<p>So.. apparently, UCSC graduates get paid the most in the field of computer science major.
So the ranking for getting paid goes:
1. UCSC
2. UCR
3. Cal Poly Pomona
4. Cal Poly SLO
5. San Jose State</p>
<p>I have heard that Cal Poly SLO has the strongest engineering program among these schools. But I somehow got this information from my friend and my friend told me to go to UCSC instead for computer science program.... but what do you guys think?? I believe this is not necessarily true. Do you guys think this is true?? Are UC schools really more respected than those CSU schools or does it even matter which school you go to?</p>
<p>First of all, note that this information is culled from alumni and it depends upon which alumni responded to the survey. Let’s hope that most did. Second, It’s hard to tell about the Cal Poly data because Sr Software Eng doesn’t appear on the list. If you compare UCSC and SJSU, Sr Software Eng has very similar starting pay for both schools while the difference on the high end is nearly $20K. What this tells me is that both schools prepared students for the same entry level job at the same salary, but the talents and personalities of the people coming out of UCSC allowed them to progress to a higher level than the people coming out of SJSU. It’s not clear that the higher salaries are due to their education. It could be how driven to success the person is or how well he or she works with others or it could be that more people from UCSC are entrepreneurs. What I’m trying to say is that mid-career salaries are less determined by what others think of the person’s school and more what the person actually does. Of course, this is just an average so you will have some overlap.</p>
<p>I would definitely go to Cal Poly SLO, it is probably one of the best schools out of the 4 and has strong majors for all program. When it comes for the time for me to apply to transfer out of CC, I would definitely apply to Cal Poly Slo. That is why it is as selective as the mid tier UC’s, because of it’s quality of teaching and other factors.</p>
<p>If you look at popular degrees for BS in Computer Science on the section under Key Statistics, It’ll tell you that UC’s get paid more than Cal Poly</p>
<p>Bachelor of Science (BS/BSc/SB), Computer Science (CS)<br>
UCSC $69,663 - $109,509
UCR $59,972 - $103,177
Cal Poly $62,510 - $94,500</p>
<p>UCSC IS rather strong in comp sci, (perhaps due to Silicon Valley being just over the hill?.)</p>
<p>SLO is a wonderful collegiate experience, but be forewarned bcos it, like all of the Cal States, has a poor four-year graduation rate (~20%). Most kids take 5+, so if finances are a concern…</p>
<p>i wouldve gone to UCI if i got accepted there. ehh i guess it doesn’t matter if a certain school has strong comp sci program. i guess it depends on how hard i work… i think ill be going to either cal poly pomona or ucr since it is close to my hometown. But anyways, thanks guys!</p>
<p>Salary data by majors for individual universities is notoriously inaccurate due to massive under-reporting (alumni are surveyed and most don’t reply), and misreporting.</p>
<p>I would be even more weary of any “free” salary data that have high degree of supposed granularity (e.g. by major and specific university) because the information is very difficult to collect and thus compensation advisory firms don’t give away these kinds of data for free. Instead, they sell the information to firms like HP, and MSFT to guide they compensation salary policy for entry level staff. So whatever your cited earlier, I would take it with a grain of salt because it just could be of a sample size of 5 people reporting.</p>
<p>I also think your thought process need some revisiting. If you are basing your choice of college on salary data, then that is probably one of the worse way to choose a school. Graduates get a certain kind of job/salary because of a whole host of attributes. Attributes such as level of mastery of their field of studies, GPA, communication skills, maturity, and resourcefulness in job seeking, to name a few. If you attend UCSC but barely graduate with a 2.0 GPA, I am pretty certain your salary will not be in the highest order. Worse yet, if you don’t graduate then you got a even bigger problem (students failing to graduate is very common). </p>
<p>Finally, if you are determine to use salary as a driver for your decision, the most accurate data out there is probably based on overall university graduates’ average earnings (not by majors).</p>
<p>I’m not trying to base my choice of college on salary data. I just wanted to see how each college will prepare me for a career. I also wanted to hear opinions from others.</p>