How To Get Into an Elite Comp-Sci Program 297
alphadogg writes "With early applications to elite colleges at an all-time high, the nation's highest-rated undergraduate computer science programs are bracing for an uptick in applications between now and January. High school seniors are facing stiffer-than-ever competition when applying to the nation's top computer science programs this fall. But admissions officers and professors at elite tech schools can offer tips aimed at helping your child get accepted come spring."
Missing the point. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
It might help on applying for your first job, but after that I presume that your experience will matter a lot more. I wouldn't actually know since I'm still technically on my first job.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
yes and no.
my college years were in the early 80's. I planned on graduating but after transferring a few times (life sometimes happens..) I found I was missing some credits and after my 4 or 5 yrs (co-op schools had an extra year) I just wanted to be done. I accepted my first computer job (after 'finishing' college) and for most of my career, the lack of an actual degree was not a show-stopper. been at a few boston companies and now in the bay area. until recently, it has not been a problem finding a job and the lack of degree would be something I'd have to explain but my experience (25+ yrs) would be why they would hire me.
problem is, now, extra experience means you expect higher pay and they don't WANT to pay high anymore. there's 100 younger guys willing to be abused, work longer hours and be on call 7x24 for their bosses and there's little reason for companies to hire folks like me. even if I did have a degree, it would not matter much at my age. my age is what works against me, not my 'lack' of education or experience.
when you are fresh out of school, school is all they can look at to evaluate you. if you don't go to a co-op school, where you get assigned (or nearly assigned) a company to work for for 3-6mos then having the degree will matter a lot. but if you are able to fit in some work experience, the degree matters less and less.
what does matter is that you present yourself as willing to be abused and used by the company. THAT, they love. they just love that shit. they'll take a yes-man over a smarter guy most of the time, these days.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Dip ship MBA (types) are just about the closest work place equivalent of "jocks". The only thing that interests them are bullshit intimidation games like chicken. What's more, they are usually pretty seriously buggered themselves, have no guts, backbone, or substance, and are quick to roll over, "happily" even. Most importantly, even when you beat them, never lose your ability to sneer at the whole thing. You don't want to get sucked in. It's like a bottomless cesspool.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes - this is very true.
Every company will push you as far as they can. If you can't stand up to your boss and say 'no, this is not ok' then I can almost bet your next company will do the same thing to you. Of course if you're going to do that then you had better be prepared to leave straight away, because some bosses will be unwilling to work with anyone that is willing to stand up to them.
Get your resume polished up, start looking and then try it. You never know, you might find you get to keep your cur
Re: (Score:2)
Bosses have something that developers don't.
The power to hire and fire as they damn well please, and corporate contact with the clients.
And also the power to give you an ugly reference if you don't kiss their ass.
Sometimes an insane captain would rather sink his own ship rather than let one rat escape undrowned.
Re: (Score:3)
Not completely true. I've had quite a few jobs where they checked my references. However, it's not that hard to get some decent references, and they don't need to be your supervisors. After you've moved around a little, you should be able to find one or two supervisors that'll give you a good reference, and several coworkers too. Don't worry about pleasing every single supervisor; after all, if you're changing jobs, you're going to piss some off just by leaving them instead of staying their underpaid la
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Missing the point. (Score:4, Insightful)
It might help on applying for your first job, but after that I presume that your experience will matter a lot more.
Ah yes, cue the endless stream of /. folk saying it doesn't matter... I graduated from one of those schools and 30 years later it still helps ;-) Experience counts very much of course, but some degrees confer instant credibility before anyone starts the process of examining your experience.
Or, to put it another way, I start with the assumption that all MIT CS graduates are "fizz-buzz capable", and I've never been disappointed...
Re: (Score:2)
Well, for those who actually enjoy computing, they'd all be capable before going into Computer Science. I couldn't believe how many fellow students in 3rd and 4th year just didn't understand programming. When anyone asked for help I tried to give them hints without giving the answers to our assignments, but some clearly didn't care about learning for themselves. They should have been doing liberal arts degrees, or working at McDonalds.. well, they probably are doing that now, but with a nice student loan de
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who's done some hiring, and who's competed against others in being hired, I'd say it depends. If you went to a third tier school and I went to a fifth tier school, it probably doesn't matter once we both have five years or so under our belts. If you went to MIT or Stanford... That's a whole other ballgame. Names like that matter well into your career, possibly for your entire career. In the end a guy from MIT might not always get the job: interviews matter, experience matters, even advanced degrees might matter, but there's definitely a little wow factor added to your resume with that degree even 10 or 15 years down the line (might definitely make a difference in making the cut to get that interview).
