Son got accepted into Pre CS. We know very little about San Diego and plan to attend Open House in March. What is CS like at SDSU? Are graduates getting jobs? What are some of prospective employees please?
Younger son is 3rd year CS major. He is finding the CS courses difficult and demanding especially the Data structures class which seems to be the “weed” out class for CS majors. Regarding jobs, the career center has many listings for all job types, but he has found most employers want a certain # of CS courses under your belt before hiring for internships. Many of his CS major friends were able to land a summer internships after Junior year and he is currently applying to several in the area. He has made some connections with former Fraternity alumni in regards to internship position availability, so hopefully these will help him get a foot in the door.
If you want to see the 4 year course plan for SDSU’s CS major, here is the link: https://sunspot.sdsu.edu/pubred/!mymap.disp
Also here is a link for employers that have listed jobs for CS majors: http://www.cs.sdsu.edu/job-possibilities/
If you attend the Open House, definitely talk the CS department.
Thank you very much for sharing - ver useful!
From my research, graduation rate has been ~30% for CS. Many have chosen Computer Information Science major in the end. Just hang in there! Good luck with your son’s internship search…
Yes, the CS237 data structures course is tough, but it is not designed as a weedout course. The department is working hard to support the students, including online supplemental lectures and plenty of office hours. All students who put in the work will pass.
@svetoy: It may depend upon the Professor. Riggins is probably the best instructor but my son’s friends had a new Professor teaching the class for the first time last Spring. Many students failed that class and retook with Riggins the next semester.
@Gumbymom Riggins’s online videos are available for students in all sections. I applaud the students who retake. They, however, need to double+ their effort and not think it will be easy because they have already been exposed to the material.
I don’t know overall “country” job prospects but if your son plans on applying to local companies; San Diego has huge corporations in town who want CS majors.
Sony, Qualcomm, Northrop, General Atomics, HP, are just a few.
My daughter’s company is hiring, as is my husband’s company. My husband’s company is focusing on CSU candidates because they like the hands-on approach that those universities teach.
At this time, both my dd’s and husband’s company are only hiring US citizens.
Are you instate for SDSU?
It will be expensive if your are not instate.
my son is instate
While some employers advertise they want to hire someone with a degree, it is not true. Employers do not care if an employee has a degree or not. A number of computer science teachers at SDSU are terrible and untrustworthy. Professor Riggins doesn’t understand how unimportant having a degree is. He is just less bad than some of the other professors. The workload is burdensome, and your son will likely learn nothing. A degree is irrelevant in I.T. But the pain in going through all those classes would be substantial. I could not recommend strongly enough to not go to the computer science department at SDSU.