Hi everyone,
I never thought about applying to UMass Amherst in the fall until now, but I don’t really know a lot about it besides what they say on their website and brief info session.
How is UMass Amherst’s CS program? I plan on majoring on CS in college. What makes UMass Amherst unique from other schools? How is the social life there? Are the classes small or large? Is the campus in a nice area?
If there’s anything else I’m missing please let me know.
Thanks! I appreciate the responses.
You’re asking for a lot of info, and since it’s late I’m gonna keep it brief. But if you roam through the UMass page on CC and r/umass on reddit, you’ll probably be able to fill in the rest of the info yourself.
UMass Amherst’s CS program is overall: amazing. We have a top 25 program with AI and Machine Learning being our forte. Many of my professors have degrees from some of the best CS programs and are also highly recognized within the CS community. Students who opt to go into the workforce after graduation go to places like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, HP, EMC and many more (we also have plenty of kids who go to work on their own startups). We’ve gotten a little too large lately, so the department is trying to be more selective on who they let in. But overall, a great program that teaches you a lot and sets you up nicely to get a job upon graduation.
Beyond CS, UMass is a huge school (roughly 22k students). The size gives you an opportunity to meet all kinds of people (my friends range between ‘party every weekend’ to ‘i’ll never underage drink’ and ‘i spend my weekday evenings volunteering at an after school organization for kids with down syndrome’ to ‘look at this code I built for my startup’). The size also makes classes relatively large (i’ve had very few classes under 100 people, but half of that stems from the fact that I’m in CS), but it is what you make of it. Reaching out to your peers and professors helps make it smaller.
UMass is located in Western MA, so we have a lot of scenic places around here for outdoor activities. We also have 4 other colleges in the area, which can lead to some interesting events and another opportunity to connect with different students. Overall, UMass is a little isolated but large enough to make up for it
Thanks for the info! @Violet1996