Help DC decide for CS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey guys, I didn't mean Harvard was best for CS. I meant CMU for CS has Harvard-level prestige. That seemed pretty clear to me and still does upon re-reading my previous post but if it wasn't clear enough I apologize.

It was intended to be a comparison for someone who clearly didn't know CMU and I presumed might not know MIT or Caltech's significance either.

People have been saying in CS, prestige doesn't matter. A CS degree from a state university is just as good as a CS degree from Harvard. So, I am confused by all the posters who claim a CMU CS degree is worth the cost because it is like getting a Harvard degree in CS. So, what is the difference between a state university CS degree and a CMU CS degree?

CMU SCS is really, really hard and the kids come in with an average SAT of 1570. Employers know they are selecting from an extremely talented group that is willing to put in the effort to succeed. Also, the peer networking is very solid for the same reason.

Stanford, UCB, and MIT are obviously world-class, and I might choose them based upon other considerations. But, I think the CMU SCS is the best education and cohort for CS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
From this website, one can see the medium CMU CS salary in the last two years is about $118000, largely because they moved to work in HCL areas.

https://www.cmu.edu/career/about-us/salaries-and-destinations/post-grad-dashboard-updated.html

Can someone provide a ball park comparison between CMU CS salary of approximately $118,000 to Wisconsin CS salary?

Wisconsin did not publish their CS undergraduate medium salary, but they did publish the master CS medium salary on their website. It is comparable to CMU master CS salary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey guys, I didn't mean Harvard was best for CS. I meant CMU for CS has Harvard-level prestige. That seemed pretty clear to me and still does upon re-reading my previous post but if it wasn't clear enough I apologize.

It was intended to be a comparison for someone who clearly didn't know CMU and I presumed might not know MIT or Caltech's significance either.

People have been saying in CS, prestige doesn't matter. A CS degree from a state university is just as good as a CS degree from Harvard. So, I am confused by all the posters who claim a CMU CS degree is worth the cost because it is like getting a Harvard degree in CS. So, what is the difference between a state university CS degree and a CMU CS degree?

They are not the same, anyone who thinks they are the same have no clue what CS/engineering involves. I wrote about why programs like CMU and GT are different from state colleges. It has nothing to with employers being enamored with school name, the name comes because of the course rigor, and the rigor means deep knowledge of computing theory and math, that in turn means the students are not only intelligent but they have also put in enormous amount of work, and are highly motivated to perform consistently.

The best way to understand this is knowing differences in graduation requirements. CMU requires several courses that are not taught elsewhere, topics such as discreet math in computing, applied combinatorics, differential equation, compiler theory, functional programming, competitive programming, on and on... this is about twice as hard as state college CS curriculum. Now, why is this important to top tier CS employers, think of what you need to be able to create a search engine algorithm, or social media platform to serve millions, or self driving car of future, vs writing the loan processing software for a a large bank, or federal government agencies processing. The knowledge and theory needed for the first set can only be acquired from programs like MIT, CMU, GT, Caltech, Stanford, so on.. while writing backend processing for a major bank can be acquired from state college.

That said, writing the back end program for major bank or a federal agencies processing systems is still pretty hard job, you need to know a lot, and you still get paid a lot, and you'll have a great career if you are really good at it, even the CTO/CIO one day with a MBA if you aspire so. Many CTO/CIO of today at major institutions went to state colleges, and were intermediate programmers.

Think difference between brain surgeon and internal medicine, both went to med school, both are doctors, both get paid well, but the brain surgeon did far more. CMU CS is brain surgery of computing world. If you want to find a programmer to build algorithm for a hedge fund trading engine, or build autonomous cars software then you need the math & computing theory learned at these institutions. Grated they will also write Bank software very well, and many CMU graduates end up doing just that, right along with state college graduates. I had one at a federal agency backend processing on one of the projects working with people from no name schools, she got paid about the same as others.

In the end, school is not why it matters, but what they teach/learn there, and the name is a by product of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey guys, I didn't mean Harvard was best for CS. I meant CMU for CS has Harvard-level prestige. That seemed pretty clear to me and still does upon re-reading my previous post but if it wasn't clear enough I apologize.

It was intended to be a comparison for someone who clearly didn't know CMU and I presumed might not know MIT or Caltech's significance either.

