Slashdot Mirror
For CS Majors, How Important Is the "Where?"
An anonymous reader writes "I'm a high school senior who is trying to pick a college to attend. I've been accepted by two comparably selective schools. One is a highly regarded tech school, and the other is a highly regarded liberal arts institution. I prefer the liberal arts college, but the computer science program is small, graduating about a dozen students a year. The course load is heavily theory based; programming languages are taught in later years.
How much would the tech school vs. non tech school matter? Are CS majors from non-tech school considered inferior? What would an HR department think? What would you think if you were hiring?"
It's funny because it's true.
Give very, very serious thought to going to the liberal arts school. In my case, the school has forced enough computer science, math, bio, engineering, physics, etc. down my throat that I've actually soured somewhat on the idea of having anything to do with computer science after graduation. If it's a top ... say ... three or four engineering school, you have to have a very serious conversation with yourself about whether you are okay with staying up until 5:00AM to finish a problem set for a course you're not very interested in becoming a very common occurrence. Freshman and sophomore years in particular are always absolute killers at those places.
I know it sounds weird, but if you do CS 24/7 (perhaps literally 20/7 for long stretches) there's going to be a time when you long for a course that will teach you about poetry, or history, or something completely unrelated to what you spend the rest of your time on. And there will be a good chance you're not going to be able to fit such a course in your schedule.
Also, keep in mind that many, many of the people at very good engineering schools are extremely socially maladapted. Sometimes staggeringly so. So you have to reconcile yourself with that, too.
Some people absolutely thrive at those sorts of colleges. But most, from what I've seen, just leave technically more proficient (though not much more so than if they went to a liberal arts school) and quite a bit more hollow.
Then again, if you do go to a technical school, I can tell you from quite a bit of anecdotal evidence that you're going to get preferential treatment in the hiring process with a huge name engineering school. I've personally had two interviewers confide in me post-selection that I was picked over (to me) obviously more qualified candidates because they didn't believe that someone from [X. State] could be better qualified than a person from [ABC] and that they had just assumed that I flubbed the interviews. So if you're truly unsure of your ability to make a name for yourself at a liberal arts college, you could at least leverage the branding power that the engineering school has.
If you do wind up at the engineering school, see if you can get attached to a research project as soon as possible. At most of the interesting places to work, saying "I have [x] papers published in [journal A], [journal B], and [journal C]" has way more sway -- even if the topics aren't related to the job -- than saying "I can do pointer arithmetic really fast in my head." If you decide to go to grad school, publications in your name make them start salivating when they see your application packet, because doing original research and writing about it is generally what grad school is about.
Christ, that was supposed to be a "I think liberal arts colleges are good" and turned into a novella. College really is what you a make of it, and you can do very well for yourself either place. Just make sure you find friends who are smarter than you and start hanging out with them. And then make sure you make friends who aren't technical majors at all, and hang out with them at least as often. To get perspective.
Good luck with your decision, and best of luck to you wherever you end up. You're going to do fine.
Need I say more?
Obligatory disclaimer: I work at that school (also graduated from it).
I'll reiterate what an earlier poster said. "If you want an Education, go to the liberal arts college. If you want Job Training, go to the tech school."
If you agree that there's more to life than your career, go to the liberal arts school.