>>13153969>even at "elite" universities it's about the same as any other university.Yeah no this is incredibly false. What is true is that CS lives in the science department like math and physics, so its core requirements are generally a bit more lax than engineering...just like math and physics. What this means is you have more time to do electives, and in particular take upper div and grad classes. you can’t just the CS degree on its requirements because there’s too much variability among the student body since it’s so popular.
The first difference between good and bad schools is what their pre req structure looks like. My school required calc 1-3, discrete I (or intro to proofs), data structures, intro linear algebra, and intro to probability just for admission into the major. We did core topics like computer architecture, OS design, compiler theory and languages, algorithms I + II, etc..
The second difference between shitty and top programs in CS is what they offer and can teach for their electives. Good schools have electives that don’t shy away from the calculus when it comes up. Good schools typically accept intro to proofs and prob. theory in the math department in place of discrete I and II. Good schools typically have multiple difficult courses in ML, complexity theory, randomized algorithms, graphics processing, etc etc.. They typically also have graduate variants if you are comfortable with big boy mathematics. Ie, if you’re comfortable doing differential geometry, takes grad graphics theory. If you’re comfortable doing complex analysis, take grad analysis of algorithms, etc etc..
The problem with CS isn’t inherently a problem - unlike engineering, it lets people level select how hard they want their degree to be and what they want to learn. It just so happens that the majority chooses easy mode and focuses on learning codemonkey shit because it pays bills.
