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Study Abroad For Computer Science Majors?
sbilstein writes "I'm currently a sophomore studying computer science with a penchant for international travel. While I do realize that the internet precludes the need for us geeks to travel farther than our desks, I'd still like to take a few courses taught in English or Spanish (the two languages I'm fluent in) somewhere outside of the country. The trouble is I can't go to just any school, because like any other engineering degree, I have to take technical courses every semester. So I need a school with a something at least similar to a computer science program in the states. Has anybody here from the US studied abroad while doing computer science? Was it worthwhile? Or anyone from outside the United States recommend a university program?"
I wonder if it would be economically feasible to study in india.
I went abroad for a semester to Newcastle University in the UK. I placed out of my first year in CS, so that made it much easier for me, though I couldn't afford to do the whole year. I took core classes (I go to a liberal arts school) and had an absolute blast.
Newcastle is a science school. In fact, one of my friends over there is a CS major. The European CS curricula are far more formal than what we have here in the states, however. They're really teaching Computer Science, while my program is really more Software Engineering. If that's the case for you as well, don't even think about trying to take CS classes in Europe.
I was a computer science major and studied overseas twice. One term in London and another term in Vienna. I wasn't able to take classes related to my major, but it was a great opportunity to knock out those dreaded general study courses you have to take. The general study courses seemed to be easier overseas because they try to focus you on maximizing your cultural experiences and travels, and less emphasis on the courses. Even if it makes you take some summer courses to make up for it, it is worth it. You won't get the opportunity to enjoy the world at a young age as well as the significant discounts being a student abroad.
You seem to be jumping to conclusions - or perhaps that was a really weak anti-America troll? Hard to tell on the internet...
I'm going to give sbilstein the benefit of the doubt and assume that he isn't asking 'Are there any schools outside of the US that aren't incompetent', but rather asking the more important question 'There are many universities outside of the US, does anyone have any experience with one that participates in 'study-abroad' programs and has some sort of technical course available?'.
The majority of study-abroad programs that were available when I was still in college were focused on history/language/art. Those were the things that made more sense to study of course - go to France to learn about French history, go to Spain to learn about Spanish art, etc. The only science courses I remember seeing were for biology in Australia. Now this was a decade ago, when most of our information was through pamphlets and presentations on campus so maybe there were some places that did 'technical' stuff but without a huge internet presence it was hard to find.
I second the Spain recommendation. I studied at Universitat PolitÃcnica de Catalunya (http://www.upc.es/) in 05 and had an amazing time. Barcelona has much to offer in terms of history, architecture, and culture. It took a week or so to get over the then current fashion trend--mullets on women--but hey, different user interface, same great kernel.
...and Kristen Nygaard (inventor of object oriented programming; cf. Simula) was Norwegian, Anders Hejlsberg (designer of Delphi and C#) and Bjarne Stoustrup (designer of C++) were Danish, and, more obscurely, Carl Adam Petri (inventor of the concept of concurrency and Petri nets) is German and Robin Milner (designer of ML, CCS, and the pi-calculus) is English.
This question is more appropriate for someone at your school. Do you have a Study Abroad Office or something similar? They could help you out. Or ask your academic advisor (please tell me it's not just small schools like mine that have them)--he or she would be able to figure out if something could work for you.
I'm assuming you're going to a big university or technical school. I am a computer science major at a small liberal arts college in the midwest, and at my school studying abroad is really no big deal no matter what your major. I, in fact, am leaving for a Spanish-language immersion trip to Mexico in about a week. I won't be doing any computer science, but, as others have said, there's no that reason you (like I will be doing) couldn't do some of your gen ed requirements while you're away. Again, your school or your advisor would be able to figure out what would work for you.
Additionally, you could look into a summer program, such as ones offered by ISA (or other organizations whose names I have forgotten...), or perhaps a January program if your school has a long enough winter break (no such luck here, as we have January term). Good luck!
R.Mo
Informatics Engineering programs in Chile are similar to CS + SE in the US. Check http://www.inf.utfsm.cl/ for one of the best engineering universities in Chile, and the best for CS. Also Valparaiso/Vin~a del Mar are great places to live.
I'll let you in on a secret. If your plan on getting a degree and going straight into work, you don't really have to concern your self to much with the quality of the course work.
As with in a year or two of starting employment you either have it or you don't. The people with the natural skill always bubble to the top no matter where they are from.
Also on initial employment during the interview phase foreign workers are typically automatically given a leg up on the locals. In most countries employers have figured out the foreign workers work harder.
Oh and the comment about the US having the best CS education. Stop reading American ratings. It's simply not true. The quality of the end result graduate is what matters. I have employed people from many many countries. There is very little that differentiates the quality of the candidate. The biggest issues with foreign workers are 1. English language skills, and the most annoying 2. Culturally indoctrinated fear of failure. ( Fear of failure results in employees lying about skills, completion times, and work completeness. Drives me nuts. If you can't do it SAY SO! we will work around it. )
Full disclosure - I am an NTU alumnus.
Has anybody here from the US studied abroad while doing computer science? Was it worthwhile? Or anyone from outside the United States recommend a university program?
