<p>I'm a senior and now is the time to finalize where I really want to apply and attend. However, I have compiled a list of 10+ colleges. I need YOUR help in deciding which one. Firstly, I want to dual major in Comp. Science and Finance. I'm aiming to become a Software Engineer. Second, and most important, I WANT A JOB IN SILICON VALLEY!!! It has always been my dream since forever! Landing a job at Google/Apple/Twitter/Oracle will be like living in heaven for me. I'm currently in NJ. I've read that the tech giants are very selective and choose students from schools near them occasionally. If you're out of state, you need to attend top notch schools such as MIT or Cornell to maximize your chances. Do you have any recommendations as to which colleges I should apply and will help me land a job in the Bay Area really quickly (except those listed and Stanford ofc)? </p>
<p>Oh, and I currently have 4.37 weighted GPA and I find out my unweighted soon (I've never gotten a B average ever so it's probably close to 4.0). I'm in the top 4%. I'm VP of senior class if that helps. My SAT score isn't that high (not up to CC standards lol). But, my essay will be OUTSTANDING I promise, as a Harvard student is aiding me write it and I will mostly write about how my 3 years in India in a boarding school thousands of miles from home and parents (we live in USA) have in a way made me more independent, compassionate, and ambitious along with passion for meeting new people and learning about their cultures.</p>
<p>If you want to become a software engineer, you generally don’t major in computer science, you major in software engineering. They are two different things, although you can do a bachelor’s in CompSci and then get a master’s in software engineering. That may actually be a more common track, in which case you need to plan on a graduate degree.</p>
<p>That’s simply wrong. There are many more software engineers who have CS degrees than Software Engineering degrees.</p>
<p>That said, most of the software engineers I’ve worked with don’t have either a CS or Software Engineering degree. They almost all have STEM degrees, though.</p>
<p>I believe posters have said San Jose State is also a major funnel to Silicon Valley. Hopefully your parents are very well off since it will cost a great deal as an out of state student. Use the Net Price Calculators on the school web sites to see how much.</p>
<p>I stand corrected. You have more recent industry experience than I do - I had assumed it had become more of a standard practice to require the degree than it was 20 years ago. Apparently not.</p>
<p>This may explain the increasingly lousy performance of Chrome since its first release…</p>
<p>Basically, any local school will have some recruiting advantage, due to convenience.</p>
<p>However, graduates from out of area schools do work in the area – but they may have to make more of their own effort to find and apply to companies in the area. However, if you get, for example, a full ride at Rutgers, you’ll have plenty of money left over to relocate yourself to apply to companies.</p>
<p>Note that the bigger companies tend to recruit widely (including at schools you would not expect), because they need more people and have more recruiting resources. The smaller ones (startups) tend to stay local, with more limited out-of-area recruiting.</p>
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<p>SE majors are uncommon, and mostly resemble CS majors, but substitute some software engineering methods courses for some computer science topics courses (though CS majors commonly take one overview course on software engineering methods, or do a project in some other course where such methods are used). So it is not the case that one “generally” majors in SE to go into software jobs – plenty of CS majors (and some in other majors) go into software jobs.</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids yea I’m retesting as those scores are pitiful hahaha. I’m actually taking it this Saturday. I hope to get at least 1350+ on that one. Honestly, if I get 700+ on math and 600+ on reading, my super score will be 2000+. Is that good enough for UIUC or UT Austin Comp. Science? And yea, my parents are fully prepared to pay OOS costs. As for my statement of $180K yea that was pretty quixotic on my part :lol: At this point, I don’t care if I start off at 100k. All I care about is getting in S. V. and getting accepted to UTA or UIUC. What are your thoughts? </p>
<p>I’m not quite sure I understand the double major of CS + finance. I don’t recall having seen such a combination. CS major don’t have much time in their sequence to pick up a dual major in finance, nor finance majors with CS. Perhaps there’s someone at Penn who’se done that. Anyway someone with a strong degree in finance doesn’t need an equal degree in CS for any jobs with which I’m familiar. So perhaps you should limit your question to CS.</p>
<p>Top Silicon Valley and their equals elsewhere recruit actively in top private universities, and top publics. Take top to mean top 20 or so in US News and World Reports. They also recruit in the top publics. Your SAT scores are low for the top privates.</p>
<p>My recommendation is that you get into your State’s flagship and major in CS and get a 3.7 + GPA. That job in CS in Silicon Valley will then very likely materialize.</p>
<p>Ha. I’m still one of those old fogies who uses Firefox. (It doesn’t seem that long ago when Firefox was the cool and trendy browser.)</p>
<p>As for having both a CS and Finance degree, most Silicon Valley companies won’t care about your Finance degree. Banks and investment companies in San Francisco might like the combination, as well as companies on Wall Street.</p>
<p>I have degrees in CS and Industrial Engineering, and have never felt the latter helped me get a job.</p>
<p>When employers are selective about schools to recruit at for CS majors, their perception of the quality and number of CS majors, not the overall prestige ranking, that tends to determine which non-local schools they recruit at. A large good school for CS may be more attractive to recruit at than a small elite school for CS, for example. And good schools for CS may be found far beyond the USNWR top 20.</p>