UTA or TTU? (Dallas, Austin, Arlington: home, dorms, schools)

[smiles_chicago]

So my son is accepted to both UT Arlington and Texas Tech- both computer science. Trying to decide which one is better? Opinions/ experience?
Thanks
JK

[jennifw]

Has he visited either campus? Very different feels for both areas.

[4Movingeast]

Originally Posted by jennifw

Has he visited either campus? Very different feels for both areas.

Good advice!

[Walter Benjamin]

I'm not directly familiar with the CS programs at either place. But out of curiosity, I looked up both universities. I saw that they are very similar by the numbers in terms of admissions rate, average SAT score, etc.

My thought would be that UTA would have better opportunities to do internships at tech companies in the larger DFW area, plus of course the other advantages of a large metro area like sports, arts, restaurants, etc. etc.

Whereas TTU would offer more of a traditional "college experience" in a smaller city that is dominated by the university, its football team, is easier to get around without driving for miles, things like that.

Don't know if he applied to UTD (UT Dallas), but that is traditionally the very strong public university around here in STEM fields.

Congrats to him on getting in!


EDIT: I just looked at both department web pages.
http://cse.uta.edu/faculty-directory-tenure.php
http://www.depts.ttu.edu/cs/faculty/

It appears that UTA has about twice the number of full-time tenure track faculty as TTU in that department (that is, 26 vs. 13). Using only that information, I would imagine that UTA might have more opportunities available for students. On the other hand, it's possible that a smaller department at TTU might have more individual attention on individual students.

I would suggest that your son e-mail individual faculty members in research areas that might interest him, and see what kind of response he gets. If he gets a good response from the faculty, that is a good sign that the department cares about undergraduate education and will be a welcoming environment. [And if not, that could be a sign that the faculty care more about research or graduate education than about undergrads.]

My advice is based on experience in another educational field, unrelated to CS.

[TheOverdog]

I'm not sure if it has changed, but at Texas Tech, computer science was in the engineering school, which meant that you have to pass the engineering version of physics, math, and maybe even chemistry (it's been a long time) before you even get to your major CS courses. Those prerequisite courses take a toll on those only good at programming and not that dedicated or great at engineering level math and science. At that time, the majority of the programming I think was in C++ and languages at levels below that towards assembly. The jobs you get out of this are designing microcontrollers for science and engineering companies. Texas Instruments and Cisco were the biggest hiring firms.

The fallback was managment information systems, which is lower level computer programming in the business school, which teaches more practical programming like database, java, user interface design, etc. Jobs out of this track include management at the major US telco firms, Verizon, ATT, etc, and IT consulting firms were the biggest hiring firms.

So in short, I'd look at both schools and the prerequisites and see if they are in the realm of something he can accomplish while still doing what he needs to do to survive in college, ie work demands, fun, extra-curriculars.

Everyone I knew in CS that was 'marginal' at the work and had extra demands struggled and mostly dropped out of CS. Before that, they spent a lot of time retaking sciece and math courses.

[metroxian]

From Walter Benjamin, above...

My thought would be that UTA would have better opportunities to do internships at tech companies in the larger DFW area, plus of course the other advantages of a large metro area like sports, arts, restaurants, etc. etc.

Which is about what I was going to post.

[TheOverdog]

plus of course the other advantages of a large metro area like sports, arts, restaurants, etc. etc

Not sure about internships (those at Tech were really only available to a small number of students) but sports at a Division 1 university will be much more accessible in a college environment than in DFW. Only way a college kid is going to Cowboys games or NBA games on a regular basis is if the bank of mom & dad are paying the full freight. A student on the other hand will get discounted tickets to home team-games and Lubbock has minor league versions of every other sport. As far as Lubbock vs UTA, the sports game product will be pretty similar, but you probably won't see any games on ESPN at UTA.

On a student budget in terms of restaurants, DFW & Lubbock are also pretty comparable, and I might even give Lubbock the advantage, though I don't know much about UTA. I think Lubbock has fewer chains than there are around UTD or SMU. I thought the restaurant quality around SMU was pretty weak when I was a grad student there.

[Walter Benjamin]

Originally Posted by TheOverdog

Not sure about internships (those at Tech were really only available to a small number of students) but sports at a Division 1 university will be much more accessible in a college environment than in DFW. Only way a college kid is going to Cowboys games or NBA games on a regular basis is if the bank of mom & dad are paying the full freight. A student on the other hand will get discounted tickets to home team-games and Lubbock has minor league versions of every other sport. As far as Lubbock vs UTA, the sports game product will be pretty similar, but you probably won't see any games on ESPN at UTA.

On a student budget in terms of restaurants, DFW & Lubbock are also pretty comparable, and I might even give Lubbock the advantage, though I don't know much about UTA. I think Lubbock has fewer chains than there are around UTD or SMU. I thought the restaurant quality around SMU was pretty weak when I was a grad student there.

Great points -- I really didn't think of that. What I imagined was more things like going to see bands play in Deep Ellum, free museum nights at the DMA, or finding random hole-in-the-wall Afghan or Vietnamese restaurants in Richardson or Carrollton. Arlington actually has A+ Vietnamese food (if he's into that)... Sports, not so much!

[TurtleCreek80]

I don't know anything about either school's program. What I do know is UTA is largely a commuter school and Tech is a traditional college experience (dorms, football & basketball games, Greek Life, etc). Tech has a stronger alumni network, as UTA doesn't carry the cache of the UT-Austin flagship or the strong engineering & science programs at UTD. I think Tech looks a bit better on the resume.

Your kid should definitely visit both before making a decision.

[loves2read]

time to visit was really before applications IMO--but water under the bridge

what does your son plan on doing with this degree? Business--what type? research? grad school?
does either school offer an accelerated MS degree -- where you go 4-5 yrs and graduate w/Masters vs Batchelors?

have friends whose daughter is graduating #7 or 8 at Grapevine and she is considering UTDallas because of its actuary program--5 yrs I think and come out with MS in actuarial science w/some type of certification that is very bankable...especially for a woman...

It doesn't sound like your son or you have done much research -- what are your other options?