Computer Science at Western vs. Guelph

[Chist]

So I got accepted to Western and Guelph for Computer Science, but not to Waterloo. Western is only 15 minutes away from where I live. I have talked to representatives from each school, and know that their respective programs differ greatly. At Guelph, Raspberry Pis are used for first year and coding is done in C usually. At Western, Python is used and the Raspberry Pi is not used. I liked the feel of Guelph, and know that Guelph is much closer to better Coop opportunities. At Western, industry internships are done in place of coops. I talked to someone from Western and discovered that I would be able to do an internship at a company in Waterloo if I were to choose to do so, so each school has good opportunities for gaining experience in the work field. I was curious if anyone had any opinions on which school would offer the better program, in terms of quality of education received, experience at the school, etc... I'm having a tough time deciding where to go and my parents are making me decide two weeks before the deadline to accept, so any info that could help me decide would be appreciated!!

[Dan]

Disclaimer: You could say I have a conflict of interest with Western in that they give me money for being a grad student/TAing.

My understanding is that the Raspberry Pi is just a microcomputer that runs Linux. From a 1st year computer science (i.e. learning algorithms, programming, software development, general math, etc.) perspective I don't see how it would be different then using any other Linux box. As such I would not base your decision on that unless they have a good explanation for how it would be used in a way that could not be accomplished with any other computer.

As for programming languages; it's far more important to learn the concepts rather than the syntax of some language. So long as the language is sufficiently expressive to demonstrate the concepts being taught in the class it does not matter what one is used.

Both are going to give you a good quality of education and in both cases what you get out of the co-op/internship is going to largely depend on where you get placed. My recommendation would be to also look at other aspects of the schools that may not necessarily be directly related to academics but could impact your ability to succeed there. For example are you going to be living in residence? If so what university's residence would be most conducive to studying and your general well being? What are the campuses and culture of each university like? What one would you be willing to put up with for 4 years?

Overall you need to pick the university that you think you will succeed at academically and will best prepare you for the real world. If you have not already done so, go visit each campus to try to get a better idea about what student life might be like at each.

Edit: I should also clarify that the "Industry Internship" at Western is paid and the main difference between that and a co-op is that the internship is longer (8-16 months) and is only done once (rather than split in to a few 4 month terms).

[Night]

I agree with Dan's post; you should visit each campus if possible and see where you personally feel more comfortable.

Chist @ Sun May 10, 2015 11:03 pm wrote:

Western is only 15 minutes away from where I live.

If you're commuting then that may make a difference, but otherwise I wouldn't weight that too heavily if you're living in residence unless you think you might want to go home really often and the distance to Guelph would be an issue.

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I was curious if anyone had any opinions on which school would offer the better program

This would really depend what you're looking for. For example, I think Western has a game design minor, whereas at the moment Guelph only has one game programming course but you do have other opportunities to make games for course projects if you choose to do so (after second year, Guelph is fairly language/project agnostic so you have a lot of freedom). There were talks of adding additional Computing majors, including game development, but it sounds like the earliest that could possibly happen would be the 2016/2017 school year if they go through with it.

With that said, Guelph is currently expanding their Computing programs since it is getting more popular (I think it's one of the fastest growing programs here) and you'd probably experience some of those changes in your upper years if you were to start this year. To go back to the game dev example, you could probably switch into that major without much trouble if they added it in your second year, or you could take courses from it as electives.

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in terms of quality of education received

I've had no complaints. For co-op, I've worked with students from Waterloo and we did similar work. I didn't really notice too much of a difference in what I knew versus what they knew in terms of fundamentals (for example, comparing the material covered in one of our courses with one of theirs).

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experience at the school, etc...

I've enjoyed Guelph's program so far (I'm in Software Engineering, but a lot of courses are shared with CS and it's in the same department) and would recommend it. Pretty much everyone I know is happy here, but everyone's different so it depends on what you're looking to get out of your university experience. Guelph as a whole is a great place.

For the most part, the Computer Science department here has knowledgeable and friendly professors. In terms of students, Computing here is fairly tight-knit so most people are willing to help you even if you don't know them (as opposed to a competitive nature that I've heard exists at some schools).

I can't comment on the Pi usage at Guelph as they started using them the year after I came here. I don't think they do anything too Pi-specific with them, but I'm not entirely sure.

Dan @ Mon May 11, 2015 1:06 pm wrote:

Edit: I should also clarify that the "Industry Internship" at Western is paid and the main difference between that and a co-op is that the internship is longer (8-16 months) and is only done once (rather than split in to a few 4 month terms).

As a note, at Guelph, co-op terms 1/2 and 4/5 are back-to-back, so you can do 8 months with a single employer. I would definitely recommend doing this at least once to get a more "real" experience.

[Chist]

Thanks a lot guys! The info you provided was really helpful! I toured Guelph yesterday and really liked it! Everyone was so welcoming and knowledgeable and it felt really good to be there! I think I'm going to end up going there!