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 Systems
- Focus: For schools with a focus on this career area, look at Harvard, Bentley, Wentworth Institute of Technology, and Northeastern.
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 Bay Path, UMass Boston, Wentworth Institute of Technology, and Worcester State.
- Female: For schools particularly welcoming to female students, consider Bay Path, Wellesley College, Simmons College, and Regis College.
- Diverse: For a diverse student body, consider Atlantic Union, Mount Wachusett Community College, Bunker Hill, and MIT.
- Adult Learners: For lots of adult learners, consider Atlantic Union, Fitchburg State, Framingham State, and Greenfield Community College.
School Setting
- Out of State: For geographic diversity, take note of Harvard, Wellesley College, MIT, and BU.
- Dorms: For a residential campus environment, take note of Wellesley College, Lasell, Wheaton College, and Bentley.
Excellence
- SAT: For students with high SAT scores, look at Harvard, MIT, Tufts University, and Wellesley College.
- % Accepted: For selective institutions, look at Harvard, MIT, Tufts University, and BC.
- Class Size: For small class sizes, look at Wellesley College, MIT, Wheaton College, and WPI.
Student/Alumnus Reviews of Schools for This Career and State
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Fitchburg State University • Fitchburg, MA
Studying Computer Information Systems (completion in 2009)
• 8/3/2011
"It provided a good, solid foundation for those who apply themselves, but they will not carry you. Do not expect to understand a lot of the more complex concepts."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | maybe | It really depends on what kind of person they are. If they want to goof off a lot in class, then no. If they are dedicated and will try to expand their knowledge on their own, then definitely. |
| Program Reputation | 6 | It is one of the few accredited CS and CIS programs in the state. Most are not accredited. |
| Program Quality | 7 | They provided a solid foundation in many programming languages, but they did not go very deep into certain areas. So it was a broad, but not focus, education. |
| Instruction | 5 | The instructors were mostly non-native English speakers, so they could be hard to understand at times. They also would tend to go on tangents and not cover all the material they were planning on for the course. |
| How Difficult | 4 | I found it very easy, but I had self taught myself a lot of the concepts at a young age. If you didn't apply yourself or didn't already know the material, you could easily fall behind. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | Probably 50% of the classes were in a lab, and the other were in a classroom. Copying done code written on the board, and then trying it out later at home/in the lab, could be difficult if you wrote something wrong. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 7 | They have many summer, online, and evening classes. They do not have any weekend ones that I am aware of. |
| Academic Facilities | 6 | They have a couple of computer labs in the CS building, but they were older Macs running Bootcamp for programming in windows. They did not have any Linux/Unix machines. |
| Social Life | 7 | There was always something going on, a party, band event, etc, that was school sponsored. The athletics were decent, but not Division 1. |
| Placement Services | 5 | I did not use these services. I cannot accurately provide an answer for this. |
| Alumni Network | 5 | I have no real experience with the network helping in anyway. The professors are still helpful in finding leads, though. |
MIT • Cambridge, MA
Studying Civil Engineering (completion in 2003)
• 9/18/2011
"For the price, I was just moderately satisfied. If I could do it again, I'd go elsewhere. After all, it provided me with a middle-management job that needs supplementation by other part-time work."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | no | I would recommend a cheaper option since most people I went to school with have 150K in debt and have the same jobs people who didn't go to such a school hold. Although, if someone wants to go beyond simple programming and get into complex computer science, MIT is a good option. |
| Program Reputation | 10 | My school had a solid reputation across most engineering/science-related majors. The reputation has afforded me many opportunities. |
| Program Quality | 7 | I'm more than satisfied as my degree isn't precisely related to my actual job function, although programming was required for all engineering majors at my school. |
| Instruction | 10 | The quality of instruction was bar none at my school. I have no complaints about the level of expertise I attained. |
| How Difficult | 10 | It was a difficult course of study requiring 3 years of physics, calculus, etc. It also featured a hefty work load and didn't allow for many electives. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | A laboratory class or programming class designing robotics was necessarily hands on. A calculus class was all book learning. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 1 | There was no flexibility whatsoever. A course, even one that was required for all and highly attended, had one option, one day, one time. No online options, no summers, no evenings, just one time. |
| Academic Facilities | 7 | Infrastructure - libraries, computer networks, laboratories - were above par. Support in the forms of tutoring, graduate assistants, etc. was virtually non-existent. |
| Social Life | 3 | The academic requirements took up most of the time in the day. There were some fraternities and sororities on campus that were quite popular. |
| Placement Services | 3 | Our career assistance support consisted of mock interviews with other students and access to the alumni network online. There is no job placement component available. |
| Alumni Network | 10 | The alumni network provides great job leads. It also is a great source for business partnerships and sales. |
Worcester Polytechnic Institute • Waltham, MA
Studying Database Development (completion in 2006)
• 12/2/2011
"I feel like I learned a lot of strong, real-world programming knowledge. Also, the quickness with which the school helped me land a job helped a lot."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | People could do much worse than attending WPI. There is a pretty decent cost associated with it, but you are going to incur this anyway, so you may as well get a top-flight education. |
| Program Reputation | 9 | WPI is considered one of the better technical schools around. The company I work at now still looks to them to provide very strong entry-level programmers that can ramp up very quickly. |
| Program Quality | 9 | The WPI development programs were very well organized and had extremely knowledgeable instructors. The projects were based on real-world problems and prepared the students for a developer's life. |
| Instruction | 9 | The instructors led very targeted and informative lessons. Many real-world events were presented to the class, and we were graded on inventiveness, in addition to having solved the problem. |
| How Difficult | 7 | The topics presented were very in depth and challenging to grasp. The accelerated nature of the course also meant more work in a shorter timeframe. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | A fair portion of the curriculum was based on real-world problems encountered by the instructors. Courseware was also presented, which usually led up to very hands-on labs. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 7 | There were many different course offerings and schedules that I had for my choosing. They also included accelerated schedules, for those looking to complete their goals quickly. |
| Academic Facilities | 5 | The development machines provided were powerful enough for the tasks given. Most of the issues occurred with underpowered servers getting hit by many students at once. |
| Social Life | 5 | The classes I was in were accelerated, so there was not a lot of time for socializing. The students and teachers in the class were friendly and helpful, though. |
| Placement Services | 10 | Upon completion of the course, the school had set up a job fair, which had local companies looking to hire entry-level and mid-level programmers. I went right from the class to a pretty well-paying job. |
| Alumni Network | 5 | The school was very helpful in finding me a job upon completion, but the follow-up communications have been a little bit lacking. The alumni network is ok, but I believe Facebook has taken over as the primary source for these activities. |
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