<p>"BTW, the name of the school has two l's. Carnegie Mellon is not a fruit."</p>
<p>yes it is; it's juicy and delicious.</p>
<p>If all you want is programming language instruction, you can get that at a community college. The point of going to a top school for computer science is to learn computer science, which is inherently a theoretical subject. Of course, the things you learn in computer science classes will make you a much, much better programmer.</p>
<p>Have mathson check out the CS50 homepage <a href="http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Elib50/%5B/url%5D">http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~lib50/</a> especially the Fall 2002 final. CS50 is the notoriously difficult intro class, something of a flagship for the CS dept. CS51 (the spring followup course) has its psets online: <a href="http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Elib51/%5B/url%5D">http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~lib51/</a></p>
<p>My friends who take CS classes/are CS concentrators seem to like it quite a bit. One frustration is the steep learning curve in CS50 for intro programmers, but I don't think that'd be an issue for your son. Upper level classes get very interesting (operating systems, artificial intelligence, etc). There's also the possibility (if mathson is eligible for advanced standing) to complete the BS in 3 years and get a masters in EECS, like one of my friends is doing.</p>
<p>CS has an amazing building (donated by Gates + Ballmer) + very solid resources ("Crimson grid" supercomputer). Lots of extracurricular activity, both with the Harvard Computing Society + student startups (perhaps the next Facebook!). There are also some great job pipelines; Microsoft and Google recruit heavily, meebo was just visiting, etc. We do not get the number of tech recruiters that MIT does, but I <em>think</em> interested students can use the MIT career services.</p>
<p>I have no worries about course work. He taught himself enough programming in middle school to get a 5 on the AB Comp. Sci exam as a freshman. He's an excellent all round student, but he likes math and science, much more than humanities and social science. I will tell him to check out those pages if he hasn't seen them already.</p>
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<p>Judging from my D's experience (and I'm guessing you'd say the same from yours), I'd say he'd have a hard time not taking advantage of the other students with their wide range of interests and activities, even if it's somewhat passively. Just living with students whose interests vary so widely is an experience. I'd bet that he'd room with someone with different interests, and if not, he'd be on the same floor with them. One thing I've liked about my D's experience thus far is that she and her friends attend each others' performances and support each other in their extra-curricular endeavors. </p>
<p>Also, he'll have core classes, expos and maybe a seminar with an assortment of kids. Taking a history course with kids who are really into history is a different experience than taking one with an assortment of CS and engineering students who don't view it with the same enthusiasm. Even if he made no effort to "take advantage" of the variety of students, he'll be influenced by being around them -- and who knows, maybe your CS kid will find he has a love for East Asian studies. From my somewhat limited experience, I've seen kids who thought they weren't as interested in a subject suddenly come alive with an inspiring teacher. I've cautioned my own children not to be prejudiced against a subject merely because it was taught by a mediocre teacher in high school. There is so much more to so many subjects than kids realize coming out of high school.</p>
<p>Mathmom - Hi. I just noticed this topic and you said your son was going to visit the computer science department. Can you tell us about what he learnt there and what he thought of it, please?</p>
<p>Thanks,
Ralph</p>
<p>I'll ask him to sum up later. The short answer is that they were very nice, they told him that while hardly anyone takes MIT courses you could. They apparently offer one course that MIT students often take. While it's a bit bigger than it appeared on the website it still seems small compared to Carnegie Mellon. There are fewer required courses, and no requirement for a minor, but he's leaning towards CMU at this point. By the way at CMU there are plenty of non-engineering students in the non-engineering courses.</p>
<p>Hmmm... Does he think there is a really big difference in quality of education? At this point, I'm sort of like your mathson in that I want to major in CS, but I'm not nearly as sure. In fact, I really like the humanities also and there's a possibility I could swing over in that direction after a year. So I'm leaning toward Harvard because it could provide me with all those other possibilities, but it would be reassuring to know that they can still provide a good CS education.</p>
<p>I know of some students who've gone to CMU and were very happy there. But we were warned by one parent that it's not easy to transfer from one school to another, or sometimes take courses in a different school.
