Here are some tips for selecting schools, based on an analysis comparing each school to all others across dozens of factors:
Schools Concentrating On Software Engineers For Applications
- Focus: For schools with a focus on this career area, look at University of Southern Indiana.
Fastest Response From Schools
- Request Info: For the fastest information for prospective students, look at the Spotlight schools on this page.
Student Body
- Part-Time: For schools emphasizing part-time studies, consider IU South Bend, Indiana University, University of Indianapolis, and University of Southern Indiana.
- Diverse: For a diverse student body, consider Vincennes University.
- Adult Learners: For lots of adult learners, consider University of Indianapolis.
School Setting
- Out of State: For geographic diversity, take note of Earlham, Valparaiso, DePauw, and Rose-Hullman.
- Dorms: For a residential campus environment, take note of Hanover, Earlham, Manchester, and Trine University.
Excellence
- SAT: For students with high SAT scores, look at Rose-Hullman, Earlham, DePauw, and Valparaiso.
- Class Size: For small class sizes, look at Hanover, Earlham, DePauw, and Rose-Hullman.
Student/Alumnus Reviews of Schools for This Career and State
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Rose-Hulman Institute Of Technology • Terre Haute, IN
Studying Computer Engineering (completion in 2004)
• 12/11/2011
"The courses were definitely difficult. The camaraderie with other engineering students was priceless. I formed great relationships, landed a great job and even had fun."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | I regularly encourage students who are confident they want a career in engineering to look at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. I inform them that it will be difficult but well worth the effort. I also let the prospective students know that I continually hear coworkers complementing the quality of the education delivered by Rose-Hulman as evidenced in every student that we hire out of this fine institution. |
| Program Reputation | 10 | Rose-Hulman has ranked at the top of the Engineering/Math/Science colleges who don't offer PhD's for 13 years in a row. This consistently high ranking is objective evidence of the school's great reputation in the field. |
| Program Quality | 10 | Rose-Hulman focuses on being a teaching institution. The quality of instruction is very good. They offer many programs for gaining experience beyond the classroom which as a professional I find invaluable in candidates. |
| Instruction | 9 | Again, being a teaching-focused institution is Rose-Hulman's strong point. A vast majority of the faculty are native English speakers which allows students to spend more time being engaged in the topic rather than overcoming language barriers. Topical projects reinforce the subject material and provide opportunities for creativity. |
| How Difficult | 9 | A large percentage of the students graduate in four years. To accomplish this, the curriculum is necessarily difficult. In comparison to coworkers who graduated from other institutions, it sounds like Rose-Hulman pushes students harder than many public colleges or universities. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | Computer science and engineering education is largely based around learning principles and theory. These theory-based courses are largely based around book learning. When it comes to many of the junior and senior level courses, there are a large number of hands-on projects. Rose-Hulman further provides hands-on education through its innovation company, Rose-Hulman Ventures, which partners engineers, students and start-up companies. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 3 | Rose-Hulman is primarily a full-time college. Few alternate schedule offerings are provided. There do exist some for the Master's program. |
| Academic Facilities | 9 | Being an engineering school, it is always a challenge to keep equipment up to date. Rose-Hulman succeeds at this by partnering with companies like Agilent and others to perform upgrades to labs on a regular basis. |
| Social Life | 8 | Rose-Hulman bases its reputation firmly on academics. However, students definitely have lots of fun both on and off campus. This includes school sponsored intramural athletics, inter-collegiate sports, Greek life, and a myriad of student organizations. Regardless of what you are interested in, it is likely that you will find a place for you or the support to pursue that interest with other students. |
| Placement Services | 9 | Companies from across the country and especially around the Midwest regularly recruit from Rose-Hulman. In 2011, the number of recruiters at the largest career fair out numbered the number of seniors seeking jobs. This kind of competition further attests to the quality of the students that graduate from Rose-Hulman. |
| Alumni Network | 7 | The school reaches out to alumni on a regular basis. In the areas with a high concentration of alumni, there are regular alumni events. |
Purdue University • West Lafayette, IN
Studying Computer Science (completion in 1976)
• 12/29/2011
"They prepared me well for my career. Having a degree from Purdue got me some respect."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | Purdue is a highly respected school for all types of engineering, including CS. Undergraduates should consider the size (huge) of the school, though, and whether a smaller school would be a better fit personally for them. As a grad student, size was not an problem. |
| Program Reputation | 9 | Purdue, along with U. of Illinois, was a pioneer in the CS curriculum. As far as I know, they still have a strong reputation. I know my company hired a lot of us from Purdue. |
