Heyo,
I got admitted into UMD! It’s awesome, and definitely one of my top choices right now. I’m undergrad going for Computer Science. The ability to come to UMD is amazing, and I look forewards to being a part of it.
I do have one major worry - Senior level class sizes. At an Undergrad Computer Science event held about a month ago, the Computer Science reps said that they have about 50 tenure tracked professors for their computer science department. I checked on their site - that’s correct. For a 2,900 undergrad, to have only 50 professors… that worries me. Beyond that, I’ve seen several articles on the web about people struggling to even get into senior level computer science classes. Beyond the fact that the senior level classes have almost 50, even 60 people in them, I might not be able to get into them? That worries me.
I also got into UMass for Computer Science. They have a significantly smaller CS undergrad population (about 1,000), and also have about 50 tenure tracked professors. This seems significantly better for overall class size, and I have not seen any complaints online about a lack of classes. I also made it into the honors college, which may give me even smaller class sizes. On the visit I took there, I did hear about professors taking Hiatus and not being there to take classes, but I know that will happen either place, and at least I could go take a class at one of the other 5 colleges in the area if need be.
Something else to keep in mind is that both of these schools are very nearly ranked (for their computer science departments), and have even passes each other from time to time, depending on who’s ranking.
So, I guess, here are my questions:
- Does class size, especially senior level or computer science class size matter significantly?
- Does either school have a history of class size issues with computer science that I haven’t found?
Thank you so much, I hope I get some answers to this dilemma.