Can someone expand on what this major is? I cannot find much information through USC’s websites, but I am incredibly interested in this sort of major. I have a passion already for computer science and planned to pursue an MBA, and this dual major seems to perfectly fit my interests.
Any information regarding this major would be very useful. (especially from students studying it/alumni!)
Is this solely through Viterbi… Do a lot of students pursue this?
What is the coursework/experience like?
Most importantly, is it worth it?
This is purely a Computer Science degree with business components. It’s given through Viterbi, and the coursework is as difficult as any engineering major. Don’t even think about doing it if you’re just looking to get a smarter-sounding Business degree. Reasons being 1) you’ll underestimate the difficulty and will just get weeded out, and 2) you won’t have the time to be able to pursue the networking opportunities and resources afforded by Marshall. You’re placed in the same freshman classes as kids who have taken AP CS and been programming their entire lives… this is USC Viterbi after all.
WRT to whether or not it is worth it, hopefully you’re capable of conducting your own cost/benefit analysis if you think you’re of competitive caliber to apply to USC. To be honest a CS degree is one of those degrees that are worth paying full private school tuition over state school tuition for that school’s brand name. The risk-adjusted return is almost guaranteed, as the difference in the first two year’s salary between a no-name firm and Microsoft/Amazon (where USC matriculates the most engineers) could be essentially the entire tuition differential over 4 years (100k).The fact that it’s essentially two degrees in one, structured to be able to be completed in exactly 128 units furthers that value proposition. USC has the second most representation out of all schools in the world within Silicon Valley firms. Proportionately, we graduate less than 20% the CS undergrads that UC Berkeley does. Use that piece of data to further the depth of your analysis.
@epicer Why do you automatically assume that I am incapable of the rigor of USC? I asked for more information on one major, but instead you gave me an unnecessary berating on whether I am even worth applying to USC, without knowing a thing about me.
This is the nature of this forum. You can get a lot of information or you can get insulted without any reason. Take the good one and just ignore the bad part.
I went through the effort to give you immensely valuable information reserved for few people outside of the school and went the extra distance to break out a detailed value analysis for your sole consideration. If you’re so sensitive as take a generic caution against pursuing CSBA for the Business part as a slight against your self-perceived worth as to whether or not you’re of a competitive caliber to apply to USC, you have some self-esteem issues you should work out before they leak through in your personal statement.
I answered every question you outlayed in your original post, to the best of my knowledge. Since we’ve gone this far, is there anything else you want to know?