That's what this article is about. Getting into one of those 5 or 10 schools where having the name on your resume matters, and will likely continue to matter for a while.
Re: (Score:2)
Where you go sure can help, though.
True, assuming you can do it without incurring huge student loan debt.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:4, Insightful)
Where you go sure can help, though.
True, assuming you can do it without incurring huge student loan debt.
Which means you have to get an elite level job to pay for the elite level loan. This can have some severe issues WRT quality of life, if you take a "small" pool of jobs and make it even smaller by only being able to survive with the most elite of that already small pool. So you'll be the last STEM guy who's job is exported to India, who cares, you'll only be a couple years behind me, in the long run it won't matter to either of us... If you want to work 80 hour weeks and not recognize spouse/kids, go to MIT, if you want 40 hrs/wk like I have, then... don't. I caught a lot of flack 25 years ago telling my HS guidance counselor that I appreciate that he insists I should apply to more elite schools because of grades / scores whatever, but I don't want to go and want to attend state U instead (because I was obsessed with the then new-ish movie "Animal House", and I later re-enacted most of those scenes as a freshman, except for the motor cycle up the front stairs, but that's a whole 'nother (fun) story)
Re: (Score:3)
And how many "elite level" jobs are out there for software developers and engineers anyway, that can afford you to pay off the gigantic loans you'd need for a place like MIT? Heck, can you even get a loan large enough to cover that kind of tuition? I doubt it; you'd need a lot of extra money from your parents most likely. If your parents don't have that kind of money, or worse, have plenty of money but are bastards and refuse to help you with your tuition (which effectively keeps you out of college becau
Re:Are you sure about that? (Score:4, Interesting)
I honestly don't see how surgeons and engineers have much difference between them when it comes to dealing with people. Remember, surgeons aren't general practitioners; they don't spend all their time meeting with patients, chit-chatting with them about their lives and health problems, how their kids are, etc. Surgeons are specialists, and get paid when they're in an operating room working on an unconscious patient; the only people they have to "deal with" are the surgical staff they work with: a few nurses, an anesthesiologist, etc. Engineers don't spend all their time by themselves, they have to talk with other engineers, talk with their manager, sit in meetings with the other engineers, etc. Granted, they have a lot of individual working time, but there's a certain amount of teamwork there too, plus dealing with management. And unlike the surgeon, who has a nice office with a door where he can have quiet if he needs it, the engineer doesn't have that luxury; he has a shitty "open work area" with half-height cubicle walls that he has to share with a bunch of other workers, including several loud-mouths that love to come by and chit-chat with his coworkers, and the work area is so loud that it's impossible to think unless you wear headphones. But then when you wear headphones, other jerks constantly come up behind you to ask you inane questions and tap you on the shoulder, nearly giving you a heart attack when you're deep in concentration. I'll bet the surgeon doesn't have to worry about that when he's got his hands inside someone's body cavity and is fiercely concentrating on making the incision at exactly the right place so the patient doesn't die; his support staff knows exactly how to talk to him or respond to him to avoid interrupting his concentration.
If surgeons break even with engineers after only a measly 5 years, how far ahead in earnings do you think the surgeon will be after 30 years of work? The surgeon will have saved millions, while the engineer will have been unemployed for a decade or more because companies can get younger engineers cheaper, or just send the work offshore, so the engineer will have to make do with a retail job.
As for fun, the surgeon gets to spend his career saving peoples' lives. The engineer gets to spend his short career (before he's too old to work, at 40) working on idiotic projects that some dumbass in upper management dreams up to copy some other, more successful company, but then these projects are shit-canned before they're complete. The engineer will be lucky if any of his projects ever actually get used by end-users.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In the end it is not where you went to school. But more of what you have learned and can you apply it.
I have seen people, from notable schools, that just did not have a clue of what was asked of them on the job.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Missing the point. (Score:4, Informative)
Sweet Jesus, do not go to grad school in comp sci if wasting money is your concern. (In other disciplines, I agree that the undergrad institution doesn't matter if you plan to go on.)
However, if you plan to work as a developer immediately after college, there are three important things to consider in an undergraduate institution: networking, networking, networking. Alums who are hiring will always read the resumes of fellow alums more carefully, fair or not.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes and no. Yes, your talent is the most important long term factor. But the elite universities take a very different approach to teaching, especially for sciences and engineering. Compare the CS curriculum at MIT to that at your state college. MIT's is far more hardcore, and with much greater emphasis theory. Same for other fields. There is a qualitative difference between a top tier school and the rest of the pack.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Funny)
It's more hardcore then state pen!
