For computer science careers, how important is it what university you study at?

[deathbow2134]

Hello everyone!

I'm now in grade 12 and will soon have to decide what to study, and where to study it. Presently, I'm not totally sure what I will study. I think computer science is my biggest passion, so I think I'll study that. However I am also very interested in computer and electrical engineering. But that aside, assuming that I will do computer science, is the prestige of the university you go to important for finding a job afterwards?

I live in Nova Scotia. Not in Halifax, but not too far away from Halifax. I know the city well, and really like it there, and would prefer to study at Dalhousie, mostly because it's more comfortable to me. Also, I really don't want to be stuck in the giant undergraduate classes that you'd have at the bigger universities. Dalhousie is not a bad university. It's sort of an upper middle university in terms of prestige. Though, I've read many people online saying that if you want to do computer science you should do it at U of T or Waterloo. By studying at Dalhousie, will I actually limit what I can do in the industry? Do only graduates from the top universities get the great jobs at companies like Google? Really I'm just asking how much the reputation of the university really matters.

Also, I am thinking about doing graduate work and then a research career in computer science. If I were to do that I'd definitely get my graduate degrees at Waterloo or someplace like that. Of course, it's quite premature to really think about graduate school yet. I know a lot of people in high school think they'll want to do that and actually don't. But I really love computer science a lot. I have a bookshelf full of computer science text books, like introduction to algorithms, computer architecture, software engineering, robot programming, electric circuits, computer engineering, and artificial intelligence.

Either way, thanks for reading this, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Tony]

deathbow2134 @ Thu Sep 01, 2011 4:09 am wrote:

Do only graduates from the top universities get the great jobs at companies like Google?

Being in a top university is not required, but it would certainly make it much easier. Universities are essentially grouped into tiers, and each tier gets a certain level of HR attention. I think UWaterloo and UofT are the only top tier schools in Canada -- companies like Google/Amazon/Microsoft would fly in on recruiting trips to interview in-person and on-campus with a "we'll hire everyone who passes the skill bar" attitude. For lower tiers they might allow a limited number of phone interviews.

An important point is that it still comes down to your skills and the ability to sell yourself, which you could develop at other Universities. The top tier just offers more opportunities to show yourself off.

[mirhagk]

I had to go over this with my girlfriend lol. I've always wanted to go to U of Waterloo, but she's going to Laurier Brantford, (the focus of the school is on concurrent teaching programs), and she saw that they have a compsci program. She wanted me to go there, and I was like "yeah..... with a school of 2000 students, where 1000 of them are in the concurrent program, I'm sure they have a nice computer science program lol"

[deathbow2134]

Would going to Dalhousie seriously affect my career negatively? What if I did graduate studies at Waterloo?

[Tony]

Hard to tell; depends on what and how you do while there. Career wise, the interviews are mostly technical, algorithms/data-structures, and looking at your previous job experience.

[mirhagk]

I think Tony is right, yes the whereabouts of the degree do matter slightly (especially in getting the first job) but for this field jobs are actually based off of skill and experience, and not just degrees.

If dalhousie has some sort of co-op or you can get a job doing some software design or testing or something during you school years or summer, you will be 100% fine. You should be more wanted than someone who went through waterloo without any co-op.

[deathbow2134]

mirhagk @ Fri Sep 02, 2011 3:03 pm wrote:

I think Tony is right, yes the whereabouts of the degree do matter slightly (especially in getting the first job) but for this field jobs are actually based off of skill and experience, and not just degrees.

If dalhousie has some sort of co-op or you can get a job doing some software design or testing or something during you school years or summer, you will be 100% fine. You should be more wanted than someone who went through waterloo without any co-op.

Yeah! They actually have quite a good co-op program I hear! I will definitely participate in it!