Looks like son is switching schools

[Janeway]

First, this is a huge disappointment. Here is the sequence. Son did not know what he wanted to major in, or he wanted to major in something along the lines of philosophy. We saw very few colleges before he applied. My reasoning had to do with wanting to see what we could afford. But we did visit a few. After scholarships and financial aid came out, we started visiting schools. He fell in love with Hendrix. He fell out of like with UTD. He didn't care for AC. Covid shut down happened so he did not get to visit the remaining colleges (Southwestern and Trinity). Then he got in to University Scholars. He got very excited about that and accepted at Baylor. Backing up a few months in this time line, he started studying computer science with my husband's guidance. He decides he loves it and now wants to do computer science. We concluded he could do University Scholars and make computer science one of his concentrations. 

Then, Baylor relies a lot of FB to get information to parents. This is a really bad thing. They have official pages and they run these live video sessions. And if you ask questions, anyone can answer. Quite frankly, Baylor's housing department has a lot of issues. Apparently, this is something with new staff in the last couple of years and a lot of people have been upset over it. We ended up being told multiple times that my son did not have housing. He was assigned housing and then we got told via facebook he did not really have the housing, it was overbooked. Then emailed housing and they confirmed it was overbooked but he would just be put somewhere else. And they were nasty about it. In the end, they never overbooked and I really wonder what the heck they are doing there (I picture them drinking a ton of whiskey as they have been working from home too long, whatever). This caused a ton of frustration. But moving on beyond that, there is still a lot to love about Baylor. Son is supposed to be in the honors hall, has a great roommate, is in an awesome program, all is great. BUT, upon mentioning on this FB page for Baylor that my son was doing computer science as one of his concentrations, I got messages right away from people about how awful the computer science department is there. A couple people PM'd me details. Then I started combing over reviews for the professors. Professors generally get very good reviews. But for computer science, nope. Most reviews commented on how terrible the computer science is there, it is Baylor's only weak point, many commented they changed their majors because of how bad the computer science department is, etc. My husband, who went to big name school and has a degree in computer science. combed over details about the classes and what was being taught and felt it was weak. We went back and started looking at reviews for computer science departments at other schools and frankly, no other school had the awful reviews Baylor has for this degree.

I admit, I went to son and asked him if perhaps computer science is not that important, afterall, he did change his mind a few times over the years. He reminded me that he was working on computer science when he was home schooling and only got interested in philosophy and Latin when he attended that charter school and he knows this is what he wants to do. 

So, he is going to switch to the liberal arts school. We have not officially notified them (but did contact them to make sure it was still feesible, financial aid, scholarships, housing, etc). But it does look like he will be switching. I have this huge pit in my stomach over it, but son says he is positive this is the right thing to do. He actually has said what I am thinking..he fell in love with Baylor and likes it way more than the liberal arts school, but feels that the liberal arts school has what he needs for the computer science and in 4 yrs, that is what will be important. <deep sigh> Please tell me if you think this is terrible or if this is a wise step. 

[chiguirre]

IMHO, if he's really sure about computer science, he should try to attend UTD. They're highly ranked and this is what they do best. There's also the bonus of being very close if they need to shut down.

[GoodGrief]

I think it is so hard to tell if online reviews are accurate or not. Is the liberal arts school Hendrix? Do you know what the housing situation would be there?

[Lori D.]

Based on your series of threads from the past year, and in light of the pandemic, I still think it would work in this particular student's favor to stay at home, attend the local community college (provided it has decent courses and instructors and transferrable credits) to start off with, and revisit the decisions of "which major / which college" next year, when he has gained a bit more  clarity about what he wants to do. Which will also have allowed colleges to have figured out what they are doing post-pandemic. Just my 2 cents worth. Best of luck, whatever you all decide.

[EKS]

11 minutes ago, Janeway said:

Please tell me if you think this is terrible or if this is a wise step. 

I've been following this saga this whole time, and what I think is that it would be best if your son were to take a gap year to figure out where he wants to go and what he wants to do. 

