I’m looking for some quirky universities for my son. He’s gonna major in CS. No liberal arts colleges! He has a 33 act and 3.75 GPA btw. Start the list!
Brown, but good luck getting in. Wesleyan has University as part of its name, but is actually an LAC. Good luck getting in there too. By definition, universities tend to be large, and therefore it is much harder to categorize a large group of people as quirky. Quirky, also by definition, tends to be associated with LACs. University of Rochester, don’t know if it has CS, probably does. More nerdy than quirky. Maybe CWRU, but again, more nerdy than quirky. No doubt there will be groups of quirky students at any large university that offers CS.
Can you provide any more info - “quirky” is unfortunately not much to go on - what are his interests, hobbies, social skills (or needs), what kind of CS -aops, theory, software engineering - any idea??
What quirks in particular are you looking for?
What if the objection to LACs as a class (as opposed to the ones with limited CS offerings)?
Budgetary constraints?
If he doesn’t want a small LAC, and he is quirky, and CS-oriented, the best answer for your son is: University of Chicago. Apparently, the essays alone should indicate that the school loves quirky, smart kids.
Oh yes, UC for sure! But good luck getting in there too! UC is known for intellectualism. The essays need to really stand out. I am not sure the son’s grades are quite on target enough for UC. Avergae GPA there is 4.16.
Please define “quirky”?
Some of these are harder than others to get into, but it’s a good variety for an A-, 33 student.
University of Rochester, University of Waterloo (Ontario), University of Delaware, Brandeis, NYU, University of Michigan, McGill University, University of Toronto, Wisconsin, Pitt, Johns Hopkins, Tufts, Georgia Tech, Purdue, Northeastern, Harvey Mudd (it’s a LAC but on a 5 college campus), UWashington, WUSTL, UT-Austin.
D1 was a CS major. She loved Chicago both times she visited, but the CS offerings were so idiosyncratic (not having an engineering school skews the offerings) that she decided to go elsewhere.
I agree with taking a shot at Brown. D1 went there, got great summer internships (Facebook, Microsoft) and then her dream job.
Quirky can mean nerdy-socially outlier or it can be used to describe intellectual hipsters…or artsy tattooed types…you’d have to describe abit more for people to post college atmosphere suggestions.
The OP started at least a dozen threads last night under a couple of IDs. Not sure if/when they will be back to answer questions.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
S/he won’t be; the user is no longer an active member, so keep that in mind if you decide to answer.
Well that was quirky.
From the prospective of the one in the field for over 30 years, ANY college will do just fine for CS. No need for any fancy name. I myself went to a local very low ranked college and has had 9 jobs since then…One has to learn at each job, learn on your own, your college background makes the difference only as much as YOU personally were engaged in college, how hard YOU personally tried, did YOU try your very hardest to do everything on your own…or maybe your tried very hard to extract the ideas from somebody else. YOU are the boss of your destiny, no place will do it for you! Self-reliance is the key as you will have to rely on it at every place of your future employment in CS field. Sorry to disappoint most on this thread by this “ugly” truth. I do not believe that being “quirky” or having any other label will help in regard to the chosen college. As I said, I do not believe at all that the place will make any difference, the difference is in the hands of the student.
Brandeis?
Thanks, moderator. I’ll respond for the sake of others who may be helped.
re post # 13. There is a lot more to a college education than just getting job offers. Some who do CS jobs have approached it from the business angle- IT and programming. Others are interested in it as a science and do software development at a different level. Yes, getting a job with a CS major can be easy. But- the type of work one does and the people one works with can differ greatly. One of the nice things for my son who majored in math and then added CS is being able to work with intellectually stimulating people and projects. Job descriptions can be software developer or software engineer depending on the company. Others may want to be problem solving for a given company with their computer skills.
So- where one attends college for CS does matter. Look for top programs and remember a good math department matters as well. A larger U likely will have more student interest diversity and can accommodate the student who is multifaceted. A great place for indulging in many interests is the U of Wisconsin-Madison. It also has highly ranked math and CS departments. Plus- getting into the CS major has so far not been a problem like at some top ranked CS U’s.
For most choosing a school that seems to fit one’s personality then checking that the CS department has enough courses works.
