Hi all,
Currently I am a first year student at a top 50 university. Originally I was planning on majoring in film, but I have flopped to computer science, which I highly enjoy and have no intention of leaving. This school was a good film prospect but has a questionably small CS department. I am in sophomore level classes right not and I am doing very well and am, at most times, even bored with the material - most of which I have learned previously. Nearing the end of the first semester, I have found that the intro to computer science class to be quite slapdash (non-rigorous). My current school’s curriculum is very relaxed and not very thorough. Other schools beat object oriented programming into the students’ heads (this is a good thing).
The issue that I’m faced with is to stay or to transfer. Certainly a more thorough curriculum would be better. I have applied to high level CS schools like Cornell and BU but my question is: would it be better to go to a place like Cornell (high tuition, cutthroat atmosphere, terrible weather) or to stay where I am? At my current school I am an honors student which allows me to take any classes I chose (no general education requirements). I also have enough AP credits (29) to be considered a junior by the end of the year. I can tack on a +1 year masters degree to my undergrad and graduate at the end of my four years with a Masters of Science in Computer Science, and I can do all of this at a steal (about a half-off-tuition scholarship).
At an Ivy League such as Brown, Columbia, or Cornell, I will be forced to stay for 4 years to get my B.S. in computer science and the cost would be exponentially higher, but the CS education will be much more high quality.
I think about this all the time and I would love to hear some input from others. Thanks!
Personally, I would apply to Brown, Columbia, and Cornell to give yourself the option of a more challenging CS department. After that (if you are accepted), you could look at the R.O.I. of attending a more expensive but university with a higher quality degree vs. staying at your current university and earning a master’s degree. If it were me, I would transfer as the career services and education would benefit you in the long run.
One does not have to attend a super-selective school (which one is unlikely to be admitted to in the first place) to find a good CS department. The OP may want to add transfer applications to some other schools where the CS department is good, but admission to the school and the CS major is not as difficult, and the school is reasonably affordable.
To the OP: Transfer admissions tends to be more opaque than frosh admissions. But if you want others to make suggestions, you may want to note your current school, state of residency, cost constraints, high school stats, and college GPA.
Thanks for the responses! I wasn’t sure how anonymous I should be but I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I currently attend the University of Miami in Coral Gables FL. I am originally from Massachusetts. I don’t really have a cost constraint (as the degree has a large R.O.I) but the lesser the tuition the better. Along that line, I am just outside eligibility for financial aid, so I really only have a chance for merit (which Ivy’s don’t offer). I have straight A’s in classes so far, had a 32 on the ACT, and a GPA of 98 in high school. My college GPA is to be determined (semester 1 is almost done). I have applied to BU and Cornell for Spring, but I also plan on applying to Northeastern (non-Ivy but top CS), Brown, Columbia, NYU, and USC (has non-impacted majors) and others to come. I’d really appreciate some feedback especially from anyone in the work-force about whether it’s absolutely key to go one way or another or whether it will be personal preference. Thanks!
University of Massachusetts - Amherst has a well respected CS department, and should be more reasonably priced for you if you are a Massachusetts resident. However, CS is a more selective major than the school overall.
University of Miami has a good selection of CS courses, according to the catalog:
http://www.as.miami.edu/csc/courses/
Is there an issue with the courses listed in the catalog not being offered very frequently, or at all?
Is this the class you are in now?
http://www.cs.miami.edu/home/mirzargar/CSC220/index.html
It is not that unusual for some college students to have some introductory level programming and data structures knowledge before taking college CS courses.
I’m actually in CSC120 (intro to computer programming with Java). The issue is that I know almost everything in the course just from what I learned in a week long programming course at ID Tech camp. Polymorphism was covered in two slides! I realize this is the base computer science course, but looking at the notes for the Brown intro to CS course, it seems as though I’m missing out on a lot of essential knowledge. From what I’ve heard from CS majors in further classes, it doesn’t really get much more rigorous. I’m also taking a discrete mathematics class (level 300), a physics course (level 200) and a creative coding class (javascript - p5js)(level 500, mixed graduate, undergraduate). These other courses are sophomore/junior/senior level and most of the students in those classes are struggling but I’m having little more difficulty than my high school classes. The catalog has a good core but it’s missing the fun electives like iOS programming. It looks like the electives I’ll be running into will be 3D modeling or audio synthesis, which is all well and good but not really up my alley. I would describe the catalogue as limited. Thanks for the follow through!
@ucbalumnus I couldn’t agree more. My apologies, I just assumed that was the schools that OP was questioning whether or not to apply to.
@TheNorthAtlantic You may also want to (depending on financial constraints) consider the University of Michigan (I know many CS transfers with similar stats to yours), Carnegie Mellon University, and Purdue University. I’m not sure about the selectivity of CMU and Purdue for CS majors but it may be worth a shot to look into their programs if you’re interested in OOS.
Mobile device programming can often be learned on one’s own if one has a good foundation of general principles in CS, so many CS departments do not offer courses on specific mobile device programming (although Miami offers a course on Android programming). Plenty of people write programs for mobile devices despite not having had a college course on the specific mobile devices.
@ucbalumnus Yes you’re absolutely correct. I have begun learning Swift in my free time. I suppose that the catalog is not so much the worry as is the rigor of the courses. I understand that as one acquires more and more jobs, the degree becomes less and less pertinent. My real question is: for CS, can one get by (get into most any company esp. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Pinterest, Facebook, Spotify, semi/superconductor companies etc.) at any mid-range CS school or do “feeder schools” make all the difference?
@TheNorthAtlantic If I may throw my two cents in, I don’t think “feeder schools” make a huge difference. Top CS programs will most likely have more recruiting reps/opportunities at their school from popular companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. (Facebook in particular heavily recruits at Ivies/Stanford) but that doesn’t mean that you won’t get hired if you go to a mid-range CS school. You may have to reach out to these companies’ recruiters and pursue off-campus recruiting. If you’re a great applicant holistically (stats and experience), regardless of the prestige/reputation of your school’s program, such companies will consider you. From what I have heard from an acquaintance who works at Apple (in digital media, but their recruiting advice may still be applicable), when reviewing applications/interviews HR focuses more on the way you think and how you apply the knowledge you learned rather than the school you went to.
Some of the larger, more well known computer companies recruit widely at far more schools than just the best known ones. Not all of them are elite-preferring; Apple reportedly employs large numbers of San Jose State graduates.
Smaller companies may recruit more locally or go on only a few travel recruiting trips to schools that they know about, if they need or want new graduates.