Undergrad Cybersecurity at Northeastern/Purdue/RIT?

S20 has been very focused on undergraduate cybersecurity programs. Wants a real focused program, not a general CS that lets you do a little. Did our big tour this summer and it looks like Northeastern/Purdue (Polytechnic)/RIT are top of the list. Anyone have experience with these programs? Anywhere else worth a look? He has also seen RPI/WPI/Pitt and they are the next tier of favorites.

Only heard great things on cybersecurity at Northeastern (was CS myself, great and lots of overlap) and looks like you’ve got a good collection of schools. UMD would probably be a good place to check out too, especially the ACES program.

Northeastern (my kid got accepted for Cybersecurity) and Purdue are near or right at the top of top CS schools that specifically have a Cybersecurity major. Most of the big CS players have Cybersecurity at the Master’s level.

I do want to warn you thought that Cybersecurity is a pretty narrow field in Computer Science and limiting the study at the undergrad level may also limit entry level career options. This is a reason why there aren’t many big-name CS schools that have a specific major in it.

You can look at the CSRankings website to see the number of professors who published papers on cybersecurity at some universities over the last few years. You can select which years you want covered. You can turn off “All Areas” of CS at the top of the page and then turn on just computer security, if you want. You can click on icons to see the professors’ publications and other details also.