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not so sure that a place like MIT is any more theoretical than some land grant college. It's certainly more stressful though. It's also a lot more expensive. You will likely be saddled with a much larger debt when your done.
What advantage you get might not be worth the cost.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not so sure that a place like MIT is any more theoretical than some land grant college.
Not always. Some places, especially smaller colleges, treat CS as IT/Software Engineering, when we all know they are very different. The result is you come out of school with a degree in "computer science", but you lack foundational knowledge like calculus. All you really did was get a degree in programming.
It's also a lot more expensive.
Also not necessarily. Stanford is free for lower income families. I went to CMU and they gave me a grant (aka never have to pay it back) that covered half of tuition. In the end it cost me less than going to state school.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Informative)
Not always. Some places, especially smaller colleges, treat CS as IT/Software Engineering, when we all know they are very different.
This. I went to a college-style Ivy, so I didn't have to declare a major until sophomore year, so getting in was just a matter of applying early decision.
But... after taking CS there and then talking to a friend who was going (a decade later) to a small school in Boston, I was shocked at what they were teaching for 'computer science'. They got none of the fundamentals, just run-at-the-wall programming.
There were kids having trouble in those classes /because/ they lacked the fundamentals. It wasn't their fault, but I wonder how this group of professors managed to come up with such a hair-brained curriculum (or how they got to be CS professors in the first place). Even in IT, CS fundamentals are essential for proper understanding.
It wasn't a college with a poor reputation, either. There's no reason a community college couldn't have an excellent CS program either - they cost next to nothing to implement (heck, a fundamentals CS program could be taught on anything with an MMU).
I suppose an independent rating system of some sort would be helpful here.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The result is you come out of school with a degree in "computer science", but you lack foundational knowledge like calculus.
I'm sorry, what part of "computer science" requires calculus?
Automata/FSM theory? No calc
Computability theory? No calc
Computational complexity theory? No calc
Cryptography? No calc
Grammars? No calc
The maths most important to CompSci, *by far*, are discrete/finite math and combinatorics. Maybe some linear algebra.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, as long as you stick to compsci and seek a compsci job, then you can't really lose with an MIT degree. It's like a Harvard law degree or a UNC basketball scholarship. They will want you, until you mess it up, not the other way around.
Re: (Score:2)
I went to a school with similar reputation and price tag to MIT[...]I'd have been successful no matter where I went
Translation: I'm fabulously rich and well-connected.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Interesting)
I will admit that there are a few companies that specifically seek out and recruit from elite schools, but they will see through anyone that doesn't have talent. So, at best, going to an elite school really only provides someone a slight edge. And they will only take 'the best of the best', so unless someone is sure they are in the top 10% already, good luck with that degree really amounting to more than from a community college.
As long as someone can click on the box 'I have a degree', that's all HR will care about. The manager might be impressed by an elite degree, he might be intimidated by it, or he might turn it away because of expected salary costs. These things can work against you also.
I remember talking with a VP of programming about 10 years ago, wondering why someone with a masters in marine biology would want to be a computer programer. He didn't even interview the kid. But then again, the VP had his PhD in neural networks, and was working for a financial company and was fired after two years because he had terrible people skills. A lot of good his degree did him, he was one of the worst managers I'd ever seen. The company I worked with hired a financial wizard from some elite school with a very impressive background, and just fired him 6 months ago for the his lack of people skills and terrible work ethic.
If someone has the money to blow, there is nothing wrong with an elite school. But I sure as hell wouldn't spend a lot of money I didn't have in the hopes of making up for it later.
Re: (Score:2)
Since 'elite' schools have tougher acceptance criteria, it only makes sense their students would perform better.
Well, thats kind of the point, and that alone may justify the presumption that a graduate of an "elite" school will be more talented. In general, if you're smart and prepared to work hard, I'd recommend going to the most selective school that you can get into (and afford, after whatever aid may be available). The level that your peers are at will determine the level at which your classes are taught, how much is expected of you, and ultimately where you set the bar for yourself.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:4, Informative)
And the contacts you make. Networking is as important as anything else. The old axiom of "it's not what you know, it's who you know" certainly comes in for a lot of abuse and cynicism with people making the connection of "jobs for the lads", but it's more than that.
