The Carleton College CS department requires 8 core CS courses, 2 CS electives, math 111, and a senior capstone/comprehensive course sequence. Carleton is not on a semester system but at ~3.33 semester hours per course (https://apps.carleton.edu/handbook/academics/?policy_id=21431), the requirements appear to total ~40 semester-equivalent credits (counting the senior capstone/comps as one semester-equivalent course). The CS department imposes no additional STEM requirements (beyond any general education requirements for all Carleton students), but recommends that students considering graduate study in CS take additional courses in math and CS. https://apps.carleton.edu/curricular/cs/major/requirements/ https://apps.carleton.edu/curricular/cs/assets/cscourses.pdf
Carleton’s Alumni Profiles page indicates that ~recent CS graduates have had positions at Google, IBM, Cray, Amazon, Thomson Reuters, Nielsen, etc.
According to NSF/WebCASPAR data, Carleton College alumni earned 22 PhDs in CS in the years 2006-2015. With approximately 50 CS majors graduating per year (per IPEDS for 2016), its PhD production rate in CS appears to be a little higher than Stanford’s (89 PhDs, 259 majors in 2016) and slightly lower than Berkeley’s (174 PhDs, 380 CS majors in 2016).
I can’t reach any strong conclusions about the quality of Carleton’s CS program (compared to what you’d get at a similarly selective, highly ranked research university). Based solely on the course offerings, requirements, and alumni outcomes, it appears to be pretty good. If you like the idea of a small out-of-state college, and can get in with a lower net price than you’d pay at your state university, then w.r.t. academic quality I don’t see any good reasons to avoid it.
34% would be similar to what the University of Chicago expects for CS majors
(1400-1700 course “units” out of 4200 “units” required for graduation, which would be 33%-40% of the total program).
Note, however, that this count does not include the two quarters of calculus that is part of Chicago’s general education, nor the CS major’s requirement that students use two quarters of chemistry or physics for their science general education. If one includes the requirements that overlap with the general education, the percentage is 43-50% of the total (1800-2100 course units out of 4200).
For a different example, Brown, which has no overlapping general education requirements and 30 courses required to graduate, has an AB in CS program of 11 courses (36%) and a ScB in CS program of 17 courses (57%).
Note that the differences between requirement loads of CS majors come from the following:
Math: discrete math is almost always required. Single variable calculus and linear algebra are usually required.
Non-CS science: sometimes required, typically in engineering-based or ABET-accredited CS majors (note that ABET accreditation for either computer science or computer engineering requires at least 25% of the course work in math + non-CS science), though some other CS majors may have such a requirement.
General education overlap. Schools where the general education requirements overlap with typical CS major requirements (e.g. Chicago, Harvey Mudd, MIT, Caltech) may not explicitly list those courses as part of the CS major requirements.
Course density. At some colleges, more material may be stuffed into a 3 or 4 credit (equivalent) course than at some other colleges. At such colleges, the requirement load may appear to be lower by credits (or equivalent), even though similar amounts of material may be covered.
Actual amount of CS required. This is sometimes related to the size of the faculty and number of courses offered at smaller schools. Wesleyan has a more limited number of CS course offerings than many other schools (including many other LACs), so it may not be too surprising that its requirements are fewer to avoid overloading the department's teaching capacity.
For consistency, I find that junior/senior level courses are the best basis of comparison, since the organization of frosh/soph level courses varies considerably. Based on the listing that you linked, Wesleyan’s junior/senior level courses for 2017-2018 are:
Fall: 2 unique regular courses (321/521, 331/531), 1 special topics (360A)
Spring: 3 unique regular courses (301/500, 312/510, 350), 2 special topics (2 sections of 360)
Total of 5 regular courses and 3 special topics over the next two semesters.
Comparing content coverage across colleges is complicated.
The ACM’s CS2013 Curriculum Guideline, 518 pages long, compares courses and programs at various colleges (including Stanford, Williams, and Grinnell in Appendix D, “Curricular Exemplars”) to an ACM model CS curriculum. The authors/contributors have to grapple with issues such as whether to include only the minimum “core” requirements, or all major requirements, or required courses plus certain electives, in order to determine what percentage of the model recommendations is covered (or could be covered) in a given program.
Stanford appears to be pretty close to the ACM gold standard.
The 16 courses counted in its “typical major” cover 98% of the ACM’s recommended “Tier 1” content and 79% of the ACM’s recommended “Tier 2” content.
Williams only requires 10 courses for a CS major.
According to the CS2013 Williams College analysis, a “typical major” would cover 83% of the recommended “Tier 1” content and 60% of the recommended “Tier 2” content. But some other LACs (such as Carleton, which the ACM guideline doesn’t cover) require more than 10 courses for a CS major. For even more coverage, one could take additional electives.
