<p>Ohio State University - $62,000 ? ? </p>
<p>Salaries for programmers in Chicago are pretty good,though not like salaries in Silicon Valley, New York, or DC. I’d imagine a lot of Purdue grads head to Chicago. On the map,it looks like Purdue is actually closer to Chicago than the University of Illinois.</p>
<p>If someone graduates from the U of Alabama and moves to Chicago, they’ll make what a Purdue grad in Chicago makes. Likewise, if a Purdue grad moves to Birmingham, they’ll make what an Alabama grad in Birmingham makes. I work in the SF/Silicon Valley area, and have never seen a new hire get a salary premium because they went to a particular school.</p>
<p>^ I completely agree. I think the salary differential is due to who is hiring the new grads. Regional differences are a part of that. 60% of Alabama grads are from out of state but perhaps many of them are choosing to stay in the south east upon graduation.
However, if it was strictly regional I would expect Purdue and Ohio State numbers to be nearly the same. If we take this a step further and look at Cornell, the median salary in 2102 for a CS graduate was $91,000.
<a href=“http://www.engineering.cornell.edu/resources/career_services/students/statistics/upload/CS-2012-2.pdf”>http://www.engineering.cornell.edu/resources/career_services/students/statistics/upload/CS-2012-2.pdf</a></p>
<p>That Cornell report lists a lot of graduates going to NYC employers, including the investment banks (which are more school-prestige-conscious than most employers). So no surprise that the pay levels are high.</p>
<p>If Chicago has more and better paying CS jobs than Columbus, then Purdue’s location within driving distance to Chicago (2 hour drive) is advantageous for its graduates in terms of being recruited (for comparison, Ohio State is over a 5 hour drive, probably requiring an overnight or an airplane flight to recruit at by a Chicago employer).</p>
<p>Perhaps.
Texas A&M shows graduates going to Bloomberg, Amazon, Microsoft, etc; so definitely some overlap. A high percentage of Cornell graduates are going to companies in locations that one would expect to have high pay levels. A&M has some that go to the same places but probably not enough to have a big influence on the average/median pay. I would guess that Purdue is somewhere in between with regards to where graduates are going. Purdue provides some general information on who hires their grads but not the detail that A&M and Cornell do.
I know that Amazon and Microsoft recruit on campus at A&M, Purdue and Cornell. All three schools are a long way from these company’s homebases.</p>
<p>Just looking at salary data from different colleges around the country, I think where you go to school makes a difference on who hires you for your first job and thus what your initial pay is going to be. I think the top paying employers recruit from the “top” schools irregardless of geography. I think these top schools are confined to the top 10,15 or 20 ranked schools. Once you are below wherever that cut-off is I think it is purely geography/regional biases. Big programs (A&M, Purdue) get more recruiting from non-regional companies because a recruiter can see a lot of potential employees on a single trip. A smaller program is not worth the long trip.</p>
<p>If you can get into a top 10 school that you can afford it presents a great oportunity. Otherwise, go to a school you can afford in a region that you would like to work.</p>
<p>That $90k in NYC is probably not much different than $60-$70k in Austin,TX or Birmingham, AL.</p>
<p>So am I misleading my son with this logic or is it sound?</p>
<p>The big companies (Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) tend to recruit more widely, because they need more people and have more recruiting resources. Also, because they are well known, students anywhere can apply to them through their web sites.</p>
<p>It is at the smaller companies where being local helps, as the smaller companies may not have the needs or resources to recruit everywhere.</p>
<p>If the CS field is anything like the engineering fields, the more satisfying jobs are at the smaller companies. However, often it is necessary to work for the big companies first to get some experience.</p>
<p>The local market seems to have a fairly minimal inflence here</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cmu.edu/career/salaries-and-destinations/2013-survey/pdfs-one-pagers/SCS%20Post%20Grad%20Handout%202013.pdf”>http://www.cmu.edu/career/salaries-and-destinations/2013-survey/pdfs-one-pagers/SCS%20Post%20Grad%20Handout%202013.pdf</a></p>
<p>I do recognize this isn’t the typical school but does seem to make the case that the very top ranked schools do create more opportunities.</p>
<p>notoriety = the state of being famous or well known for some bad quality or deed</p>
<p>ack, nm, didn’t realize I was posting to an old dredged up thread. OP and his language misuse is long gone.</p>
<p>WAPacker, did you/your son decide yet?</p>
<p>He has a long time yet. He is a junior and is busy exploring options and we are speculating about options he may or may not have at this time next year. His list of schools he plans on applying to expands at times and shrinks at others.</p>
<p>CS educational resources are actually pretty evenly spread across the nation, so I’d say it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>But still? For better chances try California where you can find Stanford, Cal and Harvey Mudd, or go to Chicago area for Carnegie Mellon and UIUC. Those two are the most hopeful areas for CS IMO(MIT is a little too freaky to my liking, so to speak)</p>
<p>fyi there are a lot of cost of living calculators online. This one says for 60k in Austin you’d need 112k living in Brooklyn.