If you went to school with someone whose family connections got them an interview at a prestigious company, you now have a connection. With so many applications to weed through, and high competition for any kind of position in a poor economy, it can be immensely helpful just to have a foot in the door. And that foot in the door often is someone who already works there who (a) will get a bonus if they refer someone who ends up getting hired for a position, and (b) thinks "hey, Steven would be good for this job, and I know he was a hard worker at school so I may as well recommend him".
Re: (Score:2)
It could also be someone who was just plain chummy with the contact or who paid him off with a favor to make him look good.
Negative references work both ways as well. The boss might not be in a position to know if Eve's torpedo on Alice's being hired was because Eve genuinely thinks Alice sucked at her last job or because Eve is pissed that Bob slept with her instead of Eve.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Funny)
IMO the main point of going to a big-name school is it buys you a good rep, rightfully or not. You get one good glance at your CV if it has a name on it. Also, people simply think that I'm smarter than I really am, because they see where I studied. Working hard at proving them wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
In the end your own talent matters more than where you go.
True, but having a degree from a prestigious university will open doors that talent won't always open.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:4, Informative)
And for "talent" one should generally read "drive/motivation/work". But to continue on this idea of "it's not the school" that can lay claim to success, here are some thoughts.
Graduates of "elite" schools do go on to have more "successful" careers in terms of money and other measurements compared to other less "elite" institutions. However those graduates did not necessarily have that success because of the school - they might have had similar success had they gone elsewhere. The elite schools might be "creating" winners, or they might be "picking" winners.
How could we find out? Well, we could examine the "success" of people who were accepted to an elite school but went elsewhere and see how the compare to those who did attend the elite school. Fortunately, people have done such studies:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-value-of-elite-colleges/ [nytimes.com]
"A decade ago, two economists — Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger — published a research paper arguing that elite colleges did not seem to give most graduates an earnings boost. As you might expect, the paper received a ton of attention. Ms. Dale and Mr. Krueger have just finished a new version of the study — with vastly more and better data, covering people into their 40s and 50s, as well as looking at a set of more recent college graduates — and the new version comes to the same conclusion."
Basically, if you've got the chops to apply to these elite schools, you're very likely to be successful no matter where you go.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
but but but... it's the people you meet.
Computer science != IT jobs (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
However his skill set is mainly in coding on the PeopleSoft API. Comp Sci degree is not required for that job.
Agreed. However, many HR departments use automated scanners to filter resumes and if you don't have CS or and Engineering degree, you won't be interviewed for the position. Some companies have made it difficult or impossible for managers to find their own people without the HR department.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Mod parent up. Further, at least in the area where I live, they filter resumes for MIS majors, and filter out CS and Engineering majors.
Re:Computer science != IT jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
You have no idea what you're talking about. Get a CS degree and work as a programmer for 15 years -- like me -- before you comment.
Ditto. CS degrees teach about algorithms and data structures, file systems design, operating system design, parallel programming, software engineering, compiler, grammar and language design, and many other concepts that make CS graduates excellent coders. Non-CS graduates are permanently handicapped and they don't even know it.
Re:Computer science != IT jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, you really think that someone can't learn those thing alone ??
You can learn anything alone. You can teach yourself quantum physics if you want. But do you think self-education is going to be as good being taught by professors? If you do, I suspect you don't have a college degree at all; you haven't gone through that experience. Having Yoda teach you to be a Jedi is more effective than becoming a Jedi by yourself.
Re: (Score:3)
do you think self-education is going to be as good being taught by professors?
He would be a fool to think such a things, since self-education shows a dedication that a college graduate will rarely ever have. The self educated is more likely to be up on recent technologies. In fields like programming, the education system wastes a large portion of the person time on information that is at best not applicable, and at worst detrimental (If you've ever had to deal with a custom implementation of a sort algorithm in a business software project, then you'll understand what I mean).
Having Yoda teach you to be a Jedi is more effective than becoming a Jedi by yourself.
Yet bo
Re: (Score:2)
Meh, yes and no. Luke never "completed the training", but it was more like he took all the classes and never showed up for the final. He was pretty much lost and very amateur until he got the initial guidance and training from Yoda. Like a lot of the very best and smartest people he was able to take what he learned run with it, to improve on his own once he had the basics; but he never could have faced Vadar at the end of Empire, let alone become the Jedi Knight of Return without the training he received
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sometimes. If you work it out yourself rather than being spoon-fed it can sink in better.
Up yourself much?
Dennis Ritchie didn't learn C in college.
Re: (Score:2)
Dennis Ritchie didn't learn C in college.
No, he created it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But do you think self-education is going to be as good being taught by professors?