People have been saying in CS, prestige doesn't matter. A CS degree from a state university is just as good as a CS degree from Harvard. So, I am confused by all the posters who claim a CMU CS degree is worth the cost because it is like getting a Harvard degree in CS. So, what is the difference between a state university CS degree and a CMU CS degree?

They are not the same, anyone who thinks they are the same have no clue what CS/engineering involves. I wrote about why programs like CMU and GT are different from state colleges. It has nothing to with employers being enamored with school name, the name comes because of the course rigor, and the rigor means deep knowledge of computing theory and math, that in turn means the students are not only intelligent but they have also put in enormous amount of work, and are highly motivated to perform consistently.

The best way to understand this is knowing differences in graduation requirements. CMU requires several courses that are not taught elsewhere, topics such as discreet math in computing, applied combinatorics, differential equation, compiler theory, functional programming, competitive programming, on and on... this is about twice as hard as state college CS curriculum. Now, why is this important to top tier CS employers, think of what you need to be able to create a search engine algorithm, or social media platform to serve millions, or self driving car of future, vs writing the loan processing software for a a large bank, or federal government agencies processing. The knowledge and theory needed for the first set can only be acquired from programs like MIT, CMU, GT, Caltech, Stanford, so on.. while writing backend processing for a major bank can be acquired from state college.

That said, writing the back end program for major bank or a federal agencies processing systems is still pretty hard job, you need to know a lot, and you still get paid a lot, and you'll have a great career if you are really good at it, even the CTO/CIO one day with a MBA if you aspire so. Many CTO/CIO of today at major institutions went to state colleges, and were intermediate programmers.

Think difference between brain surgeon and internal medicine, both went to med school, both are doctors, both get paid well, but the brain surgeon did far more. CMU CS is brain surgery of computing world. If you want to find a programmer to build algorithm for a hedge fund trading engine, or build autonomous cars software then you need the math & computing theory learned at these institutions. Grated they will also write Bank software very well, and many CMU graduates end up doing just that, right along with state college graduates. I had one at a federal agency backend processing on one of the projects working with people from no name schools, she got paid about the same as others.

In the end, school is not why it matters, but what they teach/learn there, and the name is a by product of that.

"discreet math in computing, applied combinatorics, differential equation, compiler theory, functional programming, competitive programming, on and on"

Every college with somewhat decent CS program offers these courses. I was teaching some on the list in a state flagship a long time ago. functional programming is even taught at magnet high school these days but is largely useless in real life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

"discreet math in computing, applied combinatorics, differential equation, compiler theory, functional programming, competitive programming, on and on"

Every college with somewhat decent CS program offers these courses. I was teaching some on the list in a state flagship a long time ago. functional programming is even taught at magnet high school these days but is largely useless in real life.

You obviously have no clue what you are talking about. Ignorant statements like "functional programming is taught at magnet schools, but it is useless" tells me you haven't taught anything or if you did then those kids suffered. Anyone can say anything on an anonymous forum, but it still need to stand the test of logic and commonsense to be taken seriously by others. You sound like someone who couldn't get into a good school who hold the grudge against those who did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"discreet math in computing, applied combinatorics, differential equation, compiler theory, functional programming, competitive programming, on and on"

Every college with somewhat decent CS program offers these courses. I was teaching some on the list in a state flagship a long time ago. functional programming is even taught at magnet high school these days but is largely useless in real life.

You obviously have no clue what you are talking about. Ignorant statements like "functional programming is taught at magnet schools, but it is useless" tells me you haven't taught anything or if you did then those kids suffered. Anyone can say anything on an anonymous forum, but it still need to stand the test of logic and commonsense to be taken seriously by others. You sound like someone who couldn't get into a good school who hold the grudge against those who did.

funny, you seem to be high on sth. Which proves you are really clueless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey guys, I didn't mean Harvard was best for CS. I meant CMU for CS has Harvard-level prestige. That seemed pretty clear to me and still does upon re-reading my previous post but if it wasn't clear enough I apologize.

It was intended to be a comparison for someone who clearly didn't know CMU and I presumed might not know MIT or Caltech's significance either.