“re post # 13. There is a lot more to a college education than just getting job offers. Some who do CS jobs have approached it from the business angle- IT and programming. " - You can take any classes that you need, it is entirely up to you. I do not understand what this means: " from the business angle- IT and programming.”- Programming is CS, IT is CS, IT is just a name/ label that could be called IS at other places, do not pay too much attention to it. I have worked at companies in completely different industries, all these labels are irrelevant. If I tell you the title of my position, you will not understand even close what that means. Of course, anybody who is developing software and maintaining it for whatever company, have a limited knowledge of this company business, otherwise you cannot perform the absolutely key role in your position - ability to communicate with the business users, both inside your organization as well as outside customers of your organization. You cannot do any “programming” before you figure out what exactly needs to be “programmed” to the very smallest details of it. It is the software developer’s first key role. Cannot ask - forget programming. Remember “garbage in”, “garbage out”? If you are not able to obtain very accurate information from the users of your software, then you will produce “garbage”.
Whatever is " more to a college education than just getting job offers." could be obtained on your own, you do not have to go to college for that. However, very many positions in IT / IS (whatever you want to call them) departments are restricted to ONLY those with the 4 year degree, which was not the case few decades ago when I started working.
Miami- You do not understand at all. There is a science to computer software- that is different than merely using it for business purposes. College is an education, not just a job training place. People indulge in courses they could not explore on their own, feed their minds and souls. It is possible to read philosophy, literature and study many other fields but college offers the opportunity to discuss what one gleans with others. btw- a whole semester of Nietzsche is not at all needed for math or CS but was part of the college experience.
Many of those in CS do NOT care at all about business. They are all about the theory and inherent mathematics of it. The enjoyment comes from that, not the side product that a company markets. Programmers can learn on their own or have an AA degree for many jobs. More complex work will require more knowledge, however. Not all are concerned with the “position” in a company- that’s business, not the creative scientist model.
Compare computer science to math. Abstract, theory to practical uses available for both. Accountants and actuaries use math for business purposes while others go in a different direction. Some do it for a job, others for the fun of it. IT and other business applications are only a part of the world of computer software. Some are taking concepts and going in totally different directions with it. Some take an idea and develop it further. This is the science application of computer software. Having an idea and figuring out how to implement it, of courses needing to fine tune the details- that happens in all sciences. NOT the same as thinking like a businessman. The chemist thinks of a compound then needs to figure out how to make it. btw, the engineers figure out how to do things practically and on a large scale.
A job figuring out improving an insurance company’s software, a job figuring out how to organize a medical practice with computers, inventing a new device all represent different levels of using computer science.
Final thought- who knew there is some sort of CS theorem that states there can’t be a perfect system (didn’t try to find out too much- pushing my luck to get son to talk). Found that out when son told me how there was a crash in something involving a big name computer software thing (not in his job) that couldn’t be avoided, was fixed. Who knew? Tip of the iceberg is all we nonmajors know.
“Many of those in CS do NOT care at all about business. They are all about the theory and inherent mathematics of it.” - Tha would be very few and in my close to 35 years of experience at unrelated companies and industries I met a zero number of these people. They may exist somewhere, they would have to work of the specs of others, and it is NOT how it is done this days, this type of work is in a past. “The theory and inherent mathematics of it” - will not be understood by vast majority of CS professionals as there are no such things. I personally would like to hear about at least one theory, please, give examples as I feel that we misunderstood each other greatly…
Business applications provide a great number of jobs out there for CS majors, the vast majority of the CS jobs. There are other jobs, but it is more useful here to discuss where majority of the CS will end up, not the small minority. The truth is that the vast majority of CS graduates will end up working with some business applications and they will learn to understand their specific company’s business, unless they decide to fail in their job. Sorry, I do not have any opinions about it, I just state the facts that exists on the job market for CS majors based on my close to 35 years of experience in many unrelated industries.
As far as opinions goes, I have only one in respect to this thread: No college feeds the soul, at least I hope not and I would not want to have my kid there if it exists. The kid’s soul should be fed by his family.
Don’t know if anyone mentioned it, but RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) would be a good school to look at. Their CS grads start out earning an average of over 90K per year, and it’s a great school. It is not cheap though.