Yes, absolutely, if the person is sufficiently motivated. There are two problems with being self taught. The first is in knowing what to learn - this is much easier now that places like MIT put their curriculum and lectures online. The second is being sufficiently motivated to do the required work without someone telling you that you'll fail if you don't. This is no easier now than it was 100 years ago, but if you can find the motivation then you can learn as well by yourself as with a professor - often
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely they can. And the way you learn yourself is by making mistakes. However, there is already plenty of room for people to learn the best way of doing things without having to also learn the best way of doing the fundamentals.
You could also learn for yourself that fire is hot, or you could take someone elses word for it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Computer science != IT jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect that if you're poking around in the innards of an ERP system like the great uncle does then a CS degree would be a handicap. You'd be going "OMG, what is this shit?" so much you'd go mad.
Re: (Score:2)
Wish it was not "Your Child" (Score:4, Insightful)
The world is as it is, but, it is my desire that these tips were directed at (and people expected them to be directed at) the "children" (adults) applying and not the parents.
thoughts (Score:2)
1. Goes to a upper-tier state school (helps if there's one in your home state, but not necessarily a deal-killer),
2. Does a paid internship (or two) before graduating,
3. Graduates with the albatross of huge debt around his/her neck (and with some work experience).
For an undergraduate Computer Science degree, I'm not convinced it's "worth it" to pay the big bucks.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It helps being a girl... (Score:4, Informative)
From the article:
It also helps to be a girl. At Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, for example, only 14% of the computer science majors are women, so it's easier for female applicants to stand out from the pack. [...]
What kind of advice does that lead to?
"MISC NOTES FROM APPLICANT: He walks like a girl, swims like a girl and talks like a girl! Also he likes being called Ada!"
Not Sure (Score:5, Interesting)
I completed my BS in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University ( consistently ranked #2 or #3 in CS), and I'm currently in the master's program there. How did I get in? I'm not sure. I've never felt like I was smart enough to be at this school, and I think this is a common conception among students here. We all feel like the admissions staff made some kind of mistake. I think it all comes down to showing that you are really passionate about computers, and have taken initiative to do stuff on your own. What did I do in high school? Mostly, I just screwed around, but I did do a lot of programming projects on my own: video games, web apps, robots. That's what we talked about most during my interview. Not my grades, or my SAT scores (though they were pretty good.)
At 17, how are you supposed to know? (Score:4, Interesting)
Looking back to when I was in high school, I had no idea what I wanted out of college or what I really wanted to do with my life. By my last year in high school, I had been an unpaid summer intern at a software company and taken AP Computer Science, but even then, I really wasn't sure. I _thought_ I wanted to study Computer Science, but I had no idea how hard the theory courses would be or if I had any hope of becoming a competent programmer. When I was in high school, I thought that after a semester or two of college CS courses, I might change my major after deciding it wasn't what I had hoped for. In the end, everything turned out well and I did get a CS degree, but that doesn't happen to everyone.
As a highschooler, I also was misinformed about the quality of education I would receive at different schools. The misconception is that only at an ivy league school or other similarly ranked private school will I get a solid education. I applied to several top-level CS schools but ultimately went to an in-state highly ranked public school since it was much cheaper. There are plenty of good public schools that offer strong CS programs -- MIT, Stanford, et. al. are good, but there are many others that also meet a high quality threshold. I came out of undergrad as a strong programmer with a solid understanding of the theory of computation, in part because of my schooling, but also because I was willing to learn. Internships also helped -- these were especially helpful in gaining employment.
Re: (Score:2)
any elite program in any field is geared towards people who have a passion in that field by their teen years. not for someone who doesn't know what they want to do. all the elite CS programs are geared to people who make the jailbreaks and roots for mobile phones. not the people who download them and think they are cool.
It's not what you'll learn, it's who you'll meet! (Score:3)
Look at Mark Zuckerberg, do you think he managed Facebook because of the superior comp-sci education he got at Harvard? No, it was because of the connections he made and the people he collaborated with. It's the same with any of the 'elite' schools, the real value is that you will either get to know some very smart people, or some people with access to a lot of money or ideally both that is the real payoff for going to such schools.
The other comments are correct that talent and a good mentor can give you what you need to build skill, and that the degree itself really just gets you into your first job with experience getting you your next job, but it's the connections these schools provide that help make the difference between getting a good job and building a world-class career or company.
don't go big for undergrad (Score:3)
Unless you're planning on getting one degree (bachelor's) and trucking out of academia for life, don't go to a big name university for undergrad. They're expensive and the material and lessons do not change enough to warrant the cost.
