I live in Indiana and I am trying to figure out where to go to college. I’m not 100% sure whether I want to do engineering or computer science. My parents will pay for most of it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
I got into computer engineering at UT Austin which would be about $48,000 per year. I love Austin and the campus (and weather) is beautiful. The students seemed very active and happy. However, it would be hard to transfer to CS, is far away from home, and is pretty expensive…
At Notre Dame I wouldn’t have to choose my major until sophomore year. It would be about $65,000-70,000 per year. It has great school spirit, the alumni are apparently pretty helpful, and the 4-year graduation rate is much better than my other schools, but it is very expensive (and cold).
I got into First year engineering at Purdue which lets you pick a more specific discipline sophomore year. It would be about $22,000 per year. I have a lot of friends going to Purdue and its really well known for engineering. However, I cannot transfer to CS because it is so competitive and the campus seems kinda depressing.
I got into Computer Science at IU which would be only about $10,00 per year. When I visited, the staff seemed helpful and the students were collaborating a lot. Also, there is a 5-year accelerated masters program for CS that leads to a great yearly salary of around $100,000. However, IU’s engineering is pretty lackluster so I wouldn’t really want to transfer to that if I decided CS wasn’t for me.
Again, any comments or insight would be super helpful.
You are correct that it’s very difficult to transfer into CS at the big publics.
That said can your parents really afford, comfortably, without loans, ND?
My D is a Second year engineering student at Purdue and “depressing” is not a word she would ever use to describe campus. She’s been having an amazing experience at Purdue and can’t wait to go back to campus.
I’d encourage you to look at each schools plan of study too.
I guess it only seemed depressing because both times i visited it was cold and windy and not many people were talking to each other. It would be great to visit again now that it is warmer and people would be outside but the coronavirus kinda makes that impossible.
[quote Also, there is a 5-year accelerated masters program for CS that leads to a great yearly salary of around $100,000.
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Typically I think most would agree that for industry, masters aren’t typically worth the time/cost. Speaking as someone who did an accelerated MS in CS for other reasons, I would not recommend it for monetary purposes.
I would definitely recommend UT, but only if you’re definitely comfortable NOT switching into CS. The CS program is amazing so the competition to transfer into it is really high, so I wouldn’t make my choice assuming I could transfer into it.
That being said, I know the engineering school at UT is really good, and so is overall student/campus life. Good luck making your choice! If I had to pick, I would probably choose between UT/Purdue if I thought the increased cost was worth it, and IU if I wanted to save money. However, I think UT/Purdue will probably give you a more competitive and motivated student feel, compared to IU.
I visited and considered all of these schools (also for CS) and ended up narrowing down my top 3 schools to include Purdue and Indiana. I didn’t end up even applying to ND or UT because I didn’t think the cost, especially for ND, was worth it for an in-demand degree like CS.
I think your question comes down to if you are fine with studying computer engineering rather than CS. If you are fine with studying computer engineering, I would go to Purdue and maybe minor in CS. You can still get a similar job after graduation with a computer engineering degree, you will just have to take more electrical engineering classes and have to take initiative to learn some CS on the side. If not, I would go to IU. IU has a very underrated program and recently received a $60 million donation to the school of informatics, computing, and engineering.
Personally, I would choose IU (assuming you want to do CS) and if you decide you don’t like CS and/or IU I would transfer to Purdue.