Admitted as a Junior transfer to Northwestern CS in their college of arts and sciences. Currently on a full ride at Rutgers in the business school with a second major in CS. Would love some advice on what I should do.
Northwestern PROS:
I can easily switch into engineering CS at NU and get my degree from an engineering school, which is what I have always wanted to do and is a huge pull for me. It would allow me to focus on CS fully and I wouldn’t have to take classes Im not interested in
Prestige: I know it’s a not a huge factor for general SWE recruitment but it could help for startups and quant recruitment which is what I’m interested in
Quarter system would allow me to do engineering and graduate on time, and I could probably explore other courses of interest as well
Northwestern CONS:
25k each year (50k total), I’d have to take around 30k in loans
Rutgers PROS:
Full ride
Already have leadership positions in clubs
Already landed a good SWE internships (albeit at a Bank, which is not my end goal in terms of industry)
Good relationships with friends
Rutgers CONS:
My scholarship is bound to the business school and a business major, something I have no interest in. If I were to switch out to only CS, which I plan to do, I’d probably end up paying around 30k (10k in loans) to finish my degree.
I’m comfortable where I’m at at Rutgers, and I think that can be good and bad. Going to Northwestern would push me out my comfort zone but would be a bit of risk to uproot everything. Any advice would be appreciated!
If it were just the difference between a full ride at Rutgers for CS, (and a generally good experience there), and 50K total for CS at Northwestern, I would say keep the full ride and avoid all of the “friction” of transferring, as Rutgers has a great reputation for CS.
But grinding out the upper-division requirements for a business major that you don’t want or need, in order to keep the scholarship, is a lot. And if you stayed put and dropped the business major, the cost wouldn’t be drastically less than transferring.
I don’t know if the difference between A&S CS and engineering CS will make a meaningful difference to your prospects, but it’s nice that the option is there since it’s what you prefer. I’d just make sure that having to backfill engineering requirements doesn’t detract from taking more advanced CS classes, which is the same thing your business requirements are detracting from at Rutgers.
I don’t think you can really go wrong either way. Think of the business major as a part time job that’s paying you 25K/year. If framed that way, is it worth the payoff? If so, you seem happy with Rutgers otherwise, and there’s nothing inferior about the CS education. But the opportunity to go to Northwestern and focus fully on your chosen field seems like a very good one. Congrats either way!!
You applied to transfer co clearly you had concerns with Rutgers.
That you got the good internship, albeit not in your preferred industry, is a great start. No school, no matter where you go, can assure an industry. My son interned twice in automotive, wanted automotive, but will start his career in aerospace.
Experience begets experience more than the school and you have that.
So as I read I thought from a financial and being already established POV, I’d stay at Rutgers. You can get challenged out of your comfort zone anywhere.
But then you noted you’d have to take more expense to finish at Rutgers.
Personally I’d stay and finish both programs at Rutgers, not taking on more expense. You’re studying CS, no different than elsewhere.
$50k for two years isn’t a lot but if you get that much need aid it might be.
Having the second degree wouldn’t hurt.
But you applied to NU for a reason so if that’s your dream then I get it. I don’t like debt at all but $30k is manageable - assuming you get a good job and there are no guarantees you will, especially if we go into recession.
However, it if were me, I think that I would switch to CS at Rutgers and take the ~$10k in loans.
Perhaps the biggest issue is that you want a CS major rather than a business major. If I were college age (quite a while ago) I would want the same thing (CS or math or both for me). Based on what I have seen, and particularly who I have worked with, I think that Rutgers is quite good for CS and it would be a much less drastic transition to continue there (plus less debt).
I am very anti-debt. However, I think that $10k in debt is okay for a CS major. Even $30k is okay for a CS major, but $10k is better.
My emotional side says go to Northwestern, focus on what you “love”, and have a new adventure in a different locale.
