Ask HN: What Criteria Should a Young Hacker Apply to College Choice?

Re:Ask HN: What Criteria Should a Young Hacker Apply to Coll... by walterk on Saturday January 10, 2009 @01:39PM (#428155)

> I'd put courses on the bottom of that list. In fields like Comp Sci, many of these are standardized, so there is less differentiation.

I disagree. Having been to Berkeley and Georgia Tech, I found that the latter's undergrad CS/CM program would have catered considerably more to my interests. For instance, if you're interested in creative/expressive computation, Georgia Tech and CMU vastly outrank other colleges, while Stanford has been notable for offering more "timely" courses like Facebook and iPhone development.

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Re:Ask HN: What Criteria Should a Young Hacker Apply to Coll... by stcredzero on Saturday January 10, 2009 @01:53PM (#428170)

As I said, what differentiation there is is due to the initiative of instructors. I agree that this is an indicator, but it's still a somewhat indirect indicator. Often courses are also a reflection of what's popular at the time, or what might win brownie points for a particular professor or department.

If you want to find out what's really brewing in people's heads, it's better to just look up papers and talk to particular professors.

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Re:Ask HN: What Criteria Should a Young Hacker Apply to Coll... by walterk on Saturday January 10, 2009 @02:01PM (#428182)

> As I said, what differentiation there is is due to the initiative of instructors.

This is clearly true. I just don't see why it merits devaluing an assessment of the courses. Quality of instruction clearly matters, and that's why I put professors immediately after. But if certain courses play to one's intrinsic motivations, this can be considerably more important to one's learning.

A great instructor teaching a subject you care little for can only do so much. But the opportunity to work on things that genuinely excite you can override having a poor instructor.

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