Comment by kaiwenwang | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kaiwenwang | Hacker News Reader

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Some other thoughts:

I'm not sure exactly how the future of GT will fare being a public school. A large reason for the lead was how early the school established the College of Computing.

Will private schools end up a better place to study CS due to their smaller class sizes and less variance in the student population? I can't say for sure due to not personally knowing what studying at those private schools is like, but I think large lecture halls are ineffectual as a continued method of higher education.

Another phenomenon is the amount of international students who come to the USA and are so focused on the idea and prestige of working for "Big Tech." Then they get there and find out how expensive the rent is, how expensive college was, and they spent all their time doing leetcode (which actually has some interesting fundamentals if you get really into it, it's not my thing personally though) and now graduate and think: now what?

> being a public school

Fairly strong. There are DoD and DoE requirements that bias in favor of pushing R&D funding into Public Universities.

GATech's early lead in computing was because of it's longstanding relationship with the US Navy's Nuclear and Aerospace Programs (both of which have significant HPC needs).

It's a similar story at UCB, UIUC, UMich, UT Austin, UW, etc.

Aside from MIT, Stanford, and Cornell, the bulk of DoE and DoD funding ends up at public universities.

> private schools end up a better place to study CS due to their smaller class sizes and less variance

I attended an Ivy Level CS program for undergrad. My sibling attended a Tier 1 public school program for CS.

My sibling's CS education was superior, as the public university was able to hire way more faculty at better rates, as most decent public universities have multiple DoD and DoE universities and grantmakers to entice faculty and graduate students.

If it isn't Stanford, Cornell, or MIT, I'd say the CS curriculum is middling at a private.

I myself wish I attended GATech instead of my supposedly "prestigious" undergrad as the research and industrial opportunities at a Tier 1/2 Public CS program like a upper Tier UC, UW, GT, UIUC, etc are hard to beat almost anywhere.

I think the main benefit an elite private school might have is a better support system, but by and large, the student base is largely comparable - if you're Berkeley EECS or UT Austin/UW direct CS you would have had stats comparable to a Stanford or MIT undergrad

^ edit: And CMU. Totally forgot about CMU even though it's S-tier

Didn't know that about the DoD and DoE, good to know. What was your experience and your sister's experience (and at what places) if you don't mind me asking?

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