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College Advice

Posted on 12/29/2016 9:02:04 PM PST by Tai_Chung

My daughter is a senior in high school.
She wants to major in Computer Science and minor in French
She has mostly looked at small (<5,000 students) liberal arts schools.

Can anyone recommend some conservative schools?

ACT = 26
3.26 regular GPA
3.64 weighted GPA
She is also interested in playing the cello in the orchestra.


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Computers/Internet; Education
KEYWORDS: college; computer; computerscience; french; vanity
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To: Tai_Chung

I hear Drury’s a good school.


121 posted on 12/30/2016 5:21:43 AM PST by OKSooner (www.greatagain.gov <= Go here to put a note in the suggestion box!)
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To: DaxtonBrown; Tai_Chung
Agree 100%...I have an MS in Electrical Engineering from a large State
University...I swore that I would never be a programmer, but that is a
major part of what I do and I have had to learn many languages and
operating systems over the years.

So I would also suggest engineering/math/physics as her area of study
...the programming she will learn in foundation courses and on the side.
Computer Engineering is a strong choice as you can learn how hardware
and software interact.

I would also push her towards a good State school...they are much cheaper
and have infinitely better engineering and science programs than most
small lib-arts schools, which tend to be private. The Engineering
departments tend to be a-political, so you don't have to worry about
indoctrination...that will come from the outside campus.
122 posted on 12/30/2016 5:46:48 AM PST by major_gaff (University of Parris Island, Class of '84)
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To: Tai_Chung

Don’t go into “Computer Science”.

Most of that work is done by Indians now, at extremely low rates of pay. Especially, H1B Visa holders will do the work at 1/3rd of what your daughter needs to pay the rent on a cheap apartment.

Go for Math, Statistics and Data Science. Those may last awhile (10 years?) before becoming commoditized offshore.


123 posted on 12/30/2016 5:59:37 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (Higher Taxes, Less Freedom, More Bureaucracy! What could possibly go wrong?)
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To: Uncle Miltie

Avoid the University of Missouri. Freshman enrollment is down 2400 students this year, funding is down mi$$ions due to the radical left.


124 posted on 12/30/2016 6:06:49 AM PST by phil1750 (Love like you've never been hurt;Dance like nobody's watching;PRAY like it's your last prayer)
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To: Tai_Chung

Come to Alabama. Roll Tide.


125 posted on 12/30/2016 6:25:06 AM PST by military cop (I carry a .45....cause they don't make a .46....)
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To: Tai_Chung
Grove City College in PA.

Warning: they accept NO federal money.

126 posted on 12/30/2016 6:53:05 AM PST by Pietro
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To: Tai_Chung

Campbell University is close to Raleigh and is pretty conservative.


127 posted on 12/30/2016 7:04:15 AM PST by Ms Scarlett
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To: Gene Eric
You have an impressive resume, but today’s programming opportunities are not constrained by tools of just 10 years ago.

I'm still in the industry and I am currently straddled between the past and the future. Part of my work is designing systems that will accommodate mainframe migration from proprietary systems to linux, thus the past. The other part of my work is scoping out use cases for the FPGA's that Intel is baking into our current generation CPU sockets, which is the near term future.

Today's programming opportunities are certainly not constrained by tools of 10 years ago. However, going Biblical on you, "There is nothing new under the sun". The "tools" and particular applications are fads which come and go. But there are underlying principles which re-occur over and over again.

Thus, my appeal to the book: Designing Data-Intensive Applications. It describes principles which I have seen in myriad systems during the last 40 years. Just going out and learning "Big Data" isn't going to get you the background you need. It will get you a job.

The industry itself has a habit of throwing the baby out with the bath water. When "relational databases" hit the scenes in the 1980's, everyone turned their back on CODASYL, network databases. The appeal was that the programmers didn't need to know the structure of the databases anymore AND the database administrators had some ability to change the structure without reprogramming the applications.

However, relational gave up some important data relationships which really were necessary; e.g. the idea that if one instance of a record type existed, then there must be one or more of a particular second record type. They spent a lot of effort adding data design semantics back into relational that had been in CODASYL on day one. Some of it isn't pretty.

Now, there is an outright recognition that some data should not be kept in relational stores, thus, we see products called nosql and we see non-relational in-memory datastores like Redis (great product).

A person can either be "above the fray" looking down on what is going on and helping direct the traffic. Or a person can be a cog, with their head down taking directions to find out what the next project will be.

The first person is an engineer with a lot more education that computer science.

128 posted on 12/30/2016 8:09:23 AM PST by the_Watchman
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To: major_gaff

Good points. Do engineering/math/physics and pick up the programming on the side like we did.

“I would also push her towards a good State school...they are much cheaper
and have infinitely better engineering and science programs than most
small lib-arts schools, which tend to be private. The Engineering
departments tend to be a-political, so you don’t have to worry about
indoctrination...that will come from the outside campus.”

