UMD vs Vt for CS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Students at CMU or any college where they are taking heavy theoretical computer science courses are the ones who are going to be working on core engineering problems at FAANG and starting/joining other startups. These skills are going to last their lifetime.

Hiring manager here. Above is untrue in our experience and to be very clear we work on challenging core engineering problems in my group.

What DOES matter is which upper level electives the student takes. Students who take the harder classes like Compilers, OS internals/kernel programming, real-time systems, embedded systems, Verilog/vhdl, C programming (not Java or C++ or Python or web programming) are the ones who have long term skills -- WITHOUT regard to the specific school or to the so-called prestige or rank of the school.

CS or ComputerE grads who took hard upper level courses outlined above and got a B or better in those courses (no need for an A) are perpetually in shortage, get paid better as a result of the shortage, and are best prepared for lifetime career success.

Those who focus on easier web or cloud or computer gaming classes will have less interesting work, lower lifetime income, and are plentiful.

Up thread some IT hiring manager said all you need is a certificate in cloud, like AWS, and you can get a job. But, I guess it's a low paying one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Students at CMU or any college where they are taking heavy theoretical computer science courses are the ones who are going to be working on core engineering problems at FAANG and starting/joining other startups. These skills are going to last their lifetime.

Hiring manager here. Above is untrue in our experience and to be very clear we work on challenging core engineering problems in my group.

What DOES matter is which upper level electives the student takes. Students who take the harder classes like Compilers, OS internals/kernel programming, real-time systems, embedded systems, Verilog/vhdl, C programming (not Java or C++ or Python or web programming) are the ones who have long term skills -- WITHOUT regard to the specific school or to the so-called prestige or rank of the school.

CS or ComputerE grads who took hard upper level courses outlined above and got a B or better in those courses (no need for an A) are perpetually in shortage, get paid better as a result of the shortage, and are best prepared for lifetime career success.

Those who focus on easier web or cloud or computer gaming classes will have less interesting work, lower lifetime income, and are plentiful.

Up thread some IT hiring manager said all you need is a certificate in cloud, like AWS, and you can get a job. But, I guess it's a low paying one.

I have an AWS solution architect certification and a CS degree from Virginia Tech, and I am making 275K/yr with 75K in annual bonus three years after graduation. I guess you can say my job is a low paying one. SMH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:VT grad that now lives in MD with dS going to UMD.

I thought VT had less options for computer students. Say if you decide it's too difficult or you're not interested in the major, then there are other options at UMD.

My DS will be going in with a different major. If you're not a computer person, then you may not realize that you don't need to do CS to do computer work. Actually, there's a glut of CS workers.

What does this mean? What does UMD have that VT doesn't with "computer work"

[Anonymous]

I am a tech recruiter for F100 companies, and I am seeing a glut of '24 and '25 CS grads looking for work. A lot of these grads comes from UVA, VATech, UNC, Pitt, Ivies, etc... There was an open position last week, and I received over 1000 resumes. Of that, about 30% passed the initial screen. It is a tough time for CS major.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD is deciding between these 2 schools for computer science

UMD OOS 46K (tuition and room and board)
VT IS we have a prepaid 529 so cost is only R&B (16K)

DD really has no preference for campus and can see herself being happy in either. An advantage for UMD is it's less than 1 hour drive away vs VT being 4 hours away and she would prefer being close to home. As parents, we worry a bit about safety at UMD since it is in PG county (is it a valid worry or are we being paranoid?)

We can afford the higher cost but really wondering if the extra cost is worth it. We know UMD is better ranked than VT in CS, but is the outcome (recruitment, jobs upon graduation,...) so different that it warrants an extra 120K?

Yep stay far far away. Better for all the other applicants someone can take your kid's spot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Students at CMU or any college where they are taking heavy theoretical computer science courses are the ones who are going to be working on core engineering problems at FAANG and starting/joining other startups. These skills are going to last their lifetime.

Hiring manager here. Above is untrue in our experience and to be very clear we work on challenging core engineering problems in my group.

What DOES matter is which upper level electives the student takes. Students who take the harder classes like Compilers, OS internals/kernel programming, real-time systems, embedded systems, Verilog/vhdl, C programming (not Java or C++ or Python or web programming) are the ones who have long term skills -- WITHOUT regard to the specific school or to the so-called prestige or rank of the school.

CS or ComputerE grads who took hard upper level courses outlined above and got a B or better in those courses (no need for an A) are perpetually in shortage, get paid better as a result of the shortage, and are best prepared for lifetime career success.

Those who focus on easier web or cloud or computer gaming classes will have less interesting work, lower lifetime income, and are plentiful.

