Computer science majors

[Anonymous]

What are the benefits to being a computer science major at a small liberal arts school versus being a computer science major at a bigger university where you might be in the engineering school or the school of arts and sciences depending on the university’s options. Does either generally fair better in terms of getting jobs or into graduate programs after college?
Looking for knowledge to help my high school junior in their college search. Most likely wants to major in computer science or maybe computer engineering and minor in business/economics . Thanks for any advice in this arena. Strong academic student with high gpa and high tests scores which they will be able to submit anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Big school = better exposure to industry and research, which can be enriching. I remember on CS professor I had, on the last day of class, would show us the stuff he was working on. That was super-cool and also motivating.

Small school = possibly closer interaction with faculty. If they get a balanced education, for example they can write or present well, even better.

There's a shortage of CS people and that's not going to change, so job prospects good either way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Big school = better exposure to industry and research, which can be enriching. I remember on CS professor I had, on the last day of class, would show us the stuff he was working on. That was super-cool and also motivating.

Small school = possibly closer interaction with faculty. If they get a balanced education, for example they can write or present well, even better.

There's a shortage of CS people and that's not going to change, so job prospects good either way.

Thank you.
That’s generally what we’ve been thinking and considering mostly bigger universities, but want to make sure my student isn’t ruling out small schools for the wrong reasons.
My concern with many of the smaller LACs is that computer engineering won’t be an option, only CS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Big school = better exposure to industry and research, which can be enriching. I remember on CS professor I had, on the last day of class, would show us the stuff he was working on. That was super-cool and also motivating.

Small school = possibly closer interaction with faculty. If they get a balanced education, for example they can write or present well, even better.

There's a shortage of CS people and that's not going to change, so job prospects good either way.

Is there still a shortage of CS folks? Tech companies have laid off tons of thousands in the past few months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Big school = better exposure to industry and research, which can be enriching. I remember on CS professor I had, on the last day of class, would show us the stuff he was working on. That was super-cool and also motivating.

Small school = possibly closer interaction with faculty. If they get a balanced education, for example they can write or present well, even better.

There's a shortage of CS people and that's not going to change, so job prospects good either way.

Is there still a shortage of CS folks? Tech companies have laid off tons of thousands in the past few months.

Are you aware of dotcom bubble and subprime collapse?
Look what has happned after that.
The field is getting wider and deeper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Big school = better exposure to industry and research, which can be enriching. I remember on CS professor I had, on the last day of class, would show us the stuff he was working on. That was super-cool and also motivating.

Small school = possibly closer interaction with faculty. If they get a balanced education, for example they can write or present well, even better.

There's a shortage of CS people and that's not going to change, so job prospects good either way.

Is there still a shortage of CS folks? Tech companies have laid off tons of thousands in the past few months.

What you are hearing about is the big ticket tech jobs at Amazon, Twitter, FB....

There are a ton of tech jobs open in other industries, like in finance, or even smaller IT firms. They just won't pay the big salaries. There are a few articles about how these laid off tech people are being gobbled up. The ones that are going to have a harder time finding something else are those who are in non tech roles.

There's a paywall here, but you can get the gist of it from the headline and first paragraph.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/laid-off-tech-workers-quickly-find-new-jobs-11672097730


-someone in tech

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Big school = better exposure to industry and research, which can be enriching. I remember on CS professor I had, on the last day of class, would show us the stuff he was working on. That was super-cool and also motivating.

Small school = possibly closer interaction with faculty. If they get a balanced education, for example they can write or present well, even better.

There's a shortage of CS people and that's not going to change, so job prospects good either way.

Is there still a shortage of CS folks? Tech companies have laid off tons of thousands in the past few months.

They laid off do-nothing deadweight.

