computer science major at liberal arts college

[Anonymous]

I suppose if you think college should be a glorified trade school then a LAC is not the right place for you.

[Anonymous]

I've worked in software development for 25 years although my education was liberal arts and business. I think it's perfectly possible to have a CS department with 5 faculty that teaches fundamental courses well (things like data structures, discrete mathematics, algorithms) and prepares kids to get a good job in the field.

I'd guess that one limitation is going to be that the course offerings are going to be limited to what the faculty focus on and not necessarily include or not do as good a job of teaching all areas of the field. I.e. they might do big data stuff well, but not do a lot of work with control systems/internet of things.

The other big limitation is going to be what other posters have referred to -- the companies that recruit from the school. Although I will say that the overwhelming majority of people who work in CS don't work for one of the 4 companies that everyone on this thread is discussing, and I find this obsession with 4 specific companies kinda silly.

So if the kid has strong interests now, this could be a limitation. If not, and the professors' research interests seem cool to the kid, then the LAC is probably fine.

[Anonymous]

I was one of 5 people in my major at a SLAC. It is like having multiple professors as 1:1 tutors for four years. You learn so much more, and faster, and have access to everything you need with little to no competition for resources. It also makes double majoring or having multiple minors much easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I suppose if you think college should be a glorified trade school then a LAC is not the right place for you.

I'm a CS grad who knows that "if, then" statements in English require a comma. Was correct English among the marketable skills that your LAC was too good to teach?

But seriously, I find the attitude reflected in PP's post really common among people not bright enough to succeed in technical fields. They believe that if they are bad at math and science, then logic somehow dictates that there must be some ineffable thing that they are good at. They can't define it, they can't demonstrate any actual value for it, but they know it when they see it and they are sure that people who are good at math and science don't have it. When confronted with evidence that people who are better at math and science are also better at English, music, sports, business and social science, they fall back on the unknowable something that they are sure they're better at, and they tell the math/science folks that they just don't get it.

OP, one downside of studying CS at a liberal arts school is that your kid will encounter a lot of faculty and students like this, and it will be really tedious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've worked in software development for 25 years although my education was liberal arts and business. I think it's perfectly possible to have a CS department with 5 faculty that teaches fundamental courses well (things like data structures, discrete mathematics, algorithms) and prepares kids to get a good job in the field.

I'd guess that one limitation is going to be that the course offerings are going to be limited to what the faculty focus on and not necessarily include or not do as good a job of teaching all areas of the field. I.e. they might do big data stuff well, but not do a lot of work with control systems/internet of things.

The other big limitation is going to be what other posters have referred to -- the companies that recruit from the school. Although I will say that the overwhelming majority of people who work in CS don't work for one of the 4 companies that everyone on this thread is discussing, and I find this obsession with 4 specific companies kinda silly.

So if the kid has strong interests now, this could be a limitation. If not, and the professors' research interests seem cool to the kid, then the LAC is probably fine.

I agree with this poster and just want to add that if you're worried about a small list of courses in computer science, that's the value of the well-rounded liberal arts education. If your student wants to write code, they will be well-served by logic and philosophy classes, not to mention the problem solving and troubleshooting that you might get from lab sciences. Your student will likely also get extensive opportunities to hone their writing, possibly leading to careers in technical writing or just higher level leadership opportunities in their chosen field. Economics classes might teach them how to navigate multiple stakeholders and competing interests, a necessity if they'll be doing any requirements gathering and project management in their career. A liberal arts approach to computer science is going to give the student foundational knowledge and skills that will set them up for future learning. (Any programming languages or logics that they want to learn, they can find online courses or videos to teach them--the question is whether they have the basic vocabulary, the logical frameworks, and the independent work ethic to continue learning, which will be imperative in a field that will continue to move as quickly as CS over the coming decades.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I suppose if you think college should be a glorified trade school then a LAC is not the right place for you.

I'm a CS grad who knows that "if, then" statements in English require a comma. Was correct English among the marketable skills that your LAC was too good to teach?

But seriously, I find the attitude reflected in PP's post really common among people not bright enough to succeed in technical fields. They believe that if they are bad at math and science, then logic somehow dictates that there must be some ineffable thing that they are good at. They can't define it, they can't demonstrate any actual value for it, but they know it when they see it and they are sure that people who are good at math and science don't have it. When confronted with evidence that people who are better at math and science are also better at English, music, sports, business and social science, they fall back on the unknowable something that they are sure they're better at, and they tell the math/science folks that they just don't get it.

OP, one downside of studying CS at a liberal arts school is that your kid will encounter a lot of faculty and students like this, and it will be really tedious.

So, I am the PP who wrote that. Interestingly, I went to a liberal arts school and majored in sciences and have a PhD in a technical field. Frankly, you have a view of LACs that simply does not correspond with reality. All I said was that if you want a large number of specialized courses in a specific field for your college experience, don't go to a LAC. As anyone with even a modicum of logic should know, this does not imply that students at LACs are unable to succeed in technical fields.

BTW, do you have any evidence for the proposition that people who are better at math and science are also better at sports?

As to the missing comma in the "if then" statement, I blame that entirely on too much FORTRAN programming in my misspent youth.