I’m thinking I’ll schedule a last minute spring break trip for my HS junior son. He’s interested in looking at BU, Northeastern, and UMD-CP. He wants to double major in CS with a cybersecurity focus and business with an entrepreneurship focus. I’m sure we’ll be driving right by some great schools. I’m not really worried about rankings. He doesn’t have too many preferences of big v. small etc. yet, but would prefer a city of 100,000+. Any suggestions are appreciated!
Stream of consciousness list…WPI in Worcester or Stevens institute of Technology in Hoboken (Stevens, in particular, has a good business program in addition to tech), Drexel or Temple in Philly, U Delaware.
If he’s serious about a dual degree in CS and business, then he should look at the Lehigh CSB program. It’s just one degree – but it is fully accredited as both a CS degree by ABET, and as a business degree by AACSB. I believe it is the only degree program in the country that has such dual accreditation. You aren’t going to find many CS/business double majors at most schools, but at Lehigh, most of the CS students are on the CSB track.
Lehigh is a peer of BU (both are in the Patriot League). It’s about 60-70 miles west of I-95, so you wouldn’t be driving right by it. The Lehigh Valley has a large population but is not culturally comparable to major northeastern cities.
Temple
CUNY
George Mason
St. John’s
My son is currently deciding between Drexel and Penn State - both have great CS programs but we went to Penn State’s IST/SRA accepted students day and I was blown away. Very heavy cybersecurity and most kids are double majoring or least minoring in something else. https://ist.psu.edu/education/degree/bs/sra
Thanks for all the suggestions. I’m going to check into all those and see which he might be interested in. The Lehigh program sounds intriguing.
@snoozn
A dual degree in business and computer science sounds like a great combination, and in fact it can be. But in practice, it’s difficult and uncommon to complete this degree combination in four years.
There is typically little overlap between the courses required for the business and CS degrees. So to complete both degrees in four years, you have to squeeze in a lot of courses, without much flexibility or room for non-business, non-CS electives. Furthermore, the business degree will probably be offered by the School of Business, while the CS degree will probably be offered by the School of Engineering or the School of Arts & Sciences. At most universities (particularly larger ones), the different schools function independently, with separate admissions requirements, separate general ed requirements, and conflicting class schedules. The business school bureaucracy may not see it as their job to work out any issues that affect the CS degree, and the engineering school bureaucracy may feel the same way about the business degree.
So look for schools where there is a clearly defined four-year combined business/CS degree track (unless the five-year plan is not a problem). Lehigh is one, RPI is another.
Thanks for all the suggestions! We now have a nice bloc of schools to tour and I have to decide whether to go spring break or wait for summer.
@Corbett, yep that is a good point about the majors being in different colleges. And unless he’s at an in-state public he will definitely want to graduate in four years. His ultimate goal (or so he thinks now at age 17) is to start his own cybersecurity company after working in the field for awhile. In a more general sense I’d say he really loves business and computer science and wants to be able to do both together. He thought the Lehigh program sounded great and definitely wants to visit there.