At the risk of causing the OP more confusion, I think it’s important to realize that every college is a compromise in some ways.
I stand by my statement that both Berkeley and Ga Tech are better for CS. But the downside is that Berkeley is a boot camp like CMU, and Ga Tech has a huge gender imbalance.
The UChicago core takes up 15 classes. But realize that you can take up to 48 with the quarter system by the time you graduate. So a UChicago student will have more classes directly related to what they want than a Harvard or Duke student will have in total, because they can graduate with just 32 classes. Aside from that, many students who didn’t expect to like the core actually do (but to be fair, many still don’t).
The reasons you may want to pick UChicago over the others are the following:
Strong everywhere: There really aren’t any weak programs at UChicago (except engineering, which largely doesn’t exist). Now the same is largely true of Berkeley as well.
Better environment: UChicago is intense, but collaborative, not competitive. The career office is excellent, and there is a Metcalf program that makes finding internships easy, even for freshman.
Flexibility: You don’t have to choose your major until the end of your sophomore year. And even afterwards, you may be able to switch. It’s also common for people to have double majors or minors, although Econ + CS seems very difficult.
Free speech: While all elite colleges skew liberal, UChicago is quite adamant that all viewpoints be tolerated. This has support from the very top.
You asked about the paths to quantitative hedge funds, and there are a few different ones, but most involve some combination of math and CS. There are some roles where very good and fast coding is prized (think leetcode), and there are other roles where fast mental math, useful heuristics, and being cool under pressure is prized (think poker). Both Berkeley and UChicago have good chances for this.
@hebegebe how bad is the CompSci gender imbalance at GT? I only know the overall engineering side, which is ~1/3 female-not great, but better than most (not as good as Cornell @50:50 but better than the 15% average).
I have trouble understanding what OP is really after. A tech startup? A VC investor? A quantitative HF manager? Or any career that makes a lot of money? They all take different skill sets and require different preparations.
I’m still exploring, but I would ultimately like to launch a tech startup at some point in my career. It’s hard to move into the venture capital space unless you have been successful as an entrepreneur, so I would only plan to go into VC after forming a startup.
For a job right out of college, I would be interested in either Product Management at a tech company, or joining the fintech space.
I’m not really interested in Quant because I’m not naturally gifted at math.
I talked to some students from UChicago yesterday. Here’s what I found:
CS & Economics is actually a very popular combo, but people usually do the less strenuous concentration for the Economics major (so it must be possible in some way)
The Core seemed to have easy (or relatively easy) classes for almost every requirement, and they didn’t seem to say it interfered much with their plans - though it can be annoying sometimes
Contrary to what I thought earlier, it sounds like it’s possible to spread your Core classes across 4 years. This would be way easier. Earlier I thought you had to take all the Core classes within the first 2 years. (Could someone maybe confirm this?)
It’s true that you can take core classes across multiple years. My D is finishing a core class in her last quarter before graduating (her original plan was that she would take them her junior year as part of study abroad, but covid screwed that up).
But I believe there are certain sequences you have to put together. Can you confirm @Eeyore123 and @JBStillFlying?
The College strongly recommends you complete the Core within two years, as so many later courses rely on your having formed those proper “habits of mind” (to use the College’s terminology). Since the Core isn’t a distribution requirement but a curriculum that is supposed to lead to higher level study, it makes sense to prioritize it during your first couple years. There may be exceptions - for instance, multiple science sequences or certain double major combinations may compel you to move Civ to third year and F/L to fourth. Or, if you are hoping to study abroad in third year, it might make sense to move more major courses into second year and complete Sosc or Civ or F/L in third.
The College does NOT force the issue but does allow you to experience the natural consequences of putting off some of the Core till fourth year, Covid-related delays excepted. It makes sense to run any such delays past your academic adviser, rather than rely on word of mouth from other students for what might be “possible.” Whether all the Core will be “easy” will totally depend on things like where you place for your Calc, what type of science you plan to take and, of course, how expert you are at close reading hundreds of pages of some obscure text every week.
