My son has got admitted to USC Viterbi. We are assuming that unlike the UCs there are no restrictions on his majoring in CS or Computer engineering. Is that a correct assumption ?
How good is USC CS compared to UCSD. My son also has a UCSD undeclared major admission, but is worried about not making it into the major of his choice. Hence the bias towards USC.
Hello! First off congratulations! At USC you can freely switch between majors of all colleges with some exceptions. But, in your case this doesn’t apply. The difference between computer science and computer engineering is merely a couple courses that need to be swapped so that should not be an issue for you child.
Are you aware that getting into CS at UCSD is by lottery? He could get a 4.0 in his pre-req courses and still not get in. If there is something else he would like to study (data science, cognitive science, etc.) then it might not matter but if he wants to do CS, I would go for the direct admit.
Thanks and agree with you. Yes, I noticed the lottery sysytem. However the Computer Engineering department says their BS Computer Engineering course is not by lottery, but by GPA only. And they say that a 3.5 is competitive, but we don’t know how the grading system works and if 3.5 is a big ask. The bias is to go for USC without the risk of not getting a major of choice. But UCSD is so well reputed that one wants to make sure we are not giving up something without thinking through.
Data sciences is definitely interesting. But they are also a capped major. So the chances of not getting is not that clear.
My son doesn’t want to do Cognitive Science or Maths & Computing.
I have one child at a UC and another in Viterbi. For California residents, a UC education is a great deal. That said, the small classes and personal attention in Viterbi can’t be found at any UC.
As far as quality of education, I don’t see a big difference between USC’s and UCSD’s CS programs. There generally isn’t much to distinguish between the CS programs of big universities other than particular CS tracks or specialties that some schools may offer.
I’m not a big fan of rankings, so I’ll use one. The ARWU ranking of computer science programs has USC at 15th in the world and UCSD in the 51-75 tier. The 15 is actually disappointing, because just a few years ago USC was in the top 10.
Don’t let the numbers deceive you! USC is well respected for it’s computer science program and has numerous connections with major tech companies and internships. The difference between no.15 and no.10 for example will not make or break your future. And as a computer science major myself, I would choose USC over MIT any day.
Thank you. This is heartening to read