[Lanny]

I believe that because of some things that happened, after he enrolled in Baylor, that this is probably a good thing to be doing, now, before the semester at Baylor begins. Regarding the LA school and C.S. Majors: UNC is more like an LA school than a STEM school, in many regards. However, they have C.S. and other things that are STEM. C.S. has become incredibly popular and the school is trying to get more instructors and to be able to increase the number of students they can accommodate properly,  who can Major in C.S.  The thing about the uncertainty of the Residence Hall at Baylor and where he would be living for me would be very troubling. Most troubling of the various threads was the apparent lack of Support for his needs at Baylor. I believe he is more likely to get that in a Public school. Community College or a  4 year institution. So, I think because of his need for Support,  he should consider going into a Community College or a Public University.

UT Dallas, UT Arlington, Etc.

Much good luck to him!

[catz]

I agree with many of the comments above.  You have an older thread that speaks directly to CS programs.  That would be worth a reread.   I would just take the time to regroup and consider cc online for the year.  

[daijobu]

I just want to say that your DS has been through some terribly challenging times, and this thing with Baylor has been the icing on the cake.  It sounds like under the circumstances he's taking it pretty well.  

[G5052]

That's tough. Sounds like a school with broader opportunities is in order. 

A million years ago, I actually left Baylor myself because of a poor computer science program back then. They were still using cards and didn't have what was then an ACM-accredited program (now it's IEEE accreditation). Apparently they haven't fixed that situation, but I understand that it takes time and money. Summer before last I interviewed with a university that was looking for an undergraduate computer science advisor who would manage their IEEE accreditation. You have to have professors with the right background and every course has to be deeply analyzed and reported on. I didn't get the job, but it was interesting to hear what was involved. 

Anyway, way back then I ended up at a state school with the ACM accreditation that was in the top ten nationally and never looked back. They had multiple mainframe computers with large computer labs with terminals (no PC's and limited networking then).  I was  very well prepared for graduate school and a research career. 

Edited July 8, 2020 by G5052

[Janeway]

32 minutes ago, G5052 said:

That's tough. Sounds like a school with broader opportunities is in order. 

A million years ago, I actually left Baylor myself because of a poor computer science program back then. They were still using cards and didn't have what was then an ACM-accredited program (now it's IEEE accreditation). Apparently they haven't fixed that situation, but I understand that it takes time and money. Summer before last I interviewed with a university that was looking for an undergraduate computer science advisor who would manage their IEEE accreditation. You have to have professors with the right background and every course has to be deeply analyzed and reported on. I didn't get the job, but it was interesting to hear what was involved. 

Anyway, way back then I ended up at a state school with the ACM accreditation that was in the top ten nationally and never looked back. They had multiple mainframe computers with large computer labs with terminals (no PC's and limited networking then).  I was  very well prepared for graduate school and a research career. 

My husband compared the curriculum at Baylor with other schools better known in the field, like TAMU, UT, Rice, MIT, and Cal Tech, and even Iowa State and U of Iowa. Those places all pretty much were standard with the curriculum. But Baylor is different. The other schools all started with object oriented programming and Java and such. Baylor starts with C++. The professors in computer science at Baylor got horrible reviews. The profs for the other classes son was supposed to have all had excellent ratings. At the small liberal arts school, where he has a full ride (aka it is free, not even student loans), their scope is more similar to the rest of the schools. And you know, I am not from Texas. Small liberal arts schools were not looked down upon. 

[Terabith]

30 minutes ago, Janeway said:

My husband compared the curriculum at Baylor with other schools better known in the field, like TAMU, UT, Rice, MIT, and Cal Tech, and even Iowa State and U of Iowa. Those places all pretty much were standard with the curriculum. But Baylor is different. The other schools all started with object oriented programming and Java and such. Baylor starts with C++. The professors in computer science at Baylor got horrible reviews. The profs for the other classes son was supposed to have all had excellent ratings. At the small liberal arts school, where he has a full ride (aka it is free, not even student loans), their scope is more similar to the rest of the schools. And you know, I am not from Texas. Small liberal arts schools were not looked down upon. 