I have a 12 year old niece I’m helping plan for. she wants to be a lawyer, but Ive told her do a engineering undergrad, ten law school and rule the world.


129 posted on 12/30/2016 8:14:57 AM PST by DaxtonBrown
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To: Tai_Chung

The greatest opportunity for liberal indoctrination is when the child lives on campus to be totally immersed in that culture. Avoid having the child live on campus at all instead of with family - which also cuts the cost of college in half.


130 posted on 12/30/2016 8:19:39 AM PST by tbw2
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To: DaxtonBrown

I believe an engineering and law combination would qualify you as a patent lawyer


131 posted on 12/30/2016 8:23:15 AM PST by Tai_Chung
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To: nd76; Tai_Chung

https://www.mapquest.com/directions/from/us/missouri/st-louis-lambert-international-airport-8060647/to/us/mo/kirksville-282024724

My grand daughter is also an alumnus of Truman State - she had a full scholarship and graduated a couple of years ago.

Truman State is located North West of St. Louis, Missouri and only slightly west of Jefferson City, which I consider Mid Missouri-anything west of Jefferson City I describe as West, although it might be more accurate to say nearly midpoint or something. I definitely wouldn’t describe it as a North Eastern Missouri location. But if that floats your boat row with it.

Link above is to a map showing the location relative to St. Louis, Kansas City and Jefferson City.


132 posted on 12/30/2016 9:49:25 AM PST by greeneyes
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To: Organic Panic

One place to study Chinese is Ole Miss. The out of state tuition is expensive, but they’ve got an excellent Chinese program as well as computer science.


133 posted on 12/30/2016 10:31:17 AM PST by Betty Jane
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To: DaxtonBrown
Yep...undergrad in Engineering will give her the discipline to get thru law
school. Patent lawyers usually were engineering undergrads. Best of luck
to her.
134 posted on 12/30/2016 11:44:01 AM PST by major_gaff (University of Parris Island, Class of '84)
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To: the_Watchman

>> FPGA’s that Intel is baking into our current generation CPU sockets

That’s cool. I suppose you’ll be getting some IP with that?

>> “There is nothing new under the sun”.

Perhaps the same but different...

Over the last 40 years, We’ve seen software tooling evolve with both greater complexity and simplicity broadening the opportunities for a wider range of contributors. Just consider the unique skill sets required to support FPGA development and Cloud computing — two completely distinct engineering areas with dozens of development domains in between. And not to exclude the emerging Model Driven Development which is now used in manufacturing & research, and will eventually extend into general use over the next 10 years.

These are exciting times for software development. But unfortunately, there’s a shortage of young adults in training. It’s a problem, and the Department of Energy is hoping to awaken the education sector.


135 posted on 12/30/2016 5:16:53 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: DaxtonBrown
Computer science/programming is a brutal field. Most girls don’t make it because it requires sitting non-stop for 24 hours amongst cans of Pepsi and snicker bars.

I’m acutally not trying to discourage your daughter, just painting the realty. It’s not about brains, it is about having adhd.

I know where you are coming from but I don't think this is a valid assessment anymore.

I was also a ME (from Georgia Tech) and I fell into IT. In the 90's and 2000's most of the best software people I knew were not trained CS. They were engineers. We all agreed that enginneers were better designers and implementers than the abstractly taught CS folks, for the most part.

But my disagreement comes on two fronts. First, all those languages you listed make it sound like you need to get retrained with each language. That isn't true. You learn the patterns of logic, the patterns of language syntax, and the design patterns. Then for each language you simply learn the new language syntax specifics. Its the concepts of design and patterns that they should learn in school.

My second issue is that it is a completely new world in terms of CS. You can't hire an ME or EE who is self taught and expect them to grasp machine learning concepts and AI. Heck, I would weed the engineers out for anything above what I call straight line implementers. Someone that is going to be a new era super star needs to be able to R&D with AI.

The whole girl thing is showing your age a little - no offense because I'm probably close to your age based on you language list. All I will say is that I see a lot more techie women than ever before.
136 posted on 01/03/2017 10:41:45 PM PST by laxcoach (Government is greedy. Taxpayers who want their own money are not greedy.)
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To: Tai_Chung

My first advice directly to you and your daughter is to look at the curriculum for CS wherever she is considering attending.

Choose a school where they are accepted for their major. Some universities make you apply to the school of XYZ after two year. You might not get in. But worse than that, you aren’t touching your chosen field for 2 years!

Your major should be deeply entrenched in your studies pretty quickly.

Second, I would grade the CS program by whether they are on the leading edge of technology. I wouldn’t send my kid to a school that wasn’t aggressive in machine learning / cognitive computing / artificial intelligence. That is where the next generation of superstars are rising. It is being applied to everything from analytics, to prediction, risk management, computer vision, etc.

Learn the hard things in CS, because that is where you become valuable.


137 posted on 01/03/2017 10:54:15 PM PST by laxcoach (Government is greedy. Taxpayers who want their own money are not greedy.)
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