I have a BS in CS and I studied abroad for a year in London. However, I didn't take a single class relevant to my degree. When I left for London, I needed 2 CS classes to graduate. Basically, I transferred to another school, took their (awesome) study abroad program. Lived with a host family. Networked with people from all over Europe. Had the best time of my life. And met my French fiancee.
I more than doubled my student debt to do it (it's not cheap) but it was worth it. I didn't care about not having a CS class though I did well in all the classes I did take. I also joined the Rugby (Union) team of my college. Damn, it was a great time. I love Jolly Old London (Twickenham technically).
I'd recommend doing it. Heck, if you even have to ask, then I think you're probably wanting it enough that you should do it.
It has nothing to do with that you learn in the class room and everything about what you experience. Some of the best courses I had where the History courses offered at my England college.
Don't study abroad to take CS courses. Study abroad to experience a different culture and meet new people. Even if it's just an American in London, there's a lot to learn.
Even if it means, basically, taking a semester or year off of your normal course work to do it. Just know that it isn't cheap and that it's really something you want to do. I've seen several people on my study abroad program who did it and clearly didn't want to do it and wasted the entire trip crying in their bedrooms over missing boy/girlfriends.
Bon Chance!
ps. Know what you're looking for when studying abroad. Is it just a location? Or do you really want to integrate into the host country? Many programs out there are nothing but a school of Americans, secluded in an area, and you don't get much integration into the country. If you're reasonable good in a 2nd language consider a country with that a primary language. If you're not, fear not to go to an English speaking school (England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, etc.)
Don't study abroad if you're trying to focus on school work. That's NOT what it's about. Stay in the States and focus on your classes and your grades if that's what matters. You study abroad to experience life in a different place. Take classes that will expand on this experience. You don't want to be stuck in a computer lab for 40 hours a week to finish a programming project, when you can see the Tower de Eiffel from your window, kind of thing.
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
I'm not a US citizen, but I'm not european either. I just finnished a semester of studying in Finland as an exchange student in Helsinki University of Technology's CS department (TKK) and I can say that the program is really good, and Finland is a really fun place. There's lots of courses in english; I took mostly theoretical CS stuff since I'm pretty advanced in my studies, but there's something for everyone there. I really recommend TKK both for its CS courses and its university life. You'll meet a different culture and have fun. As for the visa, I got a 6 month student residence permit (since I don't really need a visa to study there), which allowed me to work for 15 or 20 hours a week. Getting a tech job there is fairly easy for people who study at TKK and you only need to be fluent in english. BTW, everyone speaks english there. You really don't need to learn finnish unless you want to. In six months the only people I met who didn't speak english were a bus driver and a cashier. Go to Finland.
Ok, a little off-topic but it would also look great on your resume. Come to Peru and help me teach programming to orphan kids in Peru. Im building a course in squeak (smalltalk, like LOGO on drugs :) to teach programming to the kids. The orphanage has over 630 kids and is all volunteer-run, with some volunteers living inside, mostly europeans. Watch some videos of the orphanage, its a youtube playlist and the last 2 videos are in english. I also have a software business with many years of experience working as a C++ programmer in top US software companies, and might be able to teach you a trick or two.
I went to Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany. It's an English-language institution, somewhat unique in Germany, as all courses are entirely in English and the curriculum is structured like at an American/Anglo-Saxon university. There's a nice big green campus with wild parties, very cheap booze etc. They have a pretty large CS dept (relative to the size of the university, 1200 students only!). Moreover, they are very open to the idea of exchange/visiting students, though it might be harder to just go there without worrying about the tuition unless your university has some sort of agreement with them (but very much doable, if you can afford it).
You can find more info here. The undergrad CS courses are quite technical and you can usually take courses at all levels, as long as the professor is convinced that you have the prerequisite knowledge.
Studying abroad is a really good idea and I encourage it quite a bit! Good luck.
Doomie
As far as I know, no restrictions. Anyone can come here and study for a Masters or Bachelors programme. In some programmes we have over half of the students from other countries. In fact, you can even get paid from the Swedish government through the Student Grant system! All you need to do is to find a nice Swedish guy/girl to live together with. When you share address, and "live under conditions similar to marriage" then you are automatically in "registered partnership", and eligible for national student grants (ca 350$ a month, with optional extra 600$ as loans)
IN the spring of 2005 or rather the last semester of my junior year, I attended Leeds University, based in Leeds, England. It was a school actually quiet unlike my home university of Vanderbilt. This school contained 40,000 or so kids, about four times the size of our whole university and half of a small city in England, akin to large public colleges all over the states. I was a cs/math major who had already completed the math degree and wasn't very far from the cs requirement.
With that said, I would like to describe some of my time there as a cs student:
Every class that I needed to take had anywhere from 100-250 kids in it at the same time. And according to some random luck I happened to take 3 different courses for different year students. I took Intro to Databases (I rarely attended, and probably would have without.), Computer Graphics (I enjoyed), and a computer security class taught by a young professor who was teaching to a class about 100 strong. In addition I also took 3 other courses. Philosophy of Sex, a Japanese/samurai history course, and a class on the methods and ethics off community safety (CCTV, Asbos, etc.).