Okay, if he has a full ride somewhere, it seems kinda dumb to turn that down!  I hope it works out wonderfully.  Sounds like a better fit, all the way around.  

[G5052]

1 hour ago, Janeway said:

My husband compared the curriculum at Baylor with other schools better known in the field, like TAMU, UT, Rice, MIT, and Cal Tech, and even Iowa State and U of Iowa. Those places all pretty much were standard with the curriculum. But Baylor is different. The other schools all started with object oriented programming and Java and such. Baylor starts with C++. The professors in computer science at Baylor got horrible reviews. The profs for the other classes son was supposed to have all had excellent ratings. At the small liberal arts school, where he has a full ride (aka it is free, not even student loans), their scope is more similar to the rest of the schools. And you know, I am not from Texas. Small liberal arts schools were not looked down upon. 

 

Yes, that's the type of comparison you have to do. I work for a community college that feeds into two well-thought-of four year colleges with large computer science programs. Both are IEEE accredited and more. IEEE isn't everything, but it's a good sign. Being a community college, the build-up is a little different, but they get into Java early on. We have Guaranteed Transfer Agreements where the first two years are counted completely done if they get an associate's with the right classes and GPA, so we have to be very careful. I teach web development which can go into a transfer information technology degree, and we just revamped several of those classes in order to better match the four years. It's an ongoing process. 

[Lanny]

12 hours ago, Janeway said:

My husband compared the curriculum at Baylor with other schools better known in the field, like TAMU, UT, Rice, MIT, and Cal Tech, and even Iowa State and U of Iowa. Those places all pretty much were standard with the curriculum. But Baylor is different. The other schools all started with object oriented programming and Java and such. Baylor starts with C++. The professors in computer science at Baylor got horrible reviews. The profs for the other classes son was supposed to have all had excellent ratings. At the small liberal arts school, where he has a full ride (aka it is free, not even student loans), their scope is more similar to the rest of the schools. And you know, I am not from Texas. Small liberal arts schools were not looked down upon. 

 

I agree that it would probably be very smart if he goes to the school where they are offering a "Full Ride". It is very nice to be wanted...  

Regarding which computer programming languages the schools begin with. I don't think that's very important, unless one only hears the mantra "Learn to Code".  There are many things in Software Engineering projects that are far more important than Coding, or the programming language, that are common to all Software projects and that should be done first (Requirements Analysis, Design, Etc.).  I am starting a MOOC course (from Duke University)  in "C" and the first week is primarily about 7 steps in the process.  Coding is approximately Step #5...   https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming-fundamentals     DD took 2 C.S. courses in the Spring 2020 semester. I know in at least one of them the language used was "TypeScript" which I'd never heard of.  Apparently like JavaScript. https://www.typescriptlang.org/

The fact that the C.S. professors at Baylor got horrible reviews would be very troubling...    Again, the programming languages have much more in common than they do differences and Coding isn't the most important thing in the development process.

Again, I believe that if the DS of the OP doesn't go to the school where he has an offer of a "Full Ride" IMO he should go to a CC or a Public University (UT Dallas or UT Arlington?) where they are much more likely to be able to offer services to him that he may need to be successful in his studies and in life.

Much good luck to the DS of the OP!

[vonfirmath]

On 7/8/2020 at 5:34 PM, Janeway said:

My husband compared the curriculum at Baylor with other schools better known in the field, like TAMU, UT, Rice, MIT, and Cal Tech, and even Iowa State and U of Iowa. Those places all pretty much were standard with the curriculum. But Baylor is different. The other schools all started with object oriented programming and Java and such. Baylor starts with C++. The professors in computer science at Baylor got horrible reviews. The profs for the other classes son was supposed to have all had excellent ratings. At the small liberal arts school, where he has a full ride (aka it is free, not even student loans), their scope is more similar to the rest of the schools. And you know, I am not from Texas. Small liberal arts schools were not looked down upon. 

My nephew will be at Le Tourneau in the fall with some sort of computer science related degree plan.