| Program Quality | 8 | It gave me a good foundation in CS theory plus practical software development experience. With this strong foundation, it has been easy to pick up additional needed specifics on the job. |
| Instruction | 7 | Some faculty are a bit too involved in their own research interests. The broad curriculum was valuable. |
| How Difficult | 4 | My BS in math prepared me well for the numerical analysis courses and the logic required for the systems courses. I did not find CS too difficult. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | There's a good balance. They prepared me well to jump into applications programming. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 6 | I believe it is still mostly oriented toward standard scheduling. Not sure though. |
| Academic Facilities | 9 | Purdue has always been on the forefront with computer and graduate student facilities. |
| Social Life | 7 | There's lots of school sports spirit. Graduate student/faculty socializing was strong. Grad student camaraderie was strong. |
| Placement Services | 9 | Lots of companies interviewed on campus when I graduated. I would have to assume the career center is still strong. Companies also recruit students as "liaisons". |
| Alumni Network | 2 | Can't really answer this. I don't participate in the alumni network. |
Rose-Hulman Institute Of Technology • Terre Haute, IN
Studying Software Engineering (completion in 2010)
• 1/9/2012
"At times, I hated my school passionately due to the difficulty of it, but now, being an alum, I'm happy to say I made it through. I feel that my school, and my major, will enable me to always be able to find a job."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | Rose challenges students and makes them work hard, but provides them with a top-notch education; one of the best in the country. Also, as I said, I don't think I'll ever have too much trouble finding work and Rose is a large reason for that. |
| Program Reputation | 10 | Rose is seen as a very good school for computer science and software engineering. Rose also has high expectations of students in both programs. |
| Program Quality | 10 | Rose-Hulman ranks in U.S. News and World Report as the #1 school for undergraduate engineering in schools that are only undergraduate. My school is seen with much praise, particularly around the midwest. |
| Instruction | 9 | I find myself to be more prepared for most jobs than students from most other schools I know. I do feel I could have gotten more in the way of web-app development while at school. |
| How Difficult | 9 | Rose challenges students and certainly does not allow students to get by with mediocre performances. Rose has programs forcing students to work on projects with 'real life' companies, giving us great experience. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | Rose, at least the CSSE program, has a very equal mix of classroom learning vs project learning. Also, as aforementioned, students do projects for actual companies to get good industry experience. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 6 | Rose has four quarters a year rather than the traditional semester program, so the summer is always an option. However, usually the class offerings are quite limited. Also, there are no weekend or evening only classes. |
| Academic Facilities | 8 | Rose works very hard to provide resources to make sure the students excel, such as free tutoring/homework guidance. Some of the resources are quite old and are just now being updated. |
| Social Life | 9 | Rose takes a lot of pride in their school even though the sports teams are only D3 in the NCAA. There are many, many clubs to join on campus. |
| Placement Services | 10 | Rose touts a 98% or so job placement percentage around graduation for each class. The career services people are also available to help alumni once they wish to change jobs. |
| Alumni Network | 6 | I can't really speak on this particular aspect as I have never tried to be a part of the alumni network. I know of others who seem relatively involved, so I believe the network is at least average. |
Indiana University • Bloomington, IN
Studying Communications (completion in 2009)
• 1/13/2012
"I loved the school and program. I wish there was more post-grad support in place."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | no | The program track I took no longer exists. I don't know enough about the other programs to make a strong recommendation. |
| Program Reputation | 7 | The particular track that I pursued has been discontinued and no longer exists. The communications dept in general has a fairly strong rep, I think. |
| Program Quality | 7 | I loved the program because it was interesting. I felt unprepared for the reality of work in my field after graduating. |
| Instruction | 7 | I feel that colleges always are out of touch with the reality of the working world outside academia. I do think that I learned a lot, just not what I needed. |
| How Difficult | 7 | There was a heavy workload but it was fun. I felt like I was doing the program 24/7. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | There were lots of readings, but all real learning was through hands on experiences. Most readings were very redundant. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 5 | The graduate program only offered each course at one time. It either fit your schedule or it didn't, but I'd expect that from a grad program. |
| Academic Facilities | 8 | We had most of what we needed as far as equipment and professors. Getting access was sometime problematic. |
| Social Life | 10 | Grad school was the first time I had friends with similar interests. There was always something to do with people. |
