<p>Hi College Confidential,</p>
<p>I will be graduating from Vtech this summer with a degree in Business and am looking to get a second major in computer science. I am still debating if I should stay at Vtech and get a compsci degree or go to GMU and get it there.
If I go to GMU or Vtech, they will both take about 1.5 to 2 years to complete. </p>
<p>I love the NOVA/DC area and not a big fan of rural Blacksburg that's why I am debating if I should go to GMU. </p>
<p>Is GMU's compsci program comparable to Vtechs in terms of job placement and quality of education? I know Vtech has a good program and gets offers from microsoft/amazon/etc but how is GMU compsci job placement?</p>
<p>I’m not sure how you would be able to acquire a CS degree from Va Tech in 1.5-2 years. Your business degree will fulfill the CLE requirements but probably not math, science, and all of the CS classes in the required course progression. For example, if you took Calc with Matrices that doesn’t fulfill the CS requirements for Calc I, II, III, Linear Algebra, Vector Geometry or DiffEQ. Intro to Chem isn’t the same as General Chem. Etc etc.</p>
<p>What was your business major? Did you consider going into business information technology or accounting information systems rather than a completely different CS degree?</p>
<p>Why have you decided not to pursue employment in business? If you want to stay in Nova/DC then GMU should be perfectly fine for CS.</p>
<p>In the NOVA/DC area, GMU does place a lot of graduates, but then again mainly local decent 4-year schools do. What GMU does not have (and GMU is a great school) is that “national reputation” that VaTech has.</p>
<p>@ChrisTKD I have taken most of the math courses and physics, chem at a community college so I only have to take the main CS courses at Vtech. I can finish a degree in 1.5 years with a few summer courses.
I enjoy finance but I want to do some programming and software design. With a CS and finance degree, I feel I can get into quan at Wallstreet or some private finance company in the future than with a straight finance degree (which has no coding or math involved).</p>
<p>And for CS jobs, most of them in the NoVa area are less hours and better pay than most finance jobs. </p>
<p>@GLOBALTRAVELER
You are right, Vtech recruits into Amazon, microsoft, etc whereas GMU is more local NoVA companies. I looked into GMU and they have some people go into lockheed martin, booze allen, and other contractors. </p>
<p>Do you know anything about the CS education and what i’ll learn at GMU? And does GMU have a computer science career fair? </p>
<p>Thank you.</p>