Ask HN: Liberal Arts or Engineering College for CS?
I was recently accepted off the waitlist to the brand-new CS program at a prestigious liberal arts college on the west coast. Before that, I enrolled at a top 20 or so CS program at a state school near me that's renowned for its engineering programs. In principle the core curriculum seems relatively the same: intro to programming (both use OOP constructs), algorithms and data structures, concurrent programming (LA uses Go, while state school uses Java), programming languages, etc. The liberal arts college has no general education requirements beyond a credit minimum, while the state school has extensive, arguably annoying, general education requirements to be fulfilled by (from what I can tell) courses that would have little value in my education. Moreover, the state school has more CS course offerings, but I worry that I won't get to take many of the higher-level courses that interest me due to the gen ed requirements.
Obviously the state school would win in terms of industry reputation, but the liberal arts college has a considerably better reputation within higher education from what I can tell (many students go on to get PhDs, and those who do go to top-tier institutions; the same cannot be said for the state school) I'm interested in attaining further higher education, but don't want to be screwed if I decide against it.
On the economic front, the LA college is about $10k more per year than the state school (I'm an out-of-state student,) but my generous parents are willing to cover the difference.
Sorry to ramble, this acceptance has really turned my plan for the next four years on its head. WWHND?