| Placement Services | 1 | I got no help in job placement. No networking from former professors. |
| Alumni Network | 1 | No help finding jobs. No help for anything really, but boy, do they want money. |
Indiana University • Bloomington, IN
Studying Computer Science (completion in 2007)
• 1/12/2012
"I had a good experience at IU, but it could be improved. Primarily, I think the CS department needs to cater more to serious academically-minded graduate students like me, and less to people primarily coming for knowledge to get a programming job. I don't think it prepares people well for software engineering jobs, but the academic side also isn't strong enough, perhaps due to some old tenured professors."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | maybe | In particular subfields of CS, this would be a great school. For general software engineering or really cutting-edge machine education I wouldn't recommend it. |
| Program Reputation | 6 | Some professors are very well-known. However, the official (US News, etc) rating of the department isn't so high. |
| Program Quality | 6 | I feel that the theoretical aspect of the department is too weak. It was assimilated by the informatics school due to funding problems and I think it weakened the quality of the program. |
| Instruction | 6 | There were a few very good professors, but also some very bad tenured professors who shouldn't have been teaching. My work experience was perhaps more helpful than what I learned in school. |
| How Difficult | 3 | I did an undergraduate degree in mathematics. The Computer Science department was much easier, and since I had some career experience already, it was simple to ace classes and get a Master's degree. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | The CS department's theoretical courses were book-oriented, but some classes were more engineering-based. Overall, I felt it was more hands-on than theoretical. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 6 | It seemed like any other school. Some professors were more flexible than others about working from a distance. |
| Academic Facilities | 9 | IU has a very good library system and IT infrastructure. Professors are also quite accessible. |
| Social Life | 6 | The social scene is ok, like any other college town. I wish the city were larger, though, because I found the small size limiting in terms of dating. |
| Placement Services | 10 | The school had a comprehensive program for career fairs. They had tons of workshops on careers, and this part of the university impressed me. |
| Alumni Network | I haven't used the alumni network. I have a few friends I made there who have been useful, but no formal network. |
Rose-Hulman Institute Of Technology • Terre Haute, IN
Studying Software Engineering (completion in 2014)
• 2/19/2012
"While tuition was through the roof, I've been placed at a great job with a strong education behind it. I can't complain too much."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | Rose has provided an excellent home for me. I'm going to miss living here and I feel that I've gotten a world-class education. |
| Program Reputation | 7 | While the school is well known in industry for producing great engineers, the software/computer science department is not nearly as well known. Additionally, since we primarily are hired by companies that already have alumni working there, word has not spread quickly. |
| Program Quality | 8 | Our school's major is unusually programming-heavy, with relatively few classes focused on only the theory of programming/computation. I consider this an advantage, but during my time here, the department has seen some great faculty move to other schools or leave for industry, so that has been a little unsatisfying to see. |
| Instruction | 9 | Almost all of the professors did a great job preparing us for industry with tons of project work, including two mandatory, yearlong projects with industry contacts. Because of this, we're prepared to work on teams and multidisciplinary groups when needed, and we are already set up and prepared to manage and lead projects. |
| How Difficult | 10 | There has yet to be a year go by when I don't have at least one class in my major that all but requires all-nighters to pass. Additionally, there have been no classes that are possible to be phoned in; everything takes hard work. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | Almost every course I took involved at least one project. Very few, if any, courses have been focused on reading out of books or regurgitation of data. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 4 | Online options don't exist and credit is difficult or impossible to transfer in from them. Summer options are sparse, and often classes are only offered once a year or every other year. |
| Academic Facilities | 8 | We have a supercomputer cluster, two well-equipped labs and plenty of project workspace. Additionally, the department professors are almost always out and about and ready to help with difficult tasks or special instructions. |
| Social Life | 8 | While not exactly a party school, there are plenty of activities to take part in. Additionally, clubs are plentiful and hall funds can be used for a variety of activities. |
| Placement Services | 10 | We have almost a 100% placement rate for all students who work with the career services department and actually try to get a job. I don't think it gets much better than that. |
| Alumni Network | 10 | Alumni work with the professors to create junior- and senior-level projects. They also come to career fairs to hire students and regularly give back to the school. I have yet to see anything that alumni could be doing that they don't already do in droves. |
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