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 Tulsa Community College, University of Oklahoma Norman Campus, and OSU Oklahoma City.
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 Northeastern State, Southwestern Oklahoma State, USAO, and University of Oklahoma Norman Campus.
- Adult Learners: For lots of adult learners, consider Seminole State, Tulsa Community College, USAO, and Northeastern State.
School Setting
- Out of State: For geographic diversity, take note of University of Tulsa, Oklahoma Wesleyan University, University of Oklahoma Norman Campus, and USAO.
- Dorms: For a residential campus environment, take note of University of Tulsa, USAO, Oklahoma Wesleyan University, and Southwestern Oklahoma State.
Excellence
- SAT: For students with high SAT scores, look at University of Tulsa and University of Oklahoma Norman Campus.
- % Accepted: For selective institutions, look at University of Tulsa.
- Class Size: For small class sizes, look at University of Tulsa, USAO, University of Oklahoma Norman Campus, and Northeastern State.
Student/Alumnus Reviews of Schools for This Career and State
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Tulsa Community College • Tulsa, OK
Studying Mathematics (completion in 2009)
• 9/27/2011
"I had good and bad teachers, but if I engaged the teacher I had a good experience. Most of the time I didn't and the teacher generally just lectured, handed out assignments, and left."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | maybe | It is all about what you put into it. I put a in a lot for personal projects and extra study time so I got a lot out of it. Others did only enough to get by, hated it, and aren't doing what they like right now. If you can engage you can be successful, if you sit back you aren't going to get very far. |
| Program Reputation | 5 | I don't really know how the community perceives the math program, but from my perspective it is adequate. The depth of topics covered in the programming courses is lacking. |
| Program Quality | 5 | Since my school didn't have a computer science major, classes but no major, I majored in Mathematics. My school was fine for it since Math is mostly theory at that level anyway. |
| Instruction | 3 | I think most colleges are not adequate to equip students for development in the real world. I had a great teacher that taught OOP, but he taught it in theory and none of my programming classes had any assignments where we used OOP. So while most students know what it is most don't know how to use it properly. I spent the first couple of months wrestling with that once I graduated. Also I feel colleges need to have an exit class where they give an overview of what is going on in the real world. |
| How Difficult | 6 | In all honesty things were not that difficult. Math has always been a strong subject for me so as long as I paid attention in class and did the homework I was fine. Many of my fellow students complained about the amount of homework, but I felt it was just enough to get me to remember what I was doing. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | Most of the work we did was book learning and a lot of theory. In the programming classes we usually had one or two programming assignments and the rest were readings from the book and answering questions at the end of the chapters. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 8 | One of the plusses of being at a bigger school is the availability of classes. For all the general ed. classes I could get a great schedule that worked with my work schedule and other classes. |
| Academic Facilities | 8 | There are/were a lot of labs and places to study. They had almost any resource you could possibly want if you knew where to look. In my first semester they added a brand new gym with 18 hour access. Students had access to nutritionists, trainers, and a physical therapist would stop in once a week. There were computers all over the place for student use. There are a total of 5 campuses at TCC spread throughout the Tulsa area and tuition gets you access to all of them. |
| Social Life | 8 | The social experience was as good as I allowed it to be. I am fairly introverted so I didn't do a lot of extracurricular things, but the few that I did were well-organized and fun to attend. |
| Placement Services | 3 | Frankly, the job placement is poor unless you want a "job". For me they found plenty of places to work, but none as a developer. I spent a couple of months on my own and found more opportunities than they did. |
| Alumni Network | 5 | Since my school is large there are a lot of alumni, unfortunately few of them are developers. The school has a big nursing and business program so that is what most people do. |
Northeastern State University • Tahlequah, OK
Studying Computer Science (completion in 2006)
• 10/31/2011
"My university isn't well known, but it works hard to prepare the students. Because classroom sizes were smaller than larger universities, you were able to get a lot of hands-on time with professors that really cared about teaching and computer science."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | maybe | The school will definitely prepare you for a career in computer science and at the fraction of the cost of a major university. The downside is that it isn't as well known as, say, the University of Oklahoma, so you'll have to rely on your portfolio to get your foot in the door somewhere. |
