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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

People have been saying in CS, prestige doesn't matter.  A [b]CS degree from a state university is just as good as a CS degree from Harvard[/b].  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?  [/quote]

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. [/quote]

"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. [/quote]

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