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Computer Science Open Data

jeffhuang.com

82 pointslazyjeff8 comments

The list under "A Wider Diversity of Bachelors Degrees" presents the universities where current professors in the US and Canada originally did their undergraduate studies. All three Indian universities that made it to the list are IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) - IIT Kanpur, Madras, and Bombay (in that order).

I didn't realize that the contrast between IITs and other universities was so stark that none of the rest of them made it anywhere close. Is it an artifact of this being laggy data - since it's about professors who've since done graduate and PhD programs, and so the undergraduate data being from several years ago - or is it still the case that there's no close competition to IITs? Put another way, in 10 years' time, is there another university that might make it to the list that's not an IIT?

It is a combination of both. IIT Kanpur, although still well renowned, does not have the same 'prestige' as it used to, having lost to IIT Bombay. It is also a matter of numbers: most top universities in India have class sizes of about 100, which makes it even more difficult in an environment where every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to pursue CS. To answer your question about the next ten years, I suppose the only institute that can potentially appear is IIIT-Hyderabad, although even that is highly doubtful. And yes, IITs are far, far ahead of nearly all engineering colleges in India, so far ahead of most institutes that it might be prudent just to take a gap year to prepare for JEE.

I didn't read this, but I like the design of the page!

I started reading then I couldn't help but enjoy the color theme transitions between sections and how simple, somewhat ugly in many design standards, yet, very enjoyable the entire design was. I'm a fan. I think there's a bit of old terminal display nostalgia baked in here.

I've been spending more and more time time in the terminal and that's why I like this page. I agree the colors seem random. I wish there is some utility that converts markdown to both HTML and formatted terminal text.

its amazing to me how stable the list of 'best' CS schools over the years

The sub-genres of CS have radically changed over the years , there often is no overlap between them , i.e. computer security vs computer graphics vs quantum computing , yet the top schools remain the top schools

It's a flywheel. The best scholars want to work for the best universities which makes them the best universities which makes it easier to recruit the best scholars.

I got the opposite impression when reading, at least when I was looking at the tabulation of "best paper." The top institution isn't a university at all. The second best is a school just down the road, not one of the super-top ranked schools elsewhere.

Oh sure, MIT is closer to the top of the list than the bottom, but it does make me wonder if they're boosted more by their reputation than reality.

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