I’m hoping to major in Computer Science, and I’m looking for some opinions on what the difference in education is like at these distinct colleges. For example, schools with co-op programs like Northeastern are famous for being strong in preparing students with their career and giving them experience in their field. Then there are schools like Carleton, which still offers Computer Science as a major but also focuses on liberal arts by teaching the student a wide variety of other skills and topics. Obviously, these two approaches are very distinct, but I have a hard time figuring out just which exactly will suit me better because of course, I’d like to be well-prepared for my career, but the idea of learning other topics from my major sounds nice too. But, I have a feeling the two types of colleges are more different than I think. Thanks for any insights!
A CS major at any college will have schedule space to take out-of-major courses. CS courses for the CS major probably take up about 1/3 of the total course work for the bachelor’s degree; additional major requirements like math and sometimes non-CS science take up from 1/8 to 1/4 of the total course work. Most colleges have required general education requirements in other subjects. Look in the catalogs to check actual curricular requirements at each school.
Northeastern is one of the few colleges where the curriculum is built around co-ops (Drexel and Cincinnati are two others), although co-ops are often offered and optional at other schools (though often mainly aimed at engineering and CS majors). That makes it obviously more pre-professionally oriented than many other colleges.
For non-co-op-centered colleges, what majors students choose, and why they choose them, can give an indication of how pre-professionally oriented the colleges are.