My brain and my financial side say there is no way you give up a full ride to take out $30K in loans. This side of me says stick with the Business major and graduate with two degrees. From a work ethic and intellectual side of things, you’re obviously capable of graduating in both majors. I know you think you have zero interest in a Business degree, but I think knowledge in that particular vein will be invaluable to a student who dreams of working in start-ups and such. Attaining more knowledge is never a bad thing.
My advice (for what it’s worth) is the order of best, better, good is…
Continue doing Business+CS at Rutgers on a full ride
Transfer to Northwestern for CE and take $30K loans
Remain at Rutgers for CS only and take $10K loans
I think either 1 or 2 are a much better option than 3. 1 and 2 deliver specific advantages to your life/education/career. While 3 is otherwise a great option, compared to 1 and 2 it seems like the real compromise for your specific situation.
Congratulations on the great options and good luck making a decision!
OP,
You’re looking to switch from business to engineering. Very different majors, with different prerequisites and breadth requirements. Are you sure you’ll be able to complete your degree at NU in the engineering department within 2 years? If you need additional time to complete, that translates to additional loans.
For CS, I wouldn’t recommend choosing Northwestern, based on what I heard from some CS students there, even without considering the cost differential. Apparently quite a number of them are focused on going into finance (which seems to be one of your objectives), but that also means that you’ll face lots of competitions. Rutgers is at least as good as Northwestern in CS (but the experience at a large public university will obviously be different).
I realize both majors are different but there’d be decent overlap in terms of academics/“turn of mind” (even if the courses themselves are different, you’d have classmates interested in tech and abstract thinking + courses that focus on CS applications) and internship opportunities + especially broad choices of jobs if you manage both conception and application.
Now, what would your path look like at Nothwestern? Would you really be able to complete all the requirements (a lot of which are sequential) in 2 years?
Would your parents be able to help with the cost of Northwestern (they’d be taking debt on your behalf in addition to your taking the federal loans) - how big of a deal is the full ride to your family, financially?
If I recall correctly, Rutgers has not been giving full ride merit scholarships for a few years now. So when OP says full ride I expect there’s a (potentially significant) need based component included. @ManUBeast13, can you confirm?
@DadOfJerseyGirl It is a full-ride merit scholarship at Rutgers, so it has nothing to do with financial need. The NU scholarship I received is full tuition, based on my financial need.
@MYOS1634 That is currently my business major at Rutgers, but it is a bunch of classes that are just easier versions of their CS counterparts. It doesn’t add much value to my education IMO.
I would likely be able to complete all classes at NU in two years, as long as I do a little extra work. An alternative could also be doing an extra semester/quarter at NU and that would allow for another internship in the summer which would mean more experience and also more $$ to help pay.
@DadOfJerseyGirl I have done mainly CS classes at Rutgers anyway, so I would likely be able to complete all classes at NU in two years, as long as I do a little extra work. An alternative could also be doing an extra semester/quarter at NU and that would allow for another internship in the summer which would mean more experience and also more $$ to help pay.
@EconPop It should be noted that with how it works at Rutgers, I technically only get one degree that states my business major, nothing about CS even with a double major.
Have you checked other (non CS) engineering related requirements at NU? If you have, and you’re confident you’ll complete them then that’s fine.
There’s not a big difference between CS at Rutgers vs NU. You’re mostly paying for a private school experience and somewhat better connections to Wall Street. You have to decide if the extra loans are worth that for you.
I find that highlighting courses that are relevant or even key for the exact position (and thus modified to suit the position one applies to) is on the contrary extremely useful. The transcript lists ALL the classes, anywhere from 32 to 40+, and there’s no time to spend on figuring out each college’s way to title and list courses then cross reference them to what you’d expect for the position, then what you’d hope for, or can be impressed with.
Usually placed under the lines devoted to the major, minor, and/or concentration + GPA, they can be the most relevant part of that section.
ALL gen eds and whether Rutgers courses will transfer. Rutgers is a state flagship but nevertheless some universities are picky with what they allow to transfer, plus each elite college has its own distribution requiements, gen eds, core classes, etc.