People have been saying in CS, prestige doesn't matter. A CS degree from a state university is just as good as a CS degree from Harvard. So, I am confused by all the posters who claim a CMU CS degree is worth the cost because it is like getting a Harvard degree in CS. So, what is the difference between a state university CS degree and a CMU CS degree?

They are not the same, anyone who thinks they are the same have no clue what CS/engineering involves. I wrote about why programs like CMU and GT are different from state colleges. It has nothing to with employers being enamored with school name, the name comes because of the course rigor, and the rigor means deep knowledge of computing theory and math, that in turn means the students are not only intelligent but they have also put in enormous amount of work, and are highly motivated to perform consistently.

The best way to understand this is knowing differences in graduation requirements. CMU requires several courses that are not taught elsewhere, topics such as discreet math in computing, applied combinatorics, differential equation, compiler theory, functional programming, competitive programming, on and on... this is about twice as hard as state college CS curriculum. Now, why is this important to top tier CS employers, think of what you need to be able to create a search engine algorithm, or social media platform to serve millions, or self driving car of future, vs writing the loan processing software for a a large bank, or federal government agencies processing. The knowledge and theory needed for the first set can only be acquired from programs like MIT, CMU, GT, Caltech, Stanford, so on.. while writing backend processing for a major bank can be acquired from state college.

That said, writing the back end program for major bank or a federal agencies processing systems is still pretty hard job, you need to know a lot, and you still get paid a lot, and you'll have a great career if you are really good at it, even the CTO/CIO one day with a MBA if you aspire so. Many CTO/CIO of today at major institutions went to state colleges, and were intermediate programmers.

Think difference between brain surgeon and internal medicine, both went to med school, both are doctors, both get paid well, but the brain surgeon did far more. CMU CS is brain surgery of computing world. If you want to find a programmer to build algorithm for a hedge fund trading engine, or build autonomous cars software then you need the math & computing theory learned at these institutions. Grated they will also write Bank software very well, and many CMU graduates end up doing just that, right along with state college graduates. I had one at a federal agency backend processing on one of the projects working with people from no name schools, she got paid about the same as others.

In the end, school is not why it matters, but what they teach/learn there, and the name is a by product of that.

what a load of B*S.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey guys, I didn't mean Harvard was best for CS. I meant CMU for CS has Harvard-level prestige. That seemed pretty clear to me and still does upon re-reading my previous post but if it wasn't clear enough I apologize.

It was intended to be a comparison for someone who clearly didn't know CMU and I presumed might not know MIT or Caltech's significance either.

People have been saying in CS, prestige doesn't matter. A CS degree from a state university is just as good as a CS degree from Harvard. So, I am confused by all the posters who claim a CMU CS degree is worth the cost because it is like getting a Harvard degree in CS. So, what is the difference between a state university CS degree and a CMU CS degree?

They are not the same, anyone who thinks they are the same have no clue what CS/engineering involves. I wrote about why programs like CMU and GT are different from state colleges. It has nothing to with employers being enamored with school name, the name comes because of the course rigor, and the rigor means deep knowledge of computing theory and math, that in turn means the students are not only intelligent but they have also put in enormous amount of work, and are highly motivated to perform consistently.

The best way to understand this is knowing differences in graduation requirements. CMU requires several courses that are not taught elsewhere, topics such as discreet math in computing, applied combinatorics, differential equation, compiler theory, functional programming, competitive programming, on and on... this is about twice as hard as state college CS curriculum. Now, why is this important to top tier CS employers, think of what you need to be able to create a search engine algorithm, or social media platform to serve millions, or self driving car of future, vs writing the loan processing software for a a large bank, or federal government agencies processing. The knowledge and theory needed for the first set can only be acquired from programs like MIT, CMU, GT, Caltech, Stanford, so on.. while writing backend processing for a major bank can be acquired from state college.

That said, writing the back end program for major bank or a federal agencies processing systems is still pretty hard job, you need to know a lot, and you still get paid a lot, and you'll have a great career if you are really good at it, even the CTO/CIO one day with a MBA if you aspire so. Many CTO/CIO of today at major institutions went to state colleges, and were intermediate programmers.

