Hello everyone, recent admit, will be attending Georgia Tech as a CS freshman this fall. I was interested in Study Abroad for two reasons:
The Experience (culture, furthering foreign language skills, etc.)
The close to instate tuition rate for out of state students.
With that being said, I’ve been researching study abroad programs, and a few concerns came up.
Delaying Graduation. I’ve been told that Computer Science students have a tough time finding enough classes to take that actually count while abroad. I’m coming in with at least two social science electives, an english, and potentially a math and third social science. Would anyone be willing to inform me if any study abroad or even exchange programs would be workable without delaying graduation? If it delays graduation, the cheaper tuition is essentially useless.
Internships. Most of the programs I was looking at don’t end until well into June or even July. Would this negatively impact my opportunities to secure internships? How could I secure one while overseas?
Thanks in advance for any insight. (Sorry if I posted something wrong; this is my first question on College Confidential).
HKUST has a lot of top students from Japan, Korea and China. Its a great cultural experience,
and the student I know traveled to Korea with his friends from Hong Kong.
The classes in CS and math are harder than GaTech for grading according to the GaTech CS student I talked with. . Everything will transfer. You still
need to plan very carefully to get done in four years. Also check the calendar for HKUST, that it lines up
with the GaTech academic calendar.
Tokyo Institute of Tech may also work, but you will have to take a year off, as their calendar does not line up
with GaTech. So you will have to find a job for a semester and it will take your longer but not cost you more.
You can find internships on the west coast. Remember, that Stanford, and all the U of Cal schools and USC
all end in June, they are all on the quarter system, so west coast jobs line up nicely. I have a nephew that was
able to get a job on the west coast during an odd break he had from Carlton College. The west coast is
your ticket if you want a CS job as well.
It will work out. PM me for more ideas.
Look at INDEED now to understand how to find a summer job. You can do that from Hong Kong, or Atlanta.
Finding a job does not depend on your location, only your motivation, your cover letter, your resume, etc.
The top 3 universities in Hong Kong are Hong Kong University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and HKUST. All three are decent choices for Computer Science. I’d say HKU is British, CUHK is Chinese, and HKUST is more American.
@Lonelystudent The other program GaTech CS students attend is the summer program at Barcelona Spain. However you will pay EXTRA to go to the GaTech summer session, unless you decide to take a semester to work. Because its hard but possible to get a summer job after freshman year, I see a lot of GaTech CS freshman going to Barcelona as a way to get easier classes out of the way, if their parents have enough money for an extra semester at in state costs. Its not a bad deal and one gets ahead.
Because you already have credits from AP or IB classes you may not need the first summer to work on getting classes done but it also depends on how much you are willing to load up on the semesters in Atlanta. Some CS students can take 20 credits and still get As. You will see how hard GaTech is for you in the first semester or two and you may be able to load up on credits in Atlanta, allowing you to have a light semester abroad.
I don’t know that the GaTech CS department will help anyone that wants to study abroad. The study abroad office at GaTech does that.
The CS department is crowded and busy with administering all the students and registering them for classes.
Because almost all the Georgia in state students are not paying any tuition because they have won Zell Miller scholarships, those students are the ones that can take study abroad, as they do not need to graduate in four years.
Many students take 4.5 years because GaTech has a lot of technical requirements to get a bachelors degree in engineering or CS. Also minoring or double majoring is almost impossible at Georgia Tech if you want a CS degree.
It can be hard to take classes at GaTech that are not your major subject as well, because registration looks at your major, to determine priority. The Phase 2 registration is a crazy time of getting off waitlists, if a Computer science student wants math classes.
The CS theory thread requires math classes, but its really crazy to register for some of them, because of the priority system in place. It IS possible to graduate in four years, but be ready to have to wait around and see if you get off waitlists for classes at GaTech.