Curious, at what point did your son decide to pursue the MS? Also, any thoughts on something to add in as a minor, for example? She is attending a UIUC webinar tomorrow on Gies Technology and Management minor they emailed her about.
Classes are expected to evolve over a period of time, he had that class 4 years back. Also CS hired 20+ faculties last summer/fall and expected that to tickle down a lot. I see UIUC CS more brighter ahead.
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He was struggling between MS and PhD, at the same time has interest in research. He decided last year around this time (his Junior year) and start preparing for it. At one point had thoughts to apply out to other top schools based on his GPA, GRE and interest. But UIUC offered him generous and also saves 1 year over other schools as he started research from current sem (technically has 1.5 years to finish research).
Minor: I see as something evolves as you are making progress. My son added statistics as minor when he started Junior year, until that point he was more in exploration phase and finally he settled with AI/ML and CV as sub-field. I won’t rush to add minor at beginning, rather explore few areas before adding one. Also most CS students don’t have other major/minor.
Also side note, lots of students do MCS, which is a termianl profession degree and mainly geared to go to industry. While MS with thesis (one my son does), gives you an opportunity to go to industry with research careers, also leave the PhD door open, if one develops interest.
Thank you for all of that added information. As a communications major myself I am trying to learn what makes sense for CS majors. I suspect at some point my daughter will go beyond a bachelors, good to know the pathways. Great that your son is saving that year - while it is not all about time to completion delaying the workforce an extra year does come at the price of a year of annual salary, compounded by raises, contributions to retirement plans, etc. So, if your son one day wanted to go for the PhD he will be in a good position to do so - would that be to eventually do research and/or teach at the college level? Are there other jobs in industry that would require a terminal degree?
One can find jobs with BS degree, however as one expected to progress in ranks, masters become a necessity. People choose 2 different paths, do masters before joining industry or do masters online while in industry. Online masters doesn’t allow research. MCS on campus doesn’t have research component. So think this way if you have masters with research degree, you have additional category of jobs in industry that requires research, however if you don’t have interest in research jobs any masters would be suffice. Yo may want to explore more at Graduate Academics | Computer Science | UIUC
Thank you so much, all of this is super helpful. We will look at the links as well.
Toured it last week, beautiful campus and very large. As OOS is it really worth spending 56k per year assuming on campus living? other options are UCSB, ASU, Ohio state, Northeastern, cal poly SLO
My nephew is at Ohio State and loves it (engineering).
srparent15, what do you think about Georgia Tech? It is in the middle of Atlanta. GT and UIUC are my D’s top choice now.
Agreed - my son was admitted into Geiss and offered James Scholar. Unfortunately we are OOS (but we are both UofI grads) and Illinois offered no merit. The ROI just didn’t make sense. Ironically, our son just committed to UofSC and have been surprised how many students from Illinois are coming south!
It started when you left IL.
UCSB is really spectacular. My daughter is going to decline, however, for William and Mary as The lifestyle is more of a culture shock then she is ready for.
Seems we are in the same boat.
My D accepted to UCSB, UCI, UCD, UCSC, UCSD Undeclared, & UW Pre-Science. Rejected by CP SLO and not sure why. All are Comp Sci major except UCSD and UW. Other than next to the beach, UCSB campus seems very plain. Its Engineering school is smaller and has lower faculty student ratio though. I think UCI campus is quite nice, but she doesn’t like it! As far as campus appeal and academics, we only like UCSD and UW but they don’t offer the major she wants.
We are in northern Cal. We are leaning towards UIUC now. We will tour UIUC and Georgia Tech this weekend to find out if they worth the extra $17K/year in tuition!
I am instate for UIUC and I am most likely heading south as well. Gotta escape the cold for a bit haha
We never had the chance to visit since everything was cancelled last year so my son didn’t apply until RD this year. He was WL and still hasn’t visited but I am doubtful he will switch from Michigan if he gets in.
One thing people have mentioned is that many of their math/science courses even pre-covid are online. That is a big turnoff to me. It’s bad enough when kids in lower math courses have to self teach themselves math but to be having something like DFQ online and be asynchronous makes no sense at a university like that. I can’t tell if it’s because they want to take a larger freshman class each year and then weed them out, or they don’t have enough professors for these courses and then the same idea will have fewer students going forward but after the last year in Zoom U I have no interest in paying $50k on that even if it’s not all classes.
Not to mention other things to dislike about going to school in GA. I love Atlanta as a whole however and it’s a great city but not sure my kid would like an urban university. UIUC while not the most scenic university is a true college campus, about 2-1/2 hours from Chicago not far from St Louis and if doing CS both programs are equally as good. It really comes down to personal preference or cost in some regards if that’s a factor.
I think Michigan is a better school overall.
Actually, I was asking about campus security. From the URL your or someone else provided, I see that UIUC has a lot more Rape, even accounted for the different in student population. GT, on the other hand, has more Burglary and Motor vehicle theft!
“One thing people have mentioned is that many of their math/science courses even pre-covid are online.”
May I know if this is UIUC or GaTech you are talking about?
GaT
Can’t comment about sexual assault at UIUC but my daughters have many girlfriends who attend there and none have had any incidents. I would garner a guess that it is more likely a result of sexual assaults reported and it goes hand in hand with the size of the student body and other things that UIUC has that GT doesn’t. I really wouldn’t look at that as a factor for attending one school or another unless you’re comparing apples to apples and really looking at the true data. You don’t know how one school reports sexual assault relative to another or what is swept under the rug. My daughter attends a school where police do nothing about sexual assault and everyone knows there is one social organization that you are never supposed to engage with ever yet do you think that stops people? Absolutely not.
Thank you!