| Program Reputation | 6 | Our school is only a regional university, so it's not well known in other states. It was the very first campus in Oklahoma to have a full network, though. |
| Program Quality | 9 | NSU, though only a regional university, has a knowledgeable and dedicated staff in the computer science department. They work very hard to ensure students learn the information from the classes they take and they give a lot of one on one time. |
| Instruction | 9 | Instead of teaching specific languages, NSU teaches students methods for solving problems. The curriculum focused on problem solving in general instead of specific tools that would quickly become outdated anyway. |
| How Difficult | 9 | The workload was very challenging. Students should be prepared to spend twice as many hours studying outside of class as they spend in lecture. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | Most classes required projects. You didn't just read about a subject, you participated in it. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 9 | The school offered a variety of both evening and summer classes for the CS program. There weren't many weekend classes specific for CS, but there were some for basics. There was also a good deal of online offerings. |
| Academic Facilities | 10 | There was a large library and several large computer labs. There were classrooms with computers at every student station for hands-on work. Every declared student had his own advisor and was able to meet with him regularly. The advisors worked very hard to make sure you had everything you needed to succeed. Tutors were available and many projects were group oriented. Professors had regular office hours and they kept them well. |
| Social Life | 9 | I never really attended athletic events, parties, or organized social events, though the school had them. The campus offered a good social experience to all kinds of people, even those that didn't really care about social events. |
| Placement Services | 5 | The school's job placement services consisted of getting you a job at Wal-mart. The professors in the CS department, however, were constantly getting job postings and passing them on to students. |
| Alumni Network | 4 | I've received a few letters about wanting donations, but nothing directly from the school about alumni support. I do get periodic emails from the chair of the CS department telling us the state of the program and asking us about how our careers are going. He sometimes requests we come back and speak about our experiences. |
Oklahoma • University Of Oklahoma, OK
Studying Anthropology/Classics (completion in 2007)
• 10/28/2011
"I'm not using my degree at the moment, but the education was still pretty valuable. I would not be able to work in development without my degree, even if it isn't a CS degree."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | maybe | As I said, I didn't attend as a CS major, however the CS majors I visited did seem to enjoy themselves mostly. The company I work for employs from the local universities and we have a good number of individuals from OU. Most of them come from an MIS background though, so I'd say do that over CS. |
| Program Reputation | 8 | It's a really good school for American Archaeology/Anthropology. It is only average for CS majors, and I don't know of any of my CS/MIS major friends who are now working as Developers. |
| Program Quality | 10 | I loved my degree program, but it doesn't have really anything to do with my career. |
| How Difficult | 8 | Arts and Sciences had a tendency to assign a large amount of coursework which, coupled with learning Latin, provided for a challenge. Additionally, I was working as a Web Developer/Webmaster for the school's student radio station at the time, so that ate up a lot of time as well. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | I was not in a lot of lab-like classes, so education was limited to lecture and book learning. In the CS classes that I had visited, they were very book-oriented with the assignments being done by writing and compiling code. However, the entry-level classes would tend to just have you write out in pseudo-code what the solution was. Not terribly hands on. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 7 | They're pretty good about having lots of options. However, in my departments at least, you'd run into an issue with occasionally needing a specific class that was only offered once every 2 years. That wasn't so fun. |
| Academic Facilities | 8 | Plenty of computer were labs scattered around the campus. Professors were generally around, and I was also involved in a tutoring group for the Latin classes, so those were available as well. As for CS, they have a pretty decent selection of tutors available (I was around these people all the time), but I couldn't say more to that. |
| Social Life | 7 | OU Football. That is all I can say about that... they have many things associated with that. |
| Placement Services | 4 | Well, I was contacted by this job before I had graduated, and then offered an internship doing development. So, I didn't really have much to do in the way of getting job placement assistance. |
| Alumni Network | 5 | I've never really had contact with the alumni people except when they are asking for money. Other than that, the association will give you Library access for free with an Alumni association membership. |
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