The structure of the classes were a lot different than the states. 2 times a week and either an hour and half or three hours each lecture. The computing classes that I took each had homework assignments usually weekly sometimes only 3 the whole semester.
The cs courses were taught the same way basically as any average large American school.
But this was a good thing because it allowed me the ability to visit my girlfriend at Oxford and travel to Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, London, Egypt, Greece, Italy, and finally Morocco. After which I spent the summer in South Africa. It was a great 8 months of my life and a very tough time as well. I was actually really happy to spend my semester in Europe, only regret that I didn't skip school more often.
I'm a junior at a top liberal arts college in the US - currently spending the year studying Part II Computer Science at Cambridge. If you can get in (the application process is long and unnecessarily bureaucratic), there's nothing like it. It's absolutely fantastic. Also, the drinking age is 18. Everyone loves Americans in the post-11/5 world. Cambridge is breathtakingly beautiful, and a year in Cambridge ain't exactly a bad experience to have.
It really is simple like that and a lot of people are already doing it. That's why the masters programmes at my uni (KTH) are crammed with mostly asian (China, Pakistan, etc) foreign students every year, coming here for a free (as in beer) and decent education. It's a pretty sweet deal of course and has caused some public debate whether this is viable or not, since it's all tax payers money funding it. In one of my CS courses there was an african guy in his late 30's enrolled so I guess it's indeed possible to work something out.
I would also recommend you have a look at Delft University of Technology (www.tudelft.nl) in the Netherlands. As you'd expect from the Dutch, nearly everyone speaks fluent English, and this is particularly true in the academic community.
Last year, I spent two semesters studying abroad in Eindhoven Technical University (better suited for Electrical Engineering, my MSc), where I had all subjects taught in English, and everyone mentioned how TU Delft was a great university for studying Computer Science. Plus, I find the Netherlands to be a great country in terms of freedom ('Live and let live' is their motto, iirc), and it's also a great central hub to fly all around Europe.
And I wholeheartedly agree with what many are saying here: go and study abroad, but focus on getting to know the World, not just more CS. The experiences you'll have abroad will be far more valuable to you, your life, your way of thinking.
I don't post very often, but I felt compelled to reply to this one because of the profoundly positive effect that a study abroad program had on me. I did my final year of a BS in Physics abroad at the University of Bath in the UK. The U of Bath is a smallish, selective school that is primarily technical in nature. It might be comparable to, say, CalTech. While I can say that the focus of the program there was substantially different from the program at my home university, (Purdue), it was also an excellent program. I knew a couple people there who were studying CS. From what I heard about it, it seemed to be a good program also. The U of Bath has lots of international programs, so the typical international student will be living with people from all over the place. In the immediate proximity of my residence where people from France, Germany, Sudan, Korea, UAE, Belgium, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Argentina, Russia, Ukraine, Greece, and Hungary. (Those are just the ones that I remember.) Having gone to a few different Universities for different purposes over the years, I can say that the biggest thing that differentiates them at the undergraduate level is the type of students that they attract. Basic CS theory is basic CS theory, and you would be studying the same stuff no matter where you go for the most part; the difference between universities is mostly who you would be studying it with.
In general, I think most Americans would be well served by the experience of going somewhere else and living for a while. It doesn't really matter that much if you do school or work -- just go be somewhere that isn't the US for long enough to forget that you aren't in the US any more. Once you've gone a few days without thinking about the fact that you aren't in the US, you're probably in a good position to get a glimpse of the US as non-Americans see it. You'll also then be in a position to evaluate beliefs you may have about the US and the "American way," as some like to call it. All of this tends to cause a huge increase in self confidence. Once you realize that everything you really need to live for a year either fits in a big suitcase or can be acquired for a relatively small amount of money and that human nature is pretty much the same no matter where you go, you'll never look at anything the same way again. For me, this has resulted in a large improvement in my overall state of mind, and it allowed me to pursue happiness much more effectively.
I got a lot of things out of my Physics BS, but I'd put the study abroad experience about on par with the Physics in terms of what is valuable to me now, 6 years after graduation. I even failed a couple Physics classes while I was there and had to take them again when I got back. It was still worth it. I can't recommend a year abroad highly enough. Go somewhere -- it doesn't really matter so much where you go. Try to spend a year there if you can. Be open minded and respectful of the natives when you get there, and I can pretty much promise that you won't regret it.
I thought von Neumann was eager and anxious to renounce his Hungarian citizenship as soon as possible?
Not that this means anything about Hungary. Although he was an indisputable genius, von Neumann was a horrible person and a coward. Among other things, his first choice for the Japanese atom bombing was Kyoto on the grounds that since it had no military value, it had not been attacked yet and thus would show the effect better.
And let's not forget his emergency plan to win the cold war: move all Important Americans into shelters in the Rockies; then cover the ice caps with black plastic to raise sea levels. The kill ratio would vastly favor the West, don'tcha know?
Atop all of this, he was enough of a craven coward to accept Catholicism on his death bed "just in case". I wish there were a hell for him to go to.
At least he was rational.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky