Computer Science -Best College-Advice

Q: I am a senior in high school and am researching different colleges to attend. I plan on pursuing a Computer Science degree. I was wondering what colleges are known for their excellent Computer Science program. What colleges have a good reputation with big technological corporations like Intel, Microsoft, etc. I would really appreciate the help. Please respond.

A: > I am a senior in high school and am researching different colleges to > attend. I plan on pursuing a Computer Science degree. I was wondering what > colleges are known for their excellent Computer Science program. What > colleges have a good reputation with big technological corporations like > Intel, Microsoft, etc. The most highly-respected computer science programs in the country are those at MIT, CMU, Cornell, Berkeley, and Stanford; but companies like Intel and Microsoft do not limit their recruiting to those schools alone. Although a degree from one of those schools will generally bring in a higher starting salary than some less regarded schools, more important in respect to simply getting a job is the excellence of the placement office. All of the above schools have excellent placement offices at which large numbers of Fortune 500 companies recruit. > PS Also, any advice for the road to pursuing this degree would be deeply > appreciated. I have a question to rebut with: What do you want to study? Computer science

is a very large field, with subfields ranging from theory of computing to artificial intelligence to software engineering to systems and so on. Since most of this is not touched upon in high school, unless you have done extensive outside work you will not know what you want to do yet. My advice is to move quickly through the introductory courses and then start taking higher-level courses in a wide variety of fields. Not only will your breadth of knowledge and prodigious start make you very attractive to hiring companies, but you will more quickly find the things that you like and disklike about computer science. Feel free to email me if you have any more questions.