If you *are* planning on getting one degree and trucking out of academia for life...still don't go to a big name U. You probably know exactly what you want to study, so apply to a program that's well known for that degree. There's still no need to hit a top 10 college in that case because undergrad material really isn't ground breaking stuff. (It can be, in the later classes, and in those cases you're walking the line toward further academia.)
One Way (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Heeey, now we're talkin' :D
How to get in? (Score:2)
If admissions are at an all time high... (Score:3)
If admissions are at an all time high, then why is Microsoft and Google still pushing for exceptions for more visas for foreign workers? Corporate officials keep complaining that there aren't enough CS grads and yet, the schools say otherwise.
Re: (Score:2)
"helping your child get accepted come spring" (Score:2)
You mean "come spring 2016 or later." If you're applying to schools now or in the next year or so, picking up anything new isn't going to matter, it might even hurt your chances at the top schools. Not only do schools care about what you do but they also care about how long you stick with it -- they want motivated people who can slog through the tough times, rather than dilettantes who join in a popular season. Freshman year of high school is probably the last chance you have of boosting your extracurricul
Does it matter? (Score:3)
I've managed to carve out a pretty successful IT career graduating from a big state university, in a completely unrelated field (chemistry.) The thing that seemed to help most was the practical experience I got during school (tech support was my student job), and graduating in the late 90s helped. That said, recruiters weren't falling all over themselves to hire me like they might a grad from CMU, UIUC, Stanford, etc. It took work to get my first job, it was a crappy one, but every job thereafter has been won based on skill (and decent interview skills.) I do systems integration work rather than software development, and a good part of my job falls back on critical thinking skills and the ability to creatively solve a problem without infinite money, hardware or compute time. You gain that experience IMO, by doing what I did -- riding out the dotcom boom in a "boring" field where I could learn as much as possible about a wide array of systems and concepts. I wasn't an HTML millionaire, but I managed to get through 2000-2001 with marketable skills that kept me employed.
So, is a big-name school worth it for a CS degree? I think not, and here's why:
- If you believe the IT field is shrinking, and you'll probably have to take a lower wage to do what you want, then you shouldn't blow all your money on an expensive school. Especially if you need loans, you'll be paying for that education for a very long time.
- "Reputation enhancement" that you get from the big name probably isn't the same as what you get in other degrees/fields. If you graduate with an MBA from an Ivy-league school, you are almost guaranteed to make a few high level connections that will get you ahead faster than your peers. Some jobs like investment banking or management consulting are very difficult to get into without big-name school recognition, simply because they're a ticket to instant riches and kind of a closed club. Some "elite" tech companies like Google might place a premium on your educational pedigree, but unless you have your heart set on working there, it's probably not going to matter much.
- Recruitment is easier at big name schools, because large corporations seem to just send people to collect a few new grads based on the fact that they went to that school...at all levels of work. So, the difference might be "hand in your resume and watch the offers pour in" versus "hustle and pound the pavement yourself." If you can handle that for your first job, you don't have to do that for the second if you've managed to gain any marketable skills in the first.
Here's something else to consider -- I didn't do CS, but knew a lot of people who did. Very few people end up working as "computer scientists" doing the low level theoretical stuff. In fact, the secret is that business IT is full of contractors/consultants who make huge amounts of money doing work in some obscure niche. SAP implementations, Oracle DBAs (good ones,) and guru level network guys come to mind here. Think about the places you've worked where they parachuted some consultant in to work on fixing some problem. That guy probably makes $150+ an hour, and works 8 months out of the year.simply because he fills an immediate need for some weird combination of skills. You certainly don't need to be a computer scientist to figure out Oracle's garbage dump of a documentation collection [1], or solve a thorny OS problem. You just need to have a head for problem solving and the ability to travel anywhere at a moment's notice (perfect for a recent grad.)
Also, as noted in many other places, the cost of a college education keeps going up every year. Big name schools can charge more. You have to think of it as an investment, in terms of future payback. Do you pay, let's say, $50K at a state school or $200K at a name brand school? Are you reasonably guaranteed to make back to $150K difference and way more? If not, then don't do it!
[1] Oracle's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. First rule is that you can't properly install or tune an Oracle system without
Re: (Score:3)
Do you pay, let's say, $50K at a state school or $200K at a name brand school? Are you reasonably guaranteed to make back to $150K difference and way more?
