Debate over which is better for CS majors - liberal arts college, or engineering school?

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/15/1747257

by ilamont • 18 years ago

13 18 18 years ago

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attack3• 18 years ago

Well, better for their career or better for their dating life?:)

Actually, given the choice between an engineering school and a LA school assuming gender ratio parity, engineering schools win hands down in terms of just how nice and interesting the gals are, theres no contest there. Sadly, I chose the wrong one myself.

attack3• 18 years ago

> assuming gender ratio parity

Oh my, haha. At what schools does this occur?

danielrhodes• 18 years ago

Liberal arts school.

My reasoning is that first, you will be exposed to a broader curriculum, which will ideally make you more creative. Second, when going into college, you usually do not have a good idea of what you want to do (even if you think so now), so best put yourself in a position where you are giving yourself options. Third, it's good to be around people who do not think in the same way as you. Segmenting yourself away with a bunch of people who are more likely to think like you will only lead to groupthink. And fourth, if you plan on meeting girls at college, engineering school will leave you miserably disappointed.

attack3• 18 years ago

Many will argue that going for engineering gives you far more options with what you can do after.

nuggien2• 18 years ago

Whichever school it is, it better be a BS. You don't want to know how lame it is to explain why you got a BA in CS.

justindz• 18 years ago

Wouldn't this depend entirely on who considers your application or interviews you? If so, what you might be suggesting is that, on average, significantly more people that are likely to consider you for CS employment will be concerned by a BA than not. Have any evidence for that, or was this a personal anecdote?

sdurkin2• 18 years ago

Although this may not be the case everywhere, at my school there is zero statistical difference between the ability of BA and BS students in COS to get jobs at top tech firms.

nuggien2• 18 years ago

I didn't say it was a problem regarding people favoring BS over BA. UC Berkeley's CS program results in a BA, but I doubt there are any people out there that question the legitimacy of Berkeley CS. I'm just saying that it's lame when you have to explain to non-technical people why you got a BA in CS, while their silly undergrad Business Administration degree resulted in a BS :)

menloparkbum• 18 years ago

It depends on the school. A good CS program at a liberal arts college is better than a bad CS program at an engineering school. However, I'm unqualified to comment as the CS program at my liberal arts school only had two decent courses, so I switched to math.

devicenull• 18 years ago

I'm in the process of switching from a tech school to a liberal arts school.. My main reason is this: At the tech school, I'm constantly surrounded by computers. Now, after 2 years in, I'm getting pretty tired of that... to the point where I don't want to do any programming anymore.

Burnout is a very real thing for me.. and I'd much rather not be hating my field of study by the end of school.

Prrometheus• 18 years ago

I went to a liberal arts school, and I mildly regret it. It may have been better if it at least had an engineering school that I could have taken a few classes with.

Although this could be a case of greener grass syndrome. I wouldn't have gotten to try Theatre, Music, and Philosophy before settling on Math and discovering Economics if I weren't at a liberal arts school.

My advice to everybody is that there is no One Right Way. Only you can weigh the options in front of you and make the best choice.

For what it's worth, I'm going back to grad school to get an engineering degree. I might not miss out on anything after all.

Emmjaykay• 18 years ago

I transfered from a technical/engineering school (1,500 students) to a more general state university (20,000) where computer science was not an important and the average student's ability was lower.

The real important difference was the curriculum. The state school had a language requirement (14 credit hours) tacked right on; CS is located in the Arts&Science school. It meant I couldn't take more technical electives.

The most important thing about undergrad years is what you can do when you leave, whether it came from a class or hours spent in self-directed study, as I did.

It meant a lot to potential employers when I could say that I have submitted (small) patches to the linux kernel, or wrote my own mini-kernel or compiler. Try writing a thread library or a nifty little VM, or something that is unusual and will stand out.

sdurkin2• 18 years ago

Both, if possible. Plenty of places combine top-notch engineering with top-notch liberal arts schools.

mbleigh• 18 years ago

While I strongly believe that an engineering school is going to give one a much stronger CS foundation, what ultimately was most important in my undergrad and after was doggedly pursuing internship and real-world experience opportunities. Of course, going to a good engineering school will mean these opportunities are more readily available.

If you work hard at it, you could have nearly four years of relevant industry experience by the time you graduate from college, making you a much more attractive candidate to a company compared to contemporaries who have no practical experience.

croby• 18 years ago

I was in the Liberal Arts CS program at my school and, with 20/20 hindsight, am absolutely sure I made the correct decision (for me).

Being in the LA college at my school (we had both Engineering and LA schools on the same campus -- you could take CS from either side) I was exposed to a much broader range of topics that the rigid and intense engineering curriculum wouldn't have allowed me the be exposed to. I took a lot of Human Factors/Design courses in my last 2 years which gave me a new perspective on the CS that I'd been learning.

The takeaway for me was this: being able to see your CS degree in context of a broad range of other seemingly disparate topics ensures that you aren't narrowly defining what the degree can do for you. You can apply the degree creatively to a broad range of problems that aren't necessarily even taught in the CS department (or, for that matter, the Engineering school).

Erf• 18 years ago

I'd argue that the more important measure is who your classmates are, but where their ambitions lie.

I went to a prestigious engineering school with high-quality instruction and top-notch students. However, the professional culture of the school was very much defined by a finance-heavy recruitment culture. Very few graduates of the school go on to do engineering, and thus the peer culture there doesn't contribute to advancing one's career in the sciences.

Debate over which is better for CS majors - liberal arts college, or engineering school?

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