UCSD Cog Sci vs UIUC Comp Sci

Hi all,

I’m having a tough time deciding where to go for undergrad. I’m deciding between Computer Science at University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and Cognitive Science (Spec. in ML) at UC San Diego.

After scholarships both cost the same, so money isn’t an issue. I’m hoping to go onto grad school for Computer Science and I know both schools would prepare me well for that. At this point I’m just looking for people’s experiences in these program to help with my decision.

I love the San Diego weather (I’m from boston so nice change) and it’s a beautiful campus, but UIUC has an awesome college town and their CS program is ranked very high. They both have some great research opportunities though UIUC offers more internships/co-ops. I also feel like I might fit in better at Illinois because I love their emphasis engineering but San Diego also has a fun and inclusive environment.

What do you think would be a better fit? Anything helps and thanks in advance!

If you want to study computer science, go where you can study computer science…

If you are in Boston, wouldn’t in-state UMass and its well respected computer science major be less expensive than these two out-of-state schools?

Right, for CS grad school, I would choose CS as my undergrad major.

UCSD’s cog sci ML program does feature a decent amount of programming (in Python), but you’d really be prepared for only one sub-sector.