Think difference between brain surgeon and internal medicine, both went to med school, both are doctors, both get paid well, but the brain surgeon did far more. CMU CS is brain surgery of computing world. If you want to find a programmer to build algorithm for a hedge fund trading engine, or build autonomous cars software then you need the math & computing theory learned at these institutions. Grated they will also write Bank software very well, and many CMU graduates end up doing just that, right along with state college graduates. I had one at a federal agency backend processing on one of the projects working with people from no name schools, she got paid about the same as others.

In the end, school is not why it matters, but what they teach/learn there, and the name is a by product of that.

"I wrote about why programs like CMU and GT are different from state colleges." ISn't GT a state college? That's Georgia Tech, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"discreet math in computing, applied combinatorics, differential equation, compiler theory, functional programming, competitive programming, on and on"

Every college with somewhat decent CS program offers these courses. I was teaching some on the list in a state flagship a long time ago. functional programming is even taught at magnet high school these days but is largely useless in real life.

You obviously have no clue what you are talking about. Ignorant statements like "functional programming is taught at magnet schools, but it is useless" tells me you haven't taught anything or if you did then those kids suffered. Anyone can say anything on an anonymous forum, but it still need to stand the test of logic and commonsense to be taken seriously by others. You sound like someone who couldn't get into a good school who hold the grudge against those who did.

Take the lowly UMBC for example, the corresponding courses are

https://www.csee.umbc.edu/cmsc-203-syllabus/

https://www.csee.umbc.edu/~chang/cs441/

https://catalog.umbc.edu/preview_course_nopop.php?catoid=3&coid=6764

https://www.csee.umbc.edu/courses/331/resources/lisp/onLisp/03functionalProgramming.pdf

Not sure what is competitive programming.

[Anonymous]

CMU has overall better students than Wisconsin.

CMU has more CS faculties and higher calibre faculties in general.

CMU CS research is world class and touches many areas in robotics, language, AI, bioinformatics, etc.

The course rigor will be higher. There will be courses you can only find at CMU.

Some employers will only recruit from top schools.

Does it worth $50k more? Only OP can answer that. Even from a finance standpoint, if the student's aim is to get into a few selective employers that pay big $, CMU is probably the place to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"discreet math in computing, applied combinatorics, differential equation, compiler theory, functional programming, competitive programming, on and on"

Every college with somewhat decent CS program offers these courses. I was teaching some on the list in a state flagship a long time ago. functional programming is even taught at magnet high school these days but is largely useless in real life.

You obviously have no clue what you are talking about. Ignorant statements like "functional programming is taught at magnet schools, but it is useless" tells me you haven't taught anything or if you did then those kids suffered. Anyone can say anything on an anonymous forum, but it still need to stand the test of logic and commonsense to be taken seriously by others. You sound like someone who couldn't get into a good school who hold the grudge against those who did.

Take the lowly UMBC for example, the corresponding courses are

https://www.csee.umbc.edu/cmsc-203-syllabus/

https://www.csee.umbc.edu/~chang/cs441/

https://catalog.umbc.edu/preview_course_nopop.php?catoid=3&coid=6764

https://www.csee.umbc.edu/courses/331/resources/lisp/onLisp/03functionalProgramming.pdf

Not sure what is competitive programming.

SMH: This is the problem when people are armed with only Google search and have no actual insights into what those topics means, and how they are taught as part of rigorous CS programs at CMU and elsewhere. For instance, functional programming tidbits linked is not what that looks like today at places like CMU, this is an ancient and outdated materials from how they used it in the 60's, with programs like Lisp, it has undergone changes to build applications like Lambda functions, which is used in serverless computing, think Amazon Alexa and AI apps like that. Natural Language Processing (NLP) used in search engines and social media platforms can benefit from function based approach as well, as opposed to structured or object oriented. But yeah, whatever, those who understand will get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"discreet math in computing, applied combinatorics, differential equation, compiler theory, functional programming, competitive programming, on and on"

Every college with somewhat decent CS program offers these courses. I was teaching some on the list in a state flagship a long time ago. functional programming is even taught at magnet high school these days but is largely useless in real life.

You obviously have no clue what you are talking about. Ignorant statements like "functional programming is taught at magnet schools, but it is useless" tells me you haven't taught anything or if you did then those kids suffered. Anyone can say anything on an anonymous forum, but it still need to stand the test of logic and commonsense to be taken seriously by others. You sound like someone who couldn't get into a good school who hold the grudge against those who did.