Up thread some IT hiring manager said all you need is a certificate in cloud, like AWS, and you can get a job. But, I guess it's a low paying one.

I have an AWS solution architect certification and a CS degree from Virginia Tech, and I am making 275K/yr with 75K in annual bonus three years after graduation. I guess you can say my job is a low paying one. SMH.

Sure you are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a tech recruiter for F100 companies, and I am seeing a glut of '24 and '25 CS grads looking for work. A lot of these grads comes from UVA, VATech, UNC, Pitt, Ivies, etc... There was an open position last week, and I received over 1000 resumes. Of that, about 30% passed the initial screen. It is a tough time for CS major.

What's the initial screen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD is deciding between these 2 schools for computer science

UMD OOS 46K (tuition and room and board)
VT IS we have a prepaid 529 so cost is only R&B (16K)

DD really has no preference for campus and can see herself being happy in either. An advantage for UMD is it's less than 1 hour drive away vs VT being 4 hours away and she would prefer being close to home. As parents, we worry a bit about safety at UMD since it is in PG county (is it a valid worry or are we being paranoid?)

We can afford the higher cost but really wondering if the extra cost is worth it. We know UMD is better ranked than VT in CS, but is the outcome (recruitment, jobs upon graduation,...) so different that it warrants an extra 120K?

Both are great regarding academics and job opt. I would choose based on preference for proximity. Blacksburg is really brutal in the fall and winter and feels very, very, very isolated. UMD campus is pretty safe and not an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a tech recruiter for F100 companies, and I am seeing a glut of '24 and '25 CS grads looking for work. A lot of these grads comes from UVA, VATech, UNC, Pitt, Ivies, etc... There was an open position last week, and I received over 1000 resumes. Of that, about 30% passed the initial screen. It is a tough time for CS major.

Is that a permanent shift or cyclical?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a tech recruiter for F100 companies, and I am seeing a glut of '24 and '25 CS grads looking for work. A lot of these grads comes from UVA, VATech, UNC, Pitt, Ivies, etc... There was an open position last week, and I received over 1000 resumes. Of that, about 30% passed the initial screen. It is a tough time for CS major.

Is that a permanent shift or cyclical?

DP. Probably those are recent grads who did not choose to take the harder upper-level CS/ComputerE electives. It TOTALLY matters which upper level CS/ComputerE electives students select.

There is an ongoing long-term shortage of CS folks with B or better (no need for an A) in Compilers, Embedded/Real-time systems, Verilog/VHDL, OS/Linux kernel internals, C/UNIX programming, and such like.

[Anonymous]

MD for CS is excellent but because of the cost diff I would say VT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP again. We have a simple test which has a 75% success rate as a filter. We ask which editor the candidate prefers. Either vi or emacs are passing answers. Eclipse or other IDEs are not.

Another good test is which debugger they prefer. Passing answers are gdb or the debugger in llvm. Any IDE is not.

You can't be serious, LOL.... Any CS students who do not use vi or emacs editor doesn't deserve to continue the interview.... These days Linux OS is everywhere, and vi/emacs is included as default.

Actually anyone who uses vi or emacs would be flagged as old and outdated and would need to learn how to use vscode and the debugger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a tech recruiter for F100 companies, and I am seeing a glut of '24 and '25 CS grads looking for work. A lot of these grads comes from UVA, VATech, UNC, Pitt, Ivies, etc... There was an open position last week, and I received over 1000 resumes. Of that, about 30% passed the initial screen. It is a tough time for CS major.

Sounds like we need more cheap foreign H1-B workers --- not!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no difference in prestige or education between UMD and VTech. If it were an ivy and VTech that would be a difference.

UMD ranked higher than Harvard for CS. It's in the top 20 nationally, so I would say it actually does make a difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP again. We have a simple test which has a 75% success rate as a filter. We ask which editor the candidate prefers. Either vi or emacs are passing answers. Eclipse or other IDEs are not.

Another good test is which debugger they prefer. Passing answers are gdb or the debugger in llvm. Any IDE is not.

You can't be serious, LOL.... Any CS students who do not use vi or emacs editor doesn't deserve to continue the interview.... These days Linux OS is everywhere, and vi/emacs is included as default.

Actually anyone who uses vi or emacs would be flagged as old and outdated and would need to learn how to use vscode and the debugger.

We would hire the person using emacs/vi and not someone who wants vscode or eclipse or some other IDE. If folks want to focus on an IDE, that's fine, but we would not hire.

For openers, we are not using Windows or developing an app for Windows. Our development target is an embedded system and the developers use UNIX/Linux with a cross-compiler. We have to pay above market salaries, because not so many new grads have the skills to work on embedded systems. There is real long-term job security in taking the harder CS/ComputerE electives.