I can't really say how good cs is at Harvard. But google Michael Mitzenmacher. He's been trying to recruit more students into cs and he sounds rather cool and approachable.</p>
<p>Ditto on Mitzenmacher. I wouldn't call myself an insider but I have taken courses in the CS department and am familar with their works. IMO, the department strength has always been in the area of theory (Rabin and Lewis, and increasingly Mitzenmacher and Vadhan, are highly influential in this field). Other areas are decent but are probably overshadowed by another CS department nearby. From what I observed, the undergrad CS offering @ Harvard simply isn't as rich and deep as few top-10 undergrad CS programs that I know. However, it is definitely made up by the opportunity to be mentored by some of the greatest scholars of the field. It will also be a great place for interdisciplinary-minded students, e.g. biology, physics or math concentrator (major).</p>
<p>Marite, certainly as a freshman at CMU you might not be able to get into every course you might want to. But since SCS requires a minor which is likely to be at a different school I got the impression you generally wouldn't be shut out of anything you'd declared as a minor.</p>
<p>ralphb, I think if you think there's any possibility that you'd switch to humanities or something else you might be better off at Harvard. You can take a wide variety of courses as a freshman - try out things you've never met in high school - and declare your major when you are ready.</p>
<p>Mathson hasn't changed his mind in 11 years. I don't think it's happening now!</p>
<p>I do think CMU would suit mathson very well. But for ralphb or others who are not absolutely sure they want to stick with cs, the difficulty of cross-registering would be a factor (reported to me by a CMU parent when I was asking about possible schools for S).</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone who participated in this thread. Mathson has decided on Carnegie Mellon. He felt the size and independence of the school and the incredible faculty student ratio as well as the shear number of faculty would give him more choices. </p>
<p>I hate to see him turn down Harvard, but I've never been convinced that he had the personality that would get the most out of Harvard.</p>
<p>Congratulations on a decision and on an excellent outcome!
My son did choose Harvard, somewhat to our surprise, because he decided he liked the diversity of classes and students there. I don't know that he has the ideal Harvard personality either, as he isn't that gregarious, but we hope and expect that he will like it.</p>
<p>Congrats to both mathson and aedar's son. It's great to be done.
CMU is great for comp sci, as a parent told us when we were thinking of colleges for S.
Aedar: I doubt S could be said to have the ideal Harvard personality. There's no way a student can take advantage of the 300+ and growing list of clubs. But he seems to have time to enjoy himself. He's looking forward to the Arts First weekend.</p>
<p>Mathson actually spent 7+ hours on Saturday with the Sci Fi Club. Said they were cool people and had a great time playing board games and dissing a viewing of The DaVinci Code with them. If they couldn't persuade him, I don't know what would!</p>
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I wouldn't call myself an insider but I have taken courses in the CS department and am familar with their works. IMO, the department strength has always been in the area of theory (Rabin and Lewis, and increasingly Mitzenmacher and Vadhan, are highly influential in this field).
[/quote]
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<p>Lewis? Harry CS-50, coauthor with Bill Gates, Lewis? He is known for teaching a programming class, serving as dean of the college, being fired as dean of the college, fighting the ouster, and the subsequent book bashing Harvard ("Excellence without a Soul"). He defends Division I college admissions preferences for athletes. I can't remember whether the admissions director is his wife or not (same last name).</p>
<p>Influential senior theorists at Harvard CS are Rabin and Valiant. Mitzenmacher is moderately theoretical and I can't comment on his level of influence. Vadhan is an up and coming young complexity theorist, highly theoretical slant to his papers.</p>
<p>How's AI at Harvard? They seem to have a fair number of courses, though not all offered every year.</p>
<p>siserune, my apology and thanks for pointing out. I was thinking of Valiant but wrote down Lewis for some reason. Yes, his wife runs the admission office. Unlike Vadhan (a complexity theorist), Mitzenmacher is mostly an "algorithm" guy with a known interest in bloom filter. </p>
<p>4thfloor, I have no experience with AI folks. They seem decent. You may get better response in Engineering or Graduate School forum.</p>
<p>I don't know about AI at Harvard. But I suspect MIT and CMU would be far stronger than Harvard, as would Stanford.</p>