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OK. So I've ranted about this before. But I really want people familiar with hiring for CS to hear me out. I know I would prefer living experience in CA, but the cost is so substantial... I want to try to figure out if I did undergrad only what the impact would be of...
Attending UCSD and getting a degree in CS. Cost is around 120k. I would probably end up with like 15k loans, parents would graciously take care of rest.
VERSUS
Attending University of Idaho, Oklahoma State, University of Alabama, ASU, on a full ride. No cost of living. No tuition. Some have a small book stipend, some do not. But that's rather irrelevant.
I've been trying to figure out the actual monetary benefit of UCSD in terms of employment. So I'm going to lay out a few scenarios.
Let's say....
A) I get a degree in CS from UCSD, return to California, and attempt to get hired with a BS only...
B) I get a degree from a full ride institution, go somewhere good/great for grad school, attempt to get hired.
C) I get a degree in CS from Northeastern, return to California, and attempt to get hired with BS only (40k savings)
D) I get a degree from a full ride institution and attempt to get hired undergrad...
E) I want to do grad, but only after getting hired with a BA out of UCSD
I've been attempting to assess, in a purely monetary basis, whether there would be return on the UCSD degree over the others. It's hard to tell. I've heard conflicting things about MS in CS. (some say it's hard to get hired because of overqualification...)
What would you guys do? If you have experience in tech (COUGH HAJI COUGH) might be good to tell me your experiences with attempting to get hired from these situations.
There are other quality of living issues as well. Although I am probably an "east coast person" in terms of demeanor, any of the CA schools would certainly be reasonable. But Alabama, etc, would take absolutely huge adjustment, and may not be as great. Furthermore, networking opportunities are admittedly more limited...
Essentially there are huge issues in terms of prestige and difficulty of education, and cost of living, and quality of living, and grad school prospects.
Camera!
A 550D is mine. If it wasn't raining I would have done photography today... I'll mess around with the stock lens for a bit, then try to pick up a 50 prime. I intended to post pics today, but what with pouring rain and all it was tough.
 
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A lot of people are going to tell you that UCSD is the way to go because of the rep it has. It really comes down to two things.
1. Do you plan on going to grad school? (which it sounds like, you do)
2. Do you plan on getting an internship during your schooling.
With number 1, it doesn't matter what school you go to. All the matters is where you go to grad school. Tons of people go to small time colleges then go to a major university to get their masters degree. So save the money.
With number 2, UCSD is most likely the preferred choice. If you want to get summer internships, its really important what school your going to and what impression you make. Internships can also help with getting a job with only a BA.
It doesn't make a difference in getting a job when you have only a BA what school you went to, as long as it was a proper college, not one of those tech schools.
I would say that if you want an internship, UCSD is the way to go. Otherwise, go the cheap route and get a grad degree some where else.
Tons of people change their major within the first year, so there is that to consider.
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Can I ask why you want to go to grad studies? A masters in cs is generally not very useful, unless u want to do research or teaching
also finding a job in CS is incredibly easy, probably the easiest field to find a job in
and of course $120000 is a loot of money
for those 3 reasons id go with Idaho
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if you already program and plan on doing side projects and/or internships beyond what is required from courses, then go to UCSD
however, if you don't then I think there's definite risk of you burning your parent's money
make yourself valuable + get the degree and you'll be compensated accordingly
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
generally agree with hellsan631.
I'll add that it's considerably easier to find employment when you're local, both in terms of the opportunities available and the stress/hassle levels.
also, no matter where you go, develop a habit of contributing to open source / making real, useful things (ie not just your coursework) in order to really make yourself attractive to employers.
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Third what hellsan and Haji said. Where you do your undergrad work isn't all that important except in terms of connections, be they internship or job placements afterward.
CS is probably one of the least useful subjects to have a Masters in. In my particular field (game development) it is probably worse than useless 9 times out of 10, for the overqualification reason. I would plan on either a BS or going all the way to a PhD. That's a decision that is probably better made once you've been in college for a few years, see how it works, how burned out you are, how interested you are in doing research, etc.
And also like haji said, make stuff. Being able to show a piece of something that works that you wrote is huge in this industry. It does not have to be big or fancy, but coding is a demonstrated skill. You should demonstrate it. Even class projects from capstone classes are ok, if you can point to specific pieces of them that you wrote that are cool and relevant to what you're applying for, but doing extra stuff is better.
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If you plan to go to grad school and want to get into a reasonably prestigious one, you'll have a very hard time doing so if you go to lesser name schools like the ones you have scholarships to. However, graduating with 15k debt in loans hardly sets you up for a good situation to start grad school, so I wouldn't recommend that route.
Instead, I would spend your first two years at one of those schools (maybe ASU? go party your ass off) and then look to transfer to a better school if things are going well academically (if not, then you probably didn't belong at UCSD anyway). Hopefully with this plan you can convince your parents to cover your 3rd and 4th years at whatever school you transfer to, allowing you to graduate with no debt from the bigger name school.