It's important to note that the $200k at a brand name school is a volatile number. If your parents don't have a ton of income and chose not to save money in a college fund, that might become $0 at the name brand school while the $50k remains $50k at the state school. Ivy League schools are giving loan-free financial aid to students with family incomes below about $70k, with some variation from school to school. I didn't quite meet those requirements and I ended up with loans, but $30k in tuition plus loa
Re: (Score:2)
that might become $0 at the name brand school while the $50k remains $50k at the state school.
In my experience, that's wrong. My state school moved very aggressively to help me with tuition. My tuition actually became negative...let's see a big name school do that for an average student. (And I was academically average.)
View from the top (Score:4, Insightful)
The advantage of going to a more elite school is that your peers, on average, are going to be smarter and generally more accomplished. This ripples down in many ways, including a faster paced, more in depth curriculum, better resources, better professors, and, perhaps most importantly, connections & relationships for networking that can last a lifetime.
Not saying there aren't smart, capable people at the less elite schools, but generally those who claim it doesn't matter where you go are those who really didn't have a choice.
Re: (Score:2)
Networks and relationships come and go. People die or move away. You forget your course material after 25 years or so, or end up working in a different field.
What really matters is the elite college name gets you interviews. And yes over a lifetime it's worth the $100K or so. I know from personal experience.
This article should be named: (Score:2)
"How to get into big college debt for no good reason"
I suspect almost every state in the country has an in-state college or university with a perfectly good comp sci program that costs 10's or even 100's of $k less than an 'elite' school. The notion that the name on your undergrad degree could possibly be worth as much as a house is ridiculous. Worry about where you go to grad school, what classes you take, what grades you get, not where your undergrad is.
If you get a scholarship that makes going to MIT s
Re: (Score:2)
look at Mr. Elite University's $100k debt and have a good chuckle.
Except schools like Stanford [sfgate.com] and MIT [mit.edu] offer free tuition for families making less than $100k and $75k respectively. My university took 50% off my tuition for all 4 years. It ended up costing less than state school and I graduated with $15k debt for an "elite" degree.
Make sure the school hasn't gone nuts (Score:5, Interesting)
I had the unfortunate experience of going through Stanford for a MSCS just before the "AI Winter". The "expert systems" (remember "expert systems [wikipedia.org]"? ) profs were running the department. It was becoming clear that expert systems weren't going anywhere, and the faculty was in denial about that. They'd set up a 5-year "knowledge engineer" program, with a combination of computer science theory, philosophy, and psychological interviewing technique to write rules for expert systems (Where are those people now?) I had one exam where a question was "Does a rock have intentions"?
It took over a decade for the CS department to recover. After I graduated, the CS department was moved from Arts and Sciences, where it had been mostly autonomous, to Engineering, where it had adult supervision. It wasn't until the DARPA Grand Challenge forced Stanford to bring in machine learning people from CMU that the department really started moving forward again. Now they're making real progress.
(This is not well known, but Tony Tether, the director of DARPA, used the Grand Challenge to kick some ass in academic AI. The schools receiving funding from DARPA were told that if the private sector did better than they did, DARPA was turning off their grant money in AI. That's why the big schools put entire CS departments on the Grand Challenge.)
Skip Computer Science... (Score:2)
easy (Score:3)
Step 2) Don't be white
Step 3) Don't be male
Step 4) Don't have rich parents
Welcome to the program.
Re:easy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Here's a tip (Score:4, Informative)
SATs are a filter. They don't get you in. If you get a 1600 (or whatever the max is these days) you're now on par with 10,000 other kids who also got a 1600.
The valedictorian at my highschool, 5.0 GPA (AP scale), 1600 SAT, smartest guy I know, got rejected from MIT. He ended up going to U Penn, now works at Google. Another girl got into MIT with lower GPA and SAT, but she had like 400 extracurriculars and was involved in everything. Just goes to show it's not all grades that count.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Another girl got into MIT with lower GPA and SAT, but she ...
... was a girl.
fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, everyone I know at Google got perfect or near perfect scores on the SAT, and none of them went to MIT. They all went to other supposedly "elite" schools, had no trouble getting in, and excelled without difficultly.
So what did we learn? Don't apply to MIT if you're not an application-padding suck-up, a lesson not much different than mine. Everything is a filter.
(And her SAT scores were still above the threshold, don't deny it.)
> Just goes to show it's not all grades that count.
I said nothing about g
Re: (Score:2)
if you can't beat the average for one of these schools, you have no business applying to its CS program.
That's not even close to what you said, but it's much more reasonable.
