<p>@ithinkican93: Yes, I am in the UC system, and I am very familiar with the UC system. I applied primarily to UCs as an undergrad (accepted to Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, and UCI, but ultimately decided to go to UCSD). I did my undergrad at UCSD, and I’m going to UCI for grad school (so I’d like to think I’m relatively impartial). I would have applied to other UCs for grad school, but they didn’t have the program I was interested in.</p>
<p>I don’t know which program is objectively better to go to for an undergraduate degree, because I didn’t get an undergraduate degree in computer science at both schools. I’m just saying that your reasoning seems flawed to me, and I thought it was strange that you asked where AirforceWuhn got his information, when you don’t have anything besides anecdotes to back up yours. I used those schools as counterexamples because they were top of the rankings in computer science, many would argue that they have good computer science programs, and one was a UC with an arguably well-respected program.</p>
<p>I’m not trying to belittle the CS program at UCI, and I’m glad you’re proud of your school. But I’m just saying that you can find counterexamples to all of your reasoning. For example, many schools put computer science in the school of engineering and that doesn’t say that their program isn’t good, doesn’t have a lot of resources, doesn’t have many professors who specialize specifically in computer science, or isn’t well-respected, nor does it say that UCI is a better program than them (which was your reasoning for choosing UCI over UCSD). UCSD is also dedicating many professors and faculty members into the specialization of computer science, which you can see by going to the faculty page and reading descriptions of their expertise and research interests. UCSD also has multiple majors within the department of computer science, not just computer science, although I don’t think the number of majors is necessarily indicative of the quality of the department.</p>
<p>Also, UCSD is a very young school as well, and it is still growing and rising in the ranks. UCSD is only 5 years older than UCI (UCSD was established in 1960, while UCI was established in 1965, compared to schools like UC Berkeley that were established in 1868, nearly 100 years earlier), so with regards to age, they are operating under the same constraints.</p>
<p>Also, you argued that many students are trying to switch into computer science or double major at UCI and used this as evidence for UCI’s better CS program. You could argue this about the CS program at UCSD, as well, however. Many students are trying to enter into UCSD’s CS department, which is demonstrated by the computer science major becoming an impacted major. You could argue that this shows a limit in the amount of resources that they have for CS majors, but you could also argue that this demonstrates the sheer number of students that are flocking to the CS department. I can say, however, that I was at UCSD during the four years that the biology majors were impacted, and I certainly didn’t feel a lack of resources in the biology department because of the major being impacted. I tried to find data on the number of students in each major, but it’s difficult to say because they report the data slightly differently. I found that there were 1179 undergrads in the CS school in the fall of 2012 at UCI (including undeclared and undecided, although the average over the course of the year was less than this number), which is about 5.3% of undergrads, while UCSD had 1656 CSE students, which was 7.3% of undergrads, suggesting that it’s the higher volume of students, not necessarily a dearth of resources that caused the CS major begin to be impacted. Computer science is also one of the five most popular majors for undergraduates at UCSD (I believe that it was third in 2012 and fifth in 2011), but is not in the top five most popular majors at UCI (from what I could find), nor could I find it in the top ten in a list for fall 2011, which could suggest that it’s not as popular as it may seem through anecdotal evidence.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that any of this should be used as evidence that UCSD has a superior CS department to UCI, nor do I have a particularly vested interested in either outcome. I’m just saying it’s hard to tell when you’re not a student in both departments, and I wanted to provide some counter arguments to your claims. I don’t necessarily think that it being a school rather than a department, it being a popular major (through anecdotal evidence), or that UCI is a young and growing school are necessarily indicative that UCI has a better program than UCSD or other UC schools (or other schools in general). Nor (as someone who went to high school in CA, is familiar with the UC system, and has remained in the UC system throughout higher education) do I think that it’s indicative of UCI “leading in the UC system for computer science.” I’m not saying people shouldn’t go to UCI for computer science just because it’s a growing department, but it is a growing department. I wouldn’t fault anyone for wanting to go to a program that is already established or higher ranked (even though rankings obviously do not give the whole picture).</p>