<a href=“Cost of living: How far will my salary go in another city? - CNNMoney”>http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/</a></p>
<p>WAPacker, I don’t know if your son has considered computer engineering for undergrad. My son is going to be graduating from University of MD - College Park in May, and I can tell you job offers for him, as well as his friends, were plentiful. My son’s experiences there allowed him to obtain an internship with a large company after his freshman year and he maintained that internship every summer thereafter. Additionally, they kept him on part-time his junior and senior years and provided him with additional computers,… This internship did turn into a job offer, however, as you pointed out earlier, he discovered that he preferred working for a smaller company. He accepted a position with a smaller company that is paying him substantially more than the larger company and he will be going to school part time working on his masters in computer science. University of MD is also very generous with scholarships - especially in engineering. My son is graduating completely debt free, paid cash for his “new” used jeep, and has money invested in various accounts - all thanks to his experiences at University of MD - computer engineering. His experience is not unique either. Many of his computer engineering friends at Maryland, have also secured their jobs, and are also debt free. In fact, one friend just bought himself a new BMW with his signing bonus! </p>
<p>@davenmame - We have talked about computer engineering but he seems more interested in software than hardware at this point. I will mention the University of Maryland to him and show him your post. It sounds like U of MD worked out great for your son. There is nothing better as a parent than seeing your kids succeed.</p>
<p>My son has a job lined up this summer (do you call it an internship when they are still in high school?) where he will be helping with software development and testing. I think he will also get a fair amount of hardware exposure as the company develops programmable controllers with wireless communication as well as application/system design software. This may spark more hardware interest.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>WAPacker, I would recommend having your son look at both programs regardless of the school he chooses. If computer science is where his interest is, I suggest you look at the scholarships offered for both the college and the department. Again, your son would likely qualify for an interview for the B/K scholarship. If he doesn’t get that or if he doesn’t get full cost of attendance, the links below provide lots of scholarships that he could apply for. Some of them are not specific to University of Maryland. </p>
<p>College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences: <a href=“Scholarships | College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences | University of Maryland”>http://cmns.umd.edu/undergraduate/scholarships/college-scholarships-and-awards</a></p>
<p>Department of Computer Science:
<a href=“Scholarships | College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences | University of Maryland”>http://cmns.umd.edu/undergraduate/scholarships/department-scholarships-and-awards</a></p>
<p>I hope someone can comment on the Computer Science Department specifically regarding internships, career fairs,… I can only speak regarding the computer engineering department and they have been very good with hosting career fairs, interviews,… I’m sure there are lots of other good schools for computer science, but the large number of scholarship opportunities coupled with the location for job market at UMD has certainly made UMD a good choice for our son. Good luck to your son! It sounds like he has lots of opportunities!!! </p>
<p>^ Thanks.</p>
<p>UMD-CP is very good for CS, you don’t have to do CE there.</p>
<p>I don’t even have to read all of the postings to say…do NOT spend a bunch of money on a CS degree. I have been in software engineering for near 25 years. We truly do not care about your school. We care about your Linux or C++ or Java skills.</p>
<p>@WAPacker
In a similar situation, with a high school junior starting a college search for CS. in addition to recruitment, we’re focusing on schools with incubators and/or which provide space to established companies that, in turn, provide employment opportunities for students. We also are focusing on selecting a college near where he probably would want to work after college, choosing based on quality of life factors important to our family. </p>
<p>If Chicago is attractive to your son, U of Illinois at UC should be on the list, as should U of Michigan, in addition to Purdue. We are partial to North Carolina, and are looking at NC State and UNC. U of Washington, with Amazon’s expansion just down the road, is on our list as well, as is U of Maryland for its proximity to DC and focus on cyber-security.</p>
<p>One piece of advice from a non-CS mom would be to make sure you arrange for your son a visit to the CS Dept or with a CS professor when you look at schools. We learned this the hard way after arranging a week of college tours with not a CS or Engineering student guide in the bunch (even at schools known for these majors), and at which the tour included only a view of the outside of the school’s shiny new engineering building. We even went to one LAC open house where the CS Dept didn’t show up; we encouraged DS to go to the computer lab at that school and talk to some of the students before the long drive home.</p>
<p>We’ve appreciated the guidance we have received here in helping us to evaluate the program offerings and help determine whether the smaller schools had the breadth of course offerings that an employer would want a student to have before graduating. For DS, we prefer regularly offered courses to individualized study (except for a senior project); we were given the great advice to check the course catalogue to not only see what was offered, but how often. I would encourage you to use the catalogue and other info to map out what four years would look like at a chosen school. The number of Ged Ed requirements differs substantially, even among state flagships, either facilitating or limiting the ability to minor or double major. </p>
<p>Apologies if I strayed off topic. Good luck with your search.</p>
<p>@albclemom - Thanks for the input. We are from the northwest but my son says he really doesn’t know where he wants to live. I think and hope he will want to stay in the west (me being selfish!). He is currently somewhat driven by rankings so most of the schools currently on his list to consider are schools that are ranked in the top 50 but also seem to give a decent chance of receiving enough merit aid to make them comparable in price to one of our instate schools. I think once you get beyond the top 10 or so the rankings for CS are pretty irrelevant but they are a consideration for him. We look at the career center for each school to see what companies recruit there. We are looking for the number of companies as well as the breadth in both field and geography. It is good to have options.</p>
<p>Good luck to your son on his search.</p>