Interesting new article in today’s Yale Daily News on Yale CS grads—much more positive than other recent pieces:
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/04/10/up-close-tech-life-after-yale/
I read this thread with intense interest because DS is at the moment deciding doing CS between Yale and Columbia. His heart is with Yale, but we were at Columbia Days this past weekend and he liked it, though not enough to completely sway him, I hope the Bulldog Days next week will help him with his final decision one way or another (I may have to change my ID if it goes the other way).
Now I read this article before and thought Yale was at a very respectable spot. This one really painted a different picture from that of the Bloomberg article, although it lacked some details:
@YaleDad2019 Interesting article. The one thing that surprises me in that analysis is how low Berkeley ranks since it has a CS strong department and is right across the bay - not quite sure what to make of that but otherwise an interesting analysis.
@bluewater2015 The analysis was by ratio, there is a note at bottom of the article:
“Update 2 p.m.: Jon Xavier asked that I clarify that the schools’ rankings are weighted by total enrollment. The list reflects the schools’ contribution to the tech industry as a proportion of the schools’ enrollment.”
If it were by total enrollment, I believe Cal Berkeley would be at the top.
@YaleDad2019 Thanks, that makes sense.
I love that Yale is in the #4 position, but this is the strangest ranking I’ve ever seen! Where is Carnegie Mellon, for instance? I don’t understand this methodology or its usefulness and don’t believe these rankings.
Here’s another ranking I came across: “The 50 Most Innovative Computer Science Departments in the U.S.”
http://www.computersciencedegreehub.com/50-innovative-computer-science-departments/
@YaleDad2019 Columbia is #3 on the above list, and Yale is #14.
Anyone else who’s deciding between two or more CS departments might also want to try taking a look at the current course offerings at each school—the classes that are actually offered, not canceled or independent study/research projects, this spring semester or quarter. I did this for Yale and Stanford and found a dramatic difference. This isn’t necessarily the best way to compare different programs, but I did find it revealing.
@Planner Thank you for sharing!
The most revealing message I got from last week’s Columbia Campus Days was delivered by a special guest speaker: “Computer science is the most important new liberal arts (and science) discipline of the 21st century” - something like that - hopefully Yale Administration agrees 
^^ Columbia’s CS dept is definitely on the ascendancy. They scored some pretty high profile hires last year including a top machine learning prof. from Princeton. Machine learning is a very hot field right now.
I get the impression that most schools are realizing that CS is where it is at right now.s I’m sure Yale is no different.
That article which had Yale ranked at #4 is pretty much a throwaway piece in my opinion. Berkeley ranked # 10 and CMU not even on the list has no semblance to reality.
From what I understand, the article noted in post 141 is rating schools by proportion of graduates working in Silicon Valley. From the text it appears that’s for all graduates, not just CS graduates.
I don’t know how good the methodology is for that particular list, but in general I wouldn’t necessarily expect that list to coincide exactly with a list of top CS departments, since a lot of people in those companies work in finance, sales, legal, HR and other functions where CS degrees are not the norm.
I was surprised to see Berkeley at #10 though since it has strong programs in CS and also other areas companies hire for (such as business) and is right next door. I suspect the metric used tends to favor smaller private schools as the other nine are all private schools with much smaller undergraduate populations.
Yeah … also missing: Cornell, UIUC, UWash.
Agree with Planner (#147) that the frequency of course offerings speaks volumes about the ability of the department to fulfill its educational mission. Many CS courses are sequential; e.g. Algorithms generally follows Data Structures and Discrete Math, OS generally follows Programming Systems and an advanced course in software engineering. If key courses are not offered annually or every other year, and if you have a course scheduling conflict one year, you may graduate with some gaping holes in your education, even if you fulfill all the department requirements. Caveat emptor – even for prestigous universities!
Hope he makes it through OK!
CS faculty & Master of Saybrook, specializes on programming languages theory (and more recently, computer music).
http://cpsc.yale.edu/news/mahesh-balakrishnan-and-mariana-raykova-join-yale-computer-science-faculty
Numerically, this just brings the faculty count back up to before Ford was announced to leave at the end of this term, and Hudak passed away last month, but the speed with which they hired is very encouraging!
A couple recent updates on Computer Science at Yale:
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/12/11/students-call-cs50-a-success/
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/12/09/after-donation-cs-department-seeks-further-support/
^Thanks.
I am amazed that not all PhD students in CS receive full support! What kind of PhD program is that! All the top-tier CS PhD programs support their students fully, especially in this field where people forego significant financial benefit if they pursue a PhD program.
Also noteworthy that while Yale CS had to wait for a huge donation in order to be allowed by Solovay to grow by 6 faculty spots, Princeton’s Eisgruber allowed their CS to grow by 10 faculty spots with no fuss, just like that. (Harvard also got a huge donation for their 12 new faculty spots, but they’ve been growing all along anyway.)