Would it be easy for a Williams College CS major to cover all the content in Stanford’s “typical major”? Even if not, I’m not sure that should be a show-stopper if a school like Williams is otherwise a good fit and affordable. If you avoid all LACs for CS, you’re eliminating many of the colleges that offer the best need-based aid as well as strong focus on undergraduate education.
Compared to Carleton’s six regular courses spread over a trimester system - two each in the Fall, Winter and Spring, plus two special topics (one in the Fall and the other in the Winter)*
For a total of 8, same as Wesleyan.
*Carleton’s CS231/Computer Security, has the potential for being an upper level course, but, is numbered in the 200s
No one here is suggesting to avoid all LACs for CS. But some LACs and non-LACs have very small CS departments which may not offer enough upper level CS courses to satisfy many CS majors. Investigation of actual course offerings may be necessary, rather than assuming anything based on whether a school is a LAC or otherwise.
“So now my question goes to those who have gone thru the process be it majoring in CS or playing football at a high level. Just how difficult can I expect it to be to major in CS and play football? I do realize the higher the level in football the more time is devoted to football. D3(with many LAC’s) would have less expectations on players and would be the “easiest” route but the player in me would of course like to compete at the highest level but not at the sacrifice of my grades if possible.”
This is a question you have to ask each university you’re interested in because each will have different answers on how they help in balancing football with academics (and social as well). Most major div 1 schools allow a redshirt so you can graduate in five years without playing the first year and just focusing on academics and adjusting to college life. All will have considerable academic support - tutors (jokes aside), counselors, advisors etc… CS in the Arts and Science school could be a little less rigorous than in the Engineering school as you avoid courses like engineering modeling, engineering lab course, mechanics, etc…
If you want the highest level of football and top-notch CS, then the schools that are being discussed - Stanford, Michigan, Berkeley, the ivies, along with Illinois, UCLA, USC and Georgia Tech should be your best bets.
For a football athlete serious about academics, a quarter system usually offers some advantage over a semester system, due to football season overlapping with 1/3 of the academic year instead of 1/2 of the academic year (there are a few unusual quarter system schools like Louisiana Tech where football season would overlap with more than 1/3 of the academic year). This allows more non-football-season schedule space where one can take more difficult or time consuming courses (e.g. CS courses with programming projects). However, quarter system schools are less common than semester system schools.
No one except the person quoted in the first post, and title, of the thread, that is. And a couple of responses since then have basically said LACs will offer an inferior CS education with lousy job prospects.
So not “no one here”.
Possible. Amherst, Williams, Carleton have relatively few CS requirement classes. I suspect a lot of majors double CS with something else, the google employees I listed awhile back would bear that out - math/CS, Russian/CS, etc. For someone with multiple interests, that could be a great fit.
I have no idea what the time demands are for a football player at a D1 school like Stanford. I do know, that at least for my son, the academic demands for a CS major (in artificial intelligence) is significant. I took a quick look at Stanford’s football roster and did find 1 senior player that is a CS major, and 2 players that are majoring in Symbolic Systems (a popular major with good amount of CS requirements).
@Luska19 My brother played D1 baseball for Santa Clara Univ, and graduated with a degree in CS and a degree in Economics. He currently is the head software engineer for a major telecom company in Silicon Valley. I played D1 volleyball. It is very possible to play a sport and excel in the classroom. However, this balance is easier to maintain in a lower pressure D3 environment. And D3 is still very competitive. I had HS teammates play at the D3 level and they actually had fun playing their sport. D1 sometimes makes playing sports feel like a job where academics are not a priority. As an aside, have you had the chance to watch Last Chance U on Netflix? It is a documentary of football at the Jr College level. Talk about competition! Check it out!
ESPN’s 30 for 30 series did a showcase on Miami called The U - they seem to be both linked in name and themes a bit. If you liked one, the other is probably worth watching.
The scale of demand at those schools is much lower than it is at large research universities with strong CS departments (Berkeley, UIUC, Wisconsin etc.) Even a small number of LAC offerings may be enough to meet demand.
At Williams for Spring 2018, CSCI 126 (Data Structures) is offered in 2 classes, each with an enrollment limit of 24 students. That appears to be enough places to cover approximately every CS major in a single term. I don’t know if there is enough additional demand (including from non-majors) to cause waitlisting.
At Berkeley for Fall 2017, COMPSCI 61B (Data Structures) is offered in 16 “DIS” sections to accommodate a total of 650 seats. For the whole course, 151 students already are waitlisted (although this may be due at least in part to holding back seats for majors who haven’t yet registered).
From a supply/demand perspective, which school has a bigger problem with an insufficient number of courses (/seats) to meet student needs? For CS majors, which schools have the highest on-time graduation rates?