On CS masters: a CS masters alone is really only useful if you did your undergrad at a crappy university, since doing a masters at a better school essentially puts you in a more favorable bracket for both the job and phd market. Another reason that doesn't apply to your case: some people that live out of the US get a masters at a US university in order to get a job afterwards in the US.
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I think the majors and minors you will take are much more important than the university you graduate from.
The issue of over-qualification is definitely true depending on your major, a company would rather employ a cheaper BS for coding for example.
I've personally chosen databases and accounting as majors, coding and project management as minors, it provides a lot of opportunities. It really makes a difference in the projects. By understanding the business concepts, I can fully grasp the customers requests, suggest improvements, discuss requirements etc. I do not merely execute tasks I'm ordered, and it makes work a lot more satisfying.
Choose your majors well. You really don't want to get a MS in CS to end up as a system administrator in a small company, or work at the help desk trying to troubleshoot moronic issues.
If you really want to graduate from UCSD, then do your masters degree there once you got your BS from a cheap place.
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Speaking as someone who recently graduated from UCSD in the chem/biochem department Ph. D. program and has a roomate who is in the CS Ph. D. program I can offer some advice
For you undergraduate degree people rarely care where your BS comes from (Do not get a BA in CS it is not a competitive degree). When you apply for a job in industry, your contacts are generally more important.
My roomate said that Idaho, Oklahoma, Alabama, and ASU don't really have notable CS programs while UCSD does (not to mention the supercomputing center). He also said that most people coming into the grad program at UCSD have to take some remedial undergraduate classes at UCSD to catch up (which indicates that UCSD has a stronger program than the average school that is accepted into their grad program).
If you intend to do post graduate studies, I would recommend going to UCSD. It will help you be more competitive in getting into a good graduate school. If you don't then it doesn't matter much. Any school should be able to place you into industry.
It's a hard choice so I'll tell you my story because I had a similar choice about 11 years ago.
I could have gone to a local school (University of Maryland or St. Mary's of Maryland for about 5k total for my degree or a few other schools for much more (around 95-110k)). My father told me that he had set aside 100k for my education and I could use it in any way I wanted (meaning I could pocket the 90k at the end of school if I went local). I ended up choosing University of Richmond because it had good programs in all the fields I was looking for (Biochem, CS, and Music). At the time I wanted to be a Marine Biology/Music major, but I ended up as Biochem major with like 5 minors (bio and chem were separate minors because I only needed a few extra classes for each, minored in CS and also in Russian and Music).
I was really glad I made the choice to go to Richmond because I had opportunities there that I would have never had at the other schools. Even though I rarely use my CS skills (and haven't used my russian or music in years) I find every now and then that those skills come in handy. I did really well and had my pick of graduate programs to choose from (could have gone to Yale, Duke, UNC, or UCSD for graduate studies). I picked UCSD for a number of reasons, the most important being that they seemed to have a collaborative culture and were working on newer projects that had more relevance to me.
Unfortunately the experience was disappointing. I already knew half the information in most of the grad classes and I found graduate work to be extremely unrewarding in terms of learning new skills (my boss was very inflexible and imposed his agenda over everything else even if that meant delaying graduation). Suffice to say I was not happy with my graduate studies compared to undergraduate even though I was dead set on getting a Ph. D. coming well prepared out of undergrad.
So what do I recommend after that long blowhard story? You should choose to go to the school that will give you the most options down the road. The more options you have to choose from, the less chance you will become stuck doing something you don't like. It sounds like UCSD is your best option here for CS. If you have any interest at all in doing graduate work then it sounds like it is clearly the best choice.
I just realized I didn't even address the scenarios you are worried about. Here is my input
A) I get a degree in CS from UCSD, return to California, and attempt to get hired with a BA only...
A BA in CS is worthless, you must get a BS. With a BS you should expect a starting salary of 60-75k coming out of UCSD.
B) I get a degree from a full ride institution, go somewhere good/great for grad school, attempt to get hired.
This is possible, but the programs at these schools are unlikely to prepare you fully for a good/great grad school. You should consider doing internships/summer programs in the CS field outside of your degree to help boost your chances of getting into a good grad school. An MS is not worth much more than a BS, starting salary in the 70-90k range. A Ph. D. on the other hand is 110k+. That being said, many people with a Ph. D. spend a lot of time wandering from school to school doing postdoc work (some 10 years plus) which generally pays awfully (like 40-60k). If you get hired as a Ph. D. for a private company or as a tenure track professor, you are virtually set for life.
C) I get a degree in CS from Northeastern, return to California, and attempt to get hired with BA only (40k savings)
Didn't see anything in the OP about Northeastern, don't know much about the school but it has a good reputation. Again, must get a BS if you go there.
D) I get a degree from a full ride institution and attempt to get hired undergrad...
This option would be equivalent to getting the degree from UCSD, so if you know you are going to stop at BS, I wouldn't bother paying through the nose for your education.
