Thanks for the links. I posted a thread recently about my D, a HS senior, who is looking at CS options. She’s not a competitive candidate for the highly selective schools and also only got interested in CS as a senior so no STEM EC’s. I posted a separate thread about her list, but she is concerned about rankings so I’ll show her that link to reassure her somewhat about ASU.
I’ll also pass on some advice given to D about evaluating ASU (ranked) vs NAU (unranked) for CS from the perspective of the owner of a small software company (less than 50 employees). These are from my brother who has a BS in CS from MIT and an MBA from Harvard. He acknowledged that ASU will be much better known to employers, but emphasizes that especially once you are 3-5 years out it matters a lot more what you’ve done than where you went. Part of the backstory here is that D prefers NAU overall as a place to go to college but is wondering if she should choose ASU. This is an edited version of his comments.
"[Corinthian] asked me to comment on ASU vs NAU for Computer Science. My viewpoint is that of a software company manager who hires software engineers – though we usually hire people with 3-5 years experience and MS degrees rather than directly from a degree program.
I have looked through the undergraduate CS curriculum shown online for both ASU and NAU. I think they are both covering the subjects that you need to know – more comments on that below. I would actually give a slight edge to NAU for their curriculum in light of current trends. But I do have to say that, for companies across the U.S. who are hiring directly from a degree program, I don’t think ABET or exact rankings are very important, but ASU is widely known as a good school, whereas NAU is not nearly as well known. Hiring managers would probably assume that the ASU curriculum is solid, where you might have to show your transcript from NAU to confirm what you studied.
Having said that: Especially in CS, companies care much more what you have learned (and how well you learned it) and what you can do, than what school you attended. It’s common to have live tests of your actual knowledge, thinking and problem-solving skills as part of an interview process. Once you are 3-5 years out of school, the name of the college or university becomes much less important, and what you accomplished in those 3-5 years becomes much more important. My advice is, no matter where you go to school, also look for edX and Coursera courses you can take and get certificates – these are being weighed by employers today, and I think that trend will continue.
A few thoughts on the curriculum: Both ASU and NAU have core requirements in liberal arts, the physical sciences, and mathematics, which is very good – don’t short-change these. I’d especially emphasize the value of (i) discrete mathematics, (ii) linear algebra especially, and (iii) probability and statistics, because we use this knowledge every day when we build real-world software. Principles are more important (and longer lasting) than the latest popular programming language. When you see “computability and analysis of algorithms”, “computer organization and assembly language”, “data structures and algorithms”, “operating systems” and “networks”, make sure you take those courses and learn from them. Finally, “act like a real software engineer” even while you’re in school: Join the ACM, visit StackOverflow, keep up with what’s happening in cloud computing, AI, etc. University programs are always “playing catch-up” to some degree."