of the two. My S did it mostly remotely (he just logged the hours he worked and billed the company). He participated in most of his group activities (including group meetings every morning).
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I am sure many people are aware of where they can look this up, but I am posting this for the occasional person that is not aware. Here is what internships pay in CS: 2022-2023 Tech Internship Guide & Salaries | Levels.fyi And full time offers are 40% to 100% more (of the annualized internship pay) depending on the company. So you can figure out the opportunity cost of delaying graduation by a year.
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I guess theoretically a co-op is a full year as they are scheduled by semester. However mostly theyâre 10 or 11 weeks, and quite a few people co-op during the summer. I donât think you need to add an entire year to do a co-op. Perhaps a semester if you get started after your sophomore year.
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Summer is ok. That is pretty much an internship then. If you add a semester, you will graduate off cycle. That works ok with some full time jobs, and not with others.
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Thank youâsurvey is helpful! Do you know if UIUC has something similar? In asking randomly around me, Iâm hearing UIUC is more common in terms of kids going to school there==as well as coming back. I just donât know anyone personally having gone to either school but asking around and am hearing âfriend of a friendâ or â4 kids from HSâ etc went to UIUC. Thanks again.