<p>Hello. I’m an international student finishing my first semester at Boston College. I have decided on computer science and would like to transfer to a college with better CS programs. However, I’m having a hard time deciding the schools I should apply to.
My grades and rec letters would be very good. Actually I just got my 4.0 for the first semester, and I will be doing a TA job and an independent study in the next semester. I also got an intern for the next summer.
However, my interest lies in many fields. I’m also very interested in philosophy/german/japanese/literature, and would like to take one of them as a second major or a minor. For CS, I would prefer a BA rather than BS. That doesn’t mean I won’t work very hard on CS, it’s just I don’t like chem and bio and doing research in these fields with my computer skills.</p>
<p>Sorry for the little bit long prelude. Here comes real questions:
How do you guys think of public schools for CS? What’s the difference between CS in public/private schools? Since I want to do BA I want to apply to places like Brown or UPenn, how would you think of them compared to UIUC, UW or GT in terms of course/faculty quality and job/intern opportunity(for CS)?</p>
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<li>Do you guys think CS majors should study Chem and Bio? Many engineering colleges require them as General Education requirement. I don’t like them very much, but that doesn’t mean I’m bad at them. I got 790 in SAT II Chem and would say my Bio is decent although I haven’t taken SAT II Bio. However, if I were to do software engineering/web development, I really can’t see where I can use chem and bio. I’m not very into research compared to software/web development. Is there any significant misunderstanding or misconception of me about chem and bio(I don’t know them very well), or do you think they really don’t have much connection to CS? </li>
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<p>Any input would be much appreciated, thanks!</p>
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<li>The biggest difference between public and private schools will probably be classroom size (assuming we are comparing programs at a similar level). Public schools are much more likely to have larger classes, even going for upper division material. Beyond that, I don’t think there’s anything important.</li>
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<p>My friend is in Brown CS and doing quite well (she just got hired by Amazon). It seems like a perfectly fine program, especially since you have the flexibility to design your own curriculum…this way you can avoid dumb pre-reqs.</p>
<p>I don’t know too much about UPenn, but overall it has a good reputation and my CS dept (UW) just hired someone away from them, so they must be pretty good.</p>
<p>The programs at these schools are probably going to be smaller than the ones at more well-known CS schools (perhaps with less breadth), but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a quality education and have good career opportunities.</p>
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<li>Chem and Bio aren’t relevant at all to CS. I think the argument for GenEd classes is that while they may not be specifically relevant to your major, they do “expand your mind” in ways that may prove to be useful for general life.</li>
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<p>sumzup:
I would think that the quality of faculty at public schools would be a little bit higher than those private schools ranked at the same level, and have also more resources in terms of courses availbility and diversity–it’s just much more people are competing with you. Yet that’s just my impression. I’m just a foreign student so I’m not confident in it, please correct me if I’m wrong.
Can I ask you about how is UW’s dept of CS? In terms of:
Faculty and course quality (Just how you feel it, if many courses and profs are awesosme or not)
How is they atomosphere for CS? Is there any huge hackathon? Big student CS club? Do you find many people there like CS and are brilliant?</p>
<p>The BA degree program in the College of Letters and Science does not have specific other science requirements, although the College of Letters and Science does require physical and biological science breadth requirements (though these do not have to be the more difficult courses for students majoring in those subjects). The BS degree program in the College of Engineering does require two semesters of physics for physics and engineering majors, plus additional science at the choice of the student (additional physics, chemistry, biology, etc.).</p>
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<p>If one eventually ends up applying CS to an area where the science is relevant, then it can be useful, but they are not generally needed for most CS applications. Game development seems to be a popular goal here (although reality is that only a small portion of CS jobs involve games); for that, physics may be helpful to understand modeling of moving objects.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus:
Yes Berkeley is good, but all UC application ends at Nov. I don’t know why they end so early but I cannot apply for the next fall any more…</p>
<p>Maybe it’s just for knowledge breadth that engineering students have to take it. I still feel that CS is not hands down an engineering discipline, yet it is somewhat concerned with it. But for me who don’t like science research, a BA in CS might be a better option.</p>
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<li><p>Faculty are definitely brilliant. There is a ton of interesting research going on, and there’s more than a few that are near the “top” of their respective subfields. The classes are pretty great, too. I’ve taken a broad selection, and they’ve been well taught and challenging.</p></li>
<li><p>CS atmosphere is pretty diverse (each year they admit 200 or so students), so there’s a bunch of different groups of students interested in different things, but overall it’s a fun atmosphere. There are several hackathons during the school year. There is a large CS club (ACM) that puts on various fun events (e.g. big parties at the end of each quarter). The student body is definitely of a high caliber. Personally, I’ve been pushed to perform at a higher level because of my classmates.</p></li>
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<p>That is not true. There is generally no difference. The main difference is that public schools tend to have less funding, so class sizes are typically larger and you get less attention/access from the professors.</p>
<p>However, it is very difficult to directly compare public and private schools. Because every school is different. Not all public schools are the same, not all private schools are the same. Given the schools you listed (Brown, Penn, UW, UIUC), you are better off making your decision based on 1) financial cost 2) whether you would like the culture/atmosphere of the school. Your social life at the school is probably 2x more important than the academics of the school for determining whether you’ll have a good college experience.</p>
<p>Out of those schools I’ve only ever visited/researched Brown. It’s a fairly small school (you can fast-walk across it in 10 minutes) and has a different social scene than many other colleges (no stereotypical fraternities, for example). Undergrad teaching seems to be fairly important there. The CS department is actually very good. However, Brown is probably going to be very very expensive.</p>
<p>Unless you are interested in applying CS to chemistry or physics (i.e. computer simulations of a chemical reaction, etc.), chem and physics are next to useless for software engineering. Some aspects of game development use a little physics, but about as much as is covered in 1-2 semesters of physics (classical mechanics). And keep in mind that most types of game development jobs probably will require zero physics knowledge.</p>
<p>OP - you’re probably aware - you’ll be a transfer student and financial aid is virtually non-existent for international transfers. So, I take it money is no object.</p>
<p>Also, I second what terenc stated above. Public schools & private schools come in all shapes & sizes - can’t just do a broadbrush comparison public vs. private. The one & only true difference is publics are (at least partially) govt funded and privates are not.</p>