Take the lowly UMBC for example, the corresponding courses are

https://www.csee.umbc.edu/cmsc-203-syllabus/

https://www.csee.umbc.edu/~chang/cs441/

https://catalog.umbc.edu/preview_course_nopop.php?catoid=3&coid=6764

https://www.csee.umbc.edu/courses/331/resources/lisp/onLisp/03functionalProgramming.pdf

Not sure what is competitive programming.

SMH: This is the problem when people are armed with only Google search and have no actual insights into what those topics means, and how they are taught as part of rigorous CS programs at CMU and elsewhere. For instance, functional programming tidbits linked is not what that looks like today at places like CMU, this is an ancient and outdated materials from how they used it in the 60's, with programs like Lisp, it has undergone changes to build applications like Lambda functions, which is used in serverless computing, think Amazon Alexa and AI apps like that. Natural Language Processing (NLP) used in search engines and social media platforms can benefit from function based approach as well, as opposed to structured or object oriented. But yeah, whatever, those who understand will get it.

Lambda calculus has been around almost 80 yrs now.

Which ML packages of some importance are written in functional programming languages?

[Anonymous]

Just wondering if OP’s child decided to enroll at CMU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"discreet math in computing, applied combinatorics, differential equation, compiler theory, functional programming, competitive programming, on and on"

Every college with somewhat decent CS program offers these courses. I was teaching some on the list in a state flagship a long time ago. functional programming is even taught at magnet high school these days but is largely useless in real life.

You obviously have no clue what you are talking about. Ignorant statements like "functional programming is taught at magnet schools, but it is useless" tells me you haven't taught anything or if you did then those kids suffered. Anyone can say anything on an anonymous forum, but it still need to stand the test of logic and commonsense to be taken seriously by others. You sound like someone who couldn't get into a good school who hold the grudge against those who did.

Take the lowly UMBC for example, the corresponding courses are

https://www.csee.umbc.edu/cmsc-203-syllabus/

https://www.csee.umbc.edu/~chang/cs441/

https://catalog.umbc.edu/preview_course_nopop.php?catoid=3&coid=6764

https://www.csee.umbc.edu/courses/331/resources/lisp/onLisp/03functionalProgramming.pdf

Not sure what is competitive programming.

SMH: This is the problem when people are armed with only Google search and have no actual insights into what those topics means, and how they are taught as part of rigorous CS programs at CMU and elsewhere. For instance, functional programming tidbits linked is not what that looks like today at places like CMU, this is an ancient and outdated materials from how they used it in the 60's, with programs like Lisp, it has undergone changes to build applications like Lambda functions, which is used in serverless computing, think Amazon Alexa and AI apps like that. Natural Language Processing (NLP) used in search engines and social media platforms can benefit from function based approach as well, as opposed to structured or object oriented. But yeah, whatever, those who understand will get it.

Lambda calculus has been around almost 80 yrs now.

Which ML packages of some importance are written in functional programming languages?

This is why I said you missed the whole point about going to a CS program like CMU. You don't go to CMU, MIT, or Stanford to keep doing what was done 80 years back, but to innovate and create new things. Otherwise we can sit at your old institution and keep programming in Lisp or Pascal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:CMU has overall better students than Wisconsin. if you took the enrollment at CMU and equated it with the same number of students TOP students at Wisconsin, they would rate pretty evenly. If course, Wisconsin has 20,000 more students, so if you are going to compare them, do an apples to apples

CMU has more CS faculties and higher calibre faculties in general. I would dispute this, though CMU faculty are top notch, for sure

CMU CS research is world class and touches many areas in robotics, language, AI, bioinformatics, etc. Yes, very true. Are you familiar with the similar research being done at Wisconsin?

The course rigor will be higher. There will be courses you can only find at CMU. Not necessarily. See point #1 above

Some employers will only recruit from top schools. this is very true

Does it worth $50k more? Only OP can answer that. Even from a finance standpoint, if the student's aim is to get into a few selective employers that pay big $, CMU is probably the place to go.

Look, CMU is tops in this space. No one is disputing that. But don't go disparaging UW students or program when you clearly know nothing about it. Plus, while Forbes Ave is a great college strip, pretty much nothing beats Madison for collegiate experience and quality of life.

Can't go wrong with either, and CMU is a truly outstanding choice.