E) I want to do grad, but only after getting hired with a BA out of UCSD
This is a career track that is an option most people don't consider. It is rare to find a company that will let you go to school while working for them to improve your education (unless they really value your employment). If you are talking about going to work for a few years after college, then applying for grad school once you have some money, that is actually pretty common. Things like scoring well on the GRE tests and entrance exams become a bit more difficult when you have been away from school for a while, but it's not as bad as it sounds. Industry experience can help in your graduate applications, but I wouldn't say it would give you an advantage over applying right out of undergrad unless you did no internships etc.
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My best advice is avoid the debt and financial burden to your parents. A lot of people stress going to a "good school", but that's mostly for "good connections" imo. The education, especially regarding tech, is pretty much the same wherever, the teaching and grading may be different but the core info should be more or less the same. It's true though that prestigious schools will often lead you down a road where you actually meet important people, who have great jobs to offer to people they know.
Getting a job afterwards is gonna have a lot to do with your resume and portfolio more than which school in particular you have chosen. Having real functional code is really important - it's so important that you can get hired with a portfolio and no education if you can clearly demonstrate your coding prowess. So the real reason you're going to school is to be able to have a pimpin' code stock to show to potential employers.
A better question would be; what will your parents help you with, if you save them 90k by picking a school with full coverage? Would that make your learning experience easier/better? Will you not receive something equivalent from them - and if not, do you feel like you're a "networking guy" who can take advantage of the social connections in a way that is worth the financial burden to yourself and family?
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On March 28 2012 17:02 Excomm wrote:
(Do not get a BA in CS it is not a competitive degree).
I've never even heard of such a thing. You can seriously get a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science? I have a BS in CS and probably couldn't stop myself from laughing if someone told me they had a BA in it.
Also, grad school should be far from your mind at this point. The number of people who change their minds about grad school while in undergrad is huge. Just do your best in your first few years and consider whether you want to get out or go back for more when you're in your 3rd/4th year.
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EDIT:
You also have to be at least a little careful about free rides. If you do go for a free ride at a crappy place - you still need reference letters from their crappy CS faculties so you can actually get in a good graduate school (say, using the top 10~20 of this list: http://www.shanghairanking.com/SubjectCS2011.html). If the faculty at a free ride is just absolutely HORRIBLE, you might not want to go there. The good thing is that you seem to have a lot of different free rides, so perhaps you can window shop a bit.
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Are your parents going to simply give you that money if you don't attend the more expensive institution? If they're just going to pocket it and not give it to you, it makes very little difference to you what the cost is (15k in loans is pocketchange for a CS major).
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On March 28 2012 18:10 EternaLLegacy wrote:
Are your parents going to simply give you that money if you don't attend the more expensive institution? If they're just going to pocket it and not give it to you, it makes very little difference to you what the cost is (15k in loans is pocketchange for a CS major).
Your parents' money are NOT free money.
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Uh UCSD has by far the best / coolest SC club in the country. Go there. First SC college club ever, founded by yours truly. Be a part of history, make the right choice! 
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It helps to know what you actually want to do when you leave school
for example, if you wanna be a trading local, you might aswell drop out and leave now haha
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From a purely monetary standpoint, I think the extra cost of attending UCSD is justified for the following reasons:
1) A bachelor's from UCSD is plenty sufficient to land you a decent job (provided that your GPA + work experience is good enough)
2) Closer proximity to major tech hubs will also help you land jobs. Nearby companies will recognize UCSD as a reputable school.
3) 15k in loans will not be a big deal when you consider that the average income in this industry is like 60k. If you do decently well in school, you can easily get a starting salary of 70k+.
4) Doing a master's takes extra time and money. Also, it's not exactly easy to get into a grad program from a reputable school.
On March 28 2012 17:39 ShadowDrgn wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2012 17:02 Excomm wrote:
(Do not get a BA in CS it is not a competitive degree). I've never even heard of such a thing. You can seriously get a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science? I have a BS in CS and probably couldn't stop myself from laughing if someone told me they had a BA in it.
At UC Berkeley, there are two CS programs
1) Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). This gives a BS.
2) Letters and Sciences Computer Science (L&S CS). This gives a BA.
It doesn't matter which of the two you get, the important coursework is basically the same. I don't think the companies will actually care which one you get, at least not nearly as much as the school and the GPA.
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I see that there are opinions that are exactly opposite to what I'm about to say, but to me there are only a handful of universities from which a bachelors degree carries anymore weight than one from anywhere else. UCSD isn't among them.
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On March 28 2012 19:38 Slithe wrote:
It doesn't matter which of the two you get, the important coursework is basically the same. I don't think the companies will actually care which one you get, at least not nearly as much as the school and the GPA.
The major difference between BA and BS degrees is taking calculus 2 (or whatever the equivalent course covering mutivariable calculus is). Taking the course early (along with Linear Algebra) will help immensely in advanced classes in many majors junior and senior year.
A BS in general will land higher starting salaries compared to a BA, but in a field like computer science having a BA will likely make you unqualified for a lot of starting positions coming out of college.
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I have dreams where my parents offer to cover 100 thousand dollars of my school costs, then when I wake up my underwear is all sticky.
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EPT