Re:Here's a tip (Score:4, Interesting)
SATs are a filter. They don't get you in. If you get a 1600 (or whatever the max is these days) you're now on par with 10,000 other kids who also got a 1600.
Yes 2400 is the max these days... I've been involved with admissions with my school (one of the top-10 depending on the list) and certainly SAT is used as a coarse filter (once above a certain level, the actual score is mostly irrelevant)... Also note that 2400 doesn't necessarily mean "perfect", every year the test is scaled so it may be that missing 1 question is still 2400. Also with the "free-form" math, and essay, it isn't they same test as in the old days... Also, most selective schools also require the "subject" SAT tests (used to be called SAT II, and if compsci, probably at least math 2 and one of the science tests).
Schools are generally more interested in grades/GPA than SAT scores, but even those are conditional (e.g., what courses you took vs GPA is more important than actual numerical GPA, say IB, Honors, or AP classes vs standard classes or underwater basket weaving).
The valedictorian at my highschool, 5.0 GPA (AP scale), 1600 SAT, smartest guy I know, got rejected from MIT. He ended up going to U Penn, now works at Google. Another girl got into MIT with lower GPA and SAT, but she had like 400 extracurriculars and was involved in everything. Just goes to show it's not all grades that count.
It's a little more subtle than just 400 extracurriculars. Typical "selective" schools tend to look for long-running extracurriculars, not just bulk (which tend to either be "fake" because nobody can spend 100 hours a day on extracurriculars, or if not actually fake, not representative of actual participation). Just pick a few extracurriculars and do them for > 3-4 years (starting in middle school), and show some commitment (lead developer for an open source project, lead chair in a band instrument, president of the chess team, even treasurer of NHS, attending math olympics, physics bowl, programming competition events or whatever).
Getting someone letter of recommendation from someone involved in the extracurricular is a really good idea so that they don't know it was some sort of "trophy" extracurricular (where you are a member to list it on your application, but don't really do anything). The generic guidance counselor "this is a smart kid" recommendation isn't really that impressive to a selective school because almost everyone gets one of those. Of course if your counselor knows you really well or can compare you to some other folks that ended up going to the school you are applying to, perhaps the counselor can write a better recommendation.
Just saying...
FWIW, there appears to be a better correlation to ultimate success on the schools that you apply to (not get in), than the school you acutally end up graduating from. So if you are the type that is ambitious enough to apply to a selective school, and you actually do it (rather than treat this whole admissions thing as a "thought experiment"), you might be enough of a do-er (or at least enough self esteem) that will make your more likely to be successful in the future, regardless of the school you attend (or drop out of).
And as a total aside, you have the best chance of getting into any program as a so-called "legacy" admit. Just make it past the filter levels and go to the same school as a parent, uncle, aunt or sibling. A "legacy" admit can get you into nearly any school you have the "pedigree" for... :^(
Re: (Score:3)
Don't be such an asshole.
College rewards those who have the ambition to do the work, not those who are just good at passing tests.
Yep, though I still think test grades are weighted too much in college courses. I don't care what the discipline is, a one hour test over all the material does NOT approximate "a day in the life" of someone who's mastered that material.
PS I hate tests, standardized crap tests infinitely more than other tests.
Re: (Score:2)
No, college rewards those who learn quickly and pass the tests.
Do you think "working harder" will teach you how to program? I remember the people who worked harder at my supposedly "elite" CS school - they frequently stayed up all night on assignments, struggled to get by. Most failed out in the first year, but it was the ones who barely made it that saddened me. Why were they doing this? How could they possibly love to do something they found so difficult?
You've either got he knack for it or you don't. And
Not from what I have seen (Score:3)
You'll never have the respect of people who have put in the time & work & rigor of earning a degree. Never.
I have a CS degree from a school with a good CS rep.
Yet I have a lot more respect for a clever and talented programmer regardless of path they have taken, than the MANY people I met at college who had no passion at all for CS or programming.
Just because you can make it through college means nothing to anyone who has seen how the system works.
I can use absolutes too. You are simply the exceptio
Re: (Score:3)
How Gods good name is a CS Major suppose to compete with India & China? If you're that smart, why not just get a nice Math Major (they're practically the same thing anyway) and go off and do your own thing w/o the added stress?
By not being a replaceable code monkey? By not getting a CS degree and then, of all things, specialize in replaceable work like entry-level PHP development or Apache HTTP server admin (yeah, I've seen that title/role)?
The problem of off-shoring software work is present, of course. But it is not the boogeyman retards paint it to be. Never has been.