What are some good schools that offer Computer Science Majors/Minors?
You have missed the best university in your whole region for computer science: Montana Tech. MTech has a great B.S. Software Engineering degree that is ABET accredited. Software Engineering programs tend to be much more relevant and updated to modern student needs than traditional computer science programs. There are very few universities that have ABET SE degrees, so you're quite fortunate to have one that you can do for an affordable price at a public state university. MTech is highly ranked as #2 position by US News for public regional colleges in the west. By comparison, Cal Poly SLO is the only university in California with an ABET accredited SE bachelor's degree, and there's only 22 universities in the USA with a similar program. This list includes universities such as Auburn, Drexel, Embry-Riddle, Florida Tech, Penn State, Univ. of Michigan-Dearborn and the Univ. of Texas campuses in Arlington and Dallas. If you get the BSSE degree at MTech with a high GPA, you will be able to get accepted by a reputable grad program later on to earn a master's degree in software engineering. There are a few very good fully-online SE masters degree programs offered by Carnegie Mellon Univ. and Cal State Fullerton. http://cs.mtech.edu/main/ I suggest that you toss the Neumont University brochure in the trash. It's an expensive way to get an inferior degree - from a school that shouldn't even be called a University - and it isn't even regionally accredited and doesn't have ABET accreditation. It's very unusual for a supposed technology school to not have ABET accreditation - since this is the gold standard of good computer science related undergraduate degree programs. Any credit you earn there will not be transferable or recognized for future graduate studies at any real university that's regionally accredited. Oregon Tech would be a good second choice, but only if you get admitted through the WUE program for discounted tuition as an out-of-state tuition. Paying the full out-of-state tuition for any university would be very foolish when you've got at least one good option in your home state. You could save more money by attending community college while living at home and commuting for the first two years, and then transfer to MTech as a junior.
What are the pros and cons of online college classes?
About the only positive thing is convenience. The problem is that online programs offer convenience at the cost of credibility. There have been widespread reports of students cheating in online programs by hiring an impostor to take the courses online. As a result, ANY online program is considered somewhat bogus, even if from a legit school. Obviously it is far easier for a student to cheat in an online program versus a monitored classroom. A college near me recently announced that they would accept NO online course credits for transfer. Employers check credentials and often automatically reject job applicants listing any online degree. If a degree is partially online based, then might be accepted, but is considered less credible than a classroom only degree. It has been said that the "distance learning"student only learns to be distant from any decent learning! Obviously no online program can be as good as the learning experience and personal interaction of the classroom. Don't waste your time and money on an online course that will not be well accepted as credible.
Pros/Cons- Small vs. Big Colleges?
Small schools: Pros: -Smaller class sizes. -More accessable professors. Cons: -Everybody knows everybody's business (i.e. GOSSIP!). -Not a lot of diversity, it'll mostly be students who are just like you. Large schools: Pros: -Some students prefer the anonymity of not having everyone know their name. -More diverse student body (students of all races, religions, etc.). Cons: -Some classes are HUGE and may have 100 students or more. -Your professors will be less accessable.
What are the pros and cons of attending Texas A&M for college?
Many ProsExcellent education, well-known and respected, graduates are sought after by the best businesses. They have Living-Learning-Communities where incoming students can live and attend classes with fellow majors. Clubs for everything under the sun. For those interested in such things: a family atmosphere, lots of meaningful and fun traditions. Once an Aggie, always an Aggie. And we look out for our own.ConsIt’s a very large school, which is not for everybody. While it’s location is somewhat central to the 3 largest Texas cities, most students have hours to commute to get home. The work is hard, it didn’t get it’s great reputation by being a slacker school.
What are the pros and cons of getting a college degree entirely online?
The pros:You’ll have a lot of flexibility with your time, since most students put in little or no work (and don’t complete)It’s cheap, because the completion rate is very low, and you stop paying tuition as soon as you quit (many online schools actually charge pretty high tuition per credit)No professors will nag you, because you’re being taught by adjuncts who have many, many students and don’t know you, so they don’t have time to bug students who don’t do workIf you choose to pay someone to write your papers, your professors won’t know that it’s not your writing; and since cheating is one of the reasons that online degrees aren’t taken very seriously, it could be argued that this is the most effective use of the programYou won’t be convinced to try the marihuana cigarettes, thus leading inevitably to a life of vice, because peer pressureLooks like it’s all positive! OK, a few cons:Just because you quit doesn’t mean you don’t still owe money on student loans, and there are many degreeless students who owe a great deal of money, especially because of the for-profit schoolsYour socioprofessional network won’t expand much, as you will not build many strong relationships with your peersYour professors won’t really know you, so their ability to help will be limitedYour professors won’t really know you, so their ability to write letters of recommendation will be limitedIt seems incredibly unlikely that the opportunity to do research with a professor would occurThere’s nothing wrong with online degrees in theory. However, the problem is that execution is often lacking. I have a lot of respect for Open University in the UK, but in the US, most wholly-online schools are for-profit and predatory. There are exceptions to everything here, but whether this is a trend or these are just anomalies remains to be seen.
UCF vs USF? Can anyone tell me the pros and cons of these schools?
University of Central Florida and University of South Florida! I applied to both, and I'm pretty sure I'll get into both. But I'm debating where I should go. Which is a better school? I love literature and I'd love to be a writer but since that's a one in a million chance, I'm going to go for the next best thing and study psychology and sociology. Maybe take a few fun writing classes on the side. I'll still go for my writing thing but I'm going to be smart about things. Which would be a better school? Do you know which is better living wise? Like dorms and things. How about safety wise? Quality wise? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
What are the pros and cons of going to UC Santa Cruz for computer science? How does UCSC weigh against other colleges in terms of CS and employment after college?
This view might be from well outside the usual range, but for my particular specialty (data storage) I'd consider UCSC to be a top-tier school. After all, that's where Sage Weil developed Ceph for his PhD. There are some excellent professors there, and lots of cutting edge work still going on at SSRC and elsewhere. To the extent that I even pay attention to which college someone went to, I'd actually put UCSC slightly ahead of Berkeley and most of the other usual suspects. Also, banana slugs.