[Anonymous]

At small schools, there will be less choice of CS classes and specialisation areas. Also less CS students to interact with.
Majoring in CS at UT Austin compared with Wesleyan or Middlebury is a completely different experience. I would personally pick UT Austin although it would be a much more difficult path to navigate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Big school = better exposure to industry and research, which can be enriching. I remember on CS professor I had, on the last day of class, would show us the stuff he was working on. That was super-cool and also motivating.

Small school = possibly closer interaction with faculty. If they get a balanced education, for example they can write or present well, even better.

There's a shortage of CS people and that's not going to change, so job prospects good either way.

Is there still a shortage of CS folks? Tech companies have laid off tons of thousands in the past few months.

Just stop. The layoffs were less than 1%.
The tech industry needs people not the other way around and will for years to come.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Big school = better exposure to industry and research, which can be enriching. I remember on CS professor I had, on the last day of class, would show us the stuff he was working on. That was super-cool and also motivating.

Small school = possibly closer interaction with faculty. If they get a balanced education, for example they can write or present well, even better.

There's a shortage of CS people and that's not going to change, so job prospects good either way.

Is there still a shortage of CS folks? Tech companies have laid off tons of thousands in the past few months.

They laid off do-nothing deadweight.

Agree. Also a lot of it wasn’t tech people but stuff like marketing, employer branding etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Big school = better exposure to industry and research, which can be enriching. I remember on CS professor I had, on the last day of class, would show us the stuff he was working on. That was super-cool and also motivating.

Small school = possibly closer interaction with faculty. If they get a balanced education, for example they can write or present well, even better.

There's a shortage of CS people and that's not going to change, so job prospects good either way.

Is there still a shortage of CS folks? Tech companies have laid off tons of thousands in the past few months.

They laid off do-nothing deadweight.

Yep it was overstuffed companies getting rid of low performers and non-tech jobs that probably should not have existed in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Big school = better exposure to industry and research, which can be enriching. I remember on CS professor I had, on the last day of class, would show us the stuff he was working on. That was super-cool and also motivating.

Small school = possibly closer interaction with faculty. If they get a balanced education, for example they can write or present well, even better.

There's a shortage of CS people and that's not going to change, so job prospects good either way.

Is there still a shortage of CS folks? Tech companies have laid off tons of thousands in the past few months.

They laid off do-nothing deadweight.

Yep it was overstuffed companies getting rid of low performers and non-tech jobs that probably should not have existed in the first place.

Most of them are probably the ones who write and communicate well but non-technical.

[Anonymous]

A friend of mine was laid off from Microsoft (not his fault, they scrapped the whole division) and he was able to pivot pretty easily to a smaller tech company.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Big school = better exposure to industry and research, which can be enriching. I remember on CS professor I had, on the last day of class, would show us the stuff he was working on. That was super-cool and also motivating.

Small school = possibly closer interaction with faculty. If they get a balanced education, for example they can write or present well, even better.

There's a shortage of CS people and that's not going to change, so job prospects good either way.

Is there still a shortage of CS folks? Tech companies have laid off tons of thousands in the past few months.

They laid off do-nothing deadweight.

Yep it was overstuffed companies getting rid of low performers and non-tech jobs that probably should not have existed in the first place.

Most of them are probably the ones who write and communicate well but non-technical.

I would not say they communicate and write well. Every company has dud employees that they were looking for an excuse to get rid of and jobs that were created hastily or incorrectly and that’s who was let go. The best communicators, like top sales talent, were protected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Big school = better exposure to industry and research, which can be enriching. I remember on CS professor I had, on the last day of class, would show us the stuff he was working on. That was super-cool and also motivating.

Small school = possibly closer interaction with faculty. If they get a balanced education, for example they can write or present well, even better.

There's a shortage of CS people and that's not going to change, so job prospects good either way.

Is there still a shortage of CS folks? Tech companies have laid off tons of thousands in the past few months.

Tech person here. Yes, there's a shortage, and that's going to remain the trend.

Think of it this way: are computers more or less involved in life than 5 or 10 years ago? That trend isn't changing. That's creating more and more demand for people with IT skills.