A C/S and econ double at UChicago requires some up-front planning. It’s no doubt a popular double major going in but students change their minds as they progress through their four years. Fortunately, there is also the BA option or even a minor option for C/S and, as mentioned, there are various econ tracks (though all require the same number of courses).
The one thing that is required, is that you start your Hum sequence in autumn quarter of your first year. So your first 2-3 quarters will have a Hum class.
I think that I would much prefer a CS major to an IS major though. So I’ll check if I can do CS at CMU, otherwise it’s probably down to UC Berkeley and UChicago.
I’m a little worried about UC Berkeley CS being so impacted, but UChicago is really poorly ranked in CS, so maybe it’s better to go through the process of doing a heavily impacted major at Berkeley than going to a much worse-ranked CS school?
Berkeley also seems to be much more internationally reputed/well known than UChicago (someone correct me if I’m wrong?). I don’t plan to work in the US for more than 5 years, so this should probably be a factor as well I think
Are you international? I’m asking because you say you do not plan to stay in the US and seem unusually focused on rankings.
At this level, all 4 are very, very good. The environment is different but, as @hebegebe said, we’re talking different grades of excellence.
Your odds of majoring in CS are very different depending on wher you go and this should be a factor in your choice.
100% odds you’ll major in CS at UChicago and GTech. The difference there is between the comprehensive core curriculum of classes at UChicago and a more tech bent at GTech with a strong core curriculum in STEM and lighter requirements in Humanities and Social Science compared to UChicago. Many CS students aiming for high level tech jobs would choose GTech.
Your odds of majoring in CS are ~ 50% at Berkeley. Look at other majors in A&S to see which ones would be okay if you end up part of the ~50% who don’t. (Everyone starts thinking they’ll be part of the 50% that make it so you need to plan for the opposite. ) Other than that risk, UCB would be an obvious choice. But don’t discount the risk.
Your odds of majoring in CS at CMU are quasi non existent. You could switch from IS to HCI or Applied Math and minor in CS though, if that’s what you want, but they are set up so that IS CANNOT be a backdoor entrance to CS.
UChicago CS is more focused on theories than applications (just take a look at the background and researches of its faculty). For someone math isn’t her/his forte, UChicago may be a bigger challenge than the three courses UCB L&S CS requires for admission to its program. Besides, entrepreneurship ideas often come from congregation of people who share similar interests and drives. You’ll more likely find such a crowd at Berkeley.
Thanks for your reply! I am an international student, so that might be why I seem so unusually focused on rankings.
With Chicago, I haven’t gotten a clear answer from the University yet regarding post-graduation outcomes for computer science students. I asked, and there seems to be a lot of career advising and workplace shadowing opportunities, but no answer as to how many kids go to FAANG and top companies (just that Facebook and Microsoft come to the campus). If I went to UChicago though, I would most likely major in CS & Economics together.
It seems that the only computer science alternative at UC Berkeley L&S is Data Science. I think this would be almost equivalent to CMU IS.
With regards to student life, I think I fit quite well with UChicago students, but I don’t know if I fit well with the university and its opportunities the best. The university seems to be very focused on academia and research, which I value (I definitely want to do research during undergrad), but doesn’t seem to have the same kind of entrepreneurial culture that UC Berkeley and the Bay Area have.
I think for me, it’s really a draw between UChicago and UC Berkeley. I still have about 10 days left to decide, but it’s going to be a really tough decision, especially since both are such great choices.
I’ve heard that UChicago CS is more focused on theory too. I’m more interested in applications. However, it seems like they’ve changed this a bit.
I came across this page on their website, it seems like they have an option to avoid theory altogether, which is pretty cool. That schedule in particular would probably be the least theory intensive option out of any of my other choices.
You probably do not want to avoid theory altogether, and non-theory courses will include the theoretical bases for their topics along with practice in applying them in assignments and projects.