I have been admitted to both UC Davis & Purdue for CS Major for fall 2020. I look forward to hearing members feedback on both these colleges that will help me firm up my decision. Thanks in advance.
For hiring purposes, I’d rate them as equivalent for CS. I always tell people to see if there’s a particular track or specialty of interest beyond generic CS that one of the schools offers, e.g., games, data science, AI, computational linguistics, computational biology, CS & business, etc.
@simba9 Thank you!
Are you a California resident?
I wouldn’t think the exorbitant OOS cost for UC Davis would be worth it over Purdue, since Purdue’s reputation for CS is at least equal.
If you’re in-state for Davis, then the question is whether Purdue has particular strengths or fit-factors that justify the additional costs and travel logistics.
Overall I would think that the differences in terms of future opportunity, among students at these two schools, would be determined more by the individual strengths and pursuits of the student than by which school they attended. Neither school will limit you in any way.
Are we talking about transfer admissions, or about coming off waitlist for first-year? Whichever it is, look also at how smoothly things will articulate (either lower-division classes or AP/IB/DE classes). Neither school is worth extra time to graduation, if you could graduate on time at the other, so check the roadmap for your program and compare what you’d be taking and how past coursework would count.
@aquapt thank you,. I am OOS
@aquapt @simba your feedbacks are valuable.
I noticed much higher ranking for Purdue CS & CS-E course compared to CS & CS-E course at US Davis for Undergrad;
https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate-computer
You are OOS for both schools? If so, my vote would be for Purdue. They are a STEM powerhouse and their CS program is very strong. Recruiting on campus is second to none.
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CS covers a very broad range of interests and specializations. If you only care about the generic CS core, the differences (other than depths) between schools are relatively minor. There may be a shortage of CS graduates now, but in a few years, there will be an overabundance of generic CS graduates. Specialization is therefore important. Just took a quick look at the CS programs at both schools, Purdue offers more specializations, while UC Davis’ program looks pretty generic.
Purdue has formalized specializations as listed at https://www.cs.purdue.edu/undergraduate/curriculum/bachelor.html . These specializations make up 3 to 5 of the 7 upper level CS courses in the major.
However, UCD’s fairly generic CS degree requirements include 6 upper level elective CS courses (out of 11 upper level CS courses in the major) which can be used to specialize or generalize as the student prefers: https://ucdavis.pubs.curricunet.com/Catalog/computer-science ; checking the course offerings at https://ucdavis.pubs.curricunet.com/Catalog/ecs-courses-sc can give an idea of what specialty areas one can choose within the generic framework. (Note: not suggesting that UCD is necessarily better than Purdue for the OP. But just pointing out that the existence of formalized specializations is not necessarily much of a difference in actual practice.)
But, regardless of specialty interest, it is best to get a strong base level of CS knowledge in areas that are applicable to many specialties, in order to be more adaptable as specialty demand shifts around.
Note that UCD is on the quarter system, so there will be more courses taken, but each one is “smaller”.
Subjectively, there are any number of reasons why a particular student might prefer UCD over Purdue or vice versa. Objectively, I don’t think there’s any way to argue that the academic opportunities for a CS major at Davis are worth $25K/year over Purdue. If anything the CS offerings at Purdue are more extensive, although the vast majority of CS undergrads could get everything they wanted or needed at either school.
At cost parity it would be a matter of fit and preference. But for what you’d save at Purdue, you could pursue a masters program at the UC of your choice, if you were so inclined.
Davis could almost be thought of as the Purdue of the UC system - top-tier ag school while also very strong across the board especially in STEM. If you were a CA resident I’d vote Davis, because it’s a great school with a great student quality of life; but for the OOS differential I don’t see what all the extra money is buying you other than California vs. Indiana if that’s important to you. But Purdue CS grads get hired by CA companies all the time, so its just about where you want to be for college, not a matter of needing to be in CA in order to get hired there.
Of course, if you can afford it and want to help prop up the fiscal health of the UC system, we CA residents will thank you! But if it were my money, Boiler Up!
Being a Californian, I love UC Davis, but if you’re OOS for both, then I’d tell my kid to go to Purdue.
They are not equivalent - Purdue is a much better college for CS. Not better enough if you are a CA resident, but otherwise, Purdue has one of the best CS programs in the country, and its equivalents in CA are Berkeley and UCLA (and perhaps UCSD).
Moreover, Purdue costs $25,000 a year less.
So not only does Purdue have the better CS program, it will cost $100,000 less.
In terms of Silicon Valley hiring, they’re not all that far apart. Older 2017 article, but Purdue ranks #19 and UC Davis is ranked #24