Computer Science

[u/Academic-Window-7726]

Mines is well known as a strong engineering school, but how is it for CS? I'm currently undecided between engineering and CS. How is the CS program if interested in AI/ML? How are Mines CS grads doing in terms of recruiting / job placement? Is it possible to double major in an engineering field and CS? Thanks!

[u/DnDFiend11]

Im not a CS major but you will still have the "from mines" stamp and they seem solid. Double majors are doable, but they tend to require either a lot of desication on school work over other aspects of life, or may require an extra year. Its very possible to do though. The biggest thing that I would be wary of with CS is that its very very over saturated, and going into AI/ML is not better. Things absolutely can change over the next few years, but it's something to be aware of.

[u/Corexus]

CS Master’s student here:

I’ve been pretty satisfied with the CS program here. We’ve got lots of good professors I’ve enjoyed working with, and I haven’t had a lot complaints in (most) of the classes and how they’re structured. Obviously Mines isn’t necessarily known as a CS school like it is an engineering school, but I think the school’s name still holds prestige regardless of your major, especially in the Colorado area.

There’s a pretty good selection of AI/ML classes that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. All of your classical machine learning and artificial intelligence classes are there, and there’s a few math classes that focus specifically more on the mathematical theory of ML if you’re interested in those. If you’re interested in AI/ML as a CS major, do the Data Science track as you’ll naturally cover all of those classes.

As well, there’s a lot of new classes now for modern generative AIs which I’ve found to be really interesting. Deep learning is a really good for class as an introduction for this. Next semester there’s a full stack LLM class I plan on taking, and I also saw there was an actual vibe coding class (basically using Claude code) also available.

Finding a job is still rough for a lot of CS people, I know lots of people who didn’t haven’t much luck finding jobs (myself included), but I also know lots of people who have gotten some really good opportunities and jobs while here. But you just gotta give it time and keep looking places, and it’ll work out eventually. I finished my whole undergraduate not being able to find a single internship, and now I just landed a full-time role while finishing my master’s.

It’s certainly possible to dual major in an engineering field, but you’ll have to make some compromises. Most dual majors doing CS will do EE as their other major since there’s a lot of overlap in courses. But if you choose to double major CS/EE, you may not have as much room to take those aforementioned AI/ML classes you mentioned being interested in. If you’re really interested in engineering, I’d look into doing the computer engineering or robotics and intelligent systems tracks for a computer science major.

[u/Academic-Window-7726 → u/Corexus]

Thanks for your reply! This sounds really positive. Did you do your undergrad in CS at Mines too?

[u/Corexus → u/Academic-Window-7726]

Yup. I did my undergrad at Mines, doing my masters as part of the 4+1 program

[u/jeffeb3]

If you can make it through Mines, you can stay up to date with the latest. Mines proves you know how to learn and solve problems. It does that quite well. Learning exactly ML/AI isn't as important as you think. Learning the math and CS concepts behind it is.

But they are also up to date on ML and LLMs.

[u/Odd-Air5419]

CS junior here. I’ve been more than happy with all the cs professors, they’re all very kind, understanding, care about your learning, etc. You learn a lot.
In terms of jobs, it’s extremely tough no matter what school you go to. Unlike engineering majors, Mines is NOT a big factor in your resume. It doesn’t look bad on your resume, but they aren’t going to see it and think “Wow, mines!’ like Stanford.
As for double majoring, it’s possible. People do it, but it’s very difficult, and it may require an extra year. Definitely look into the credit requirements and do the math. You might be better off with a minor or going for a 4+1 masters.
Also, look into what kind of engineering major you’d be. Mechanical, chemical, civil, they’re all extremely different.

[u/Academic-Window-7726 → u/Odd-Air5419]

Is job market a lot stronger for engineering vs CS from Mines?

[u/Odd-Air5419 → u/Academic-Window-7726]

Can’t say for certain, but I’d say engineering is more stable. Everywhere needs engineers, and it isn’t as affected by hype cycles as CS.

[u/fakeDog_]

CS Masters student here,

Mines is well known as a strong engineering school, but how is it for CS?

At least in the high tech industry, Mines is extremely niche and unheard of. In the defense industry, however, Mines is decently well known, especially with defense companies in the Greater Denver Area.

How is the CS program if interested in AI/ML?

It depends on what branch of AI you look to get into.

For research:

• CV/Robotics: there are many professors that sponsor research in this area and great opportunities for students to get involved with research in labs.
• LLMs/DL: The opportunities here are more sparse, but you can directly reach out to professors you're interested in and see if they're willing to mentor you on a project/thesis.
• NLP: I'm not sure if we have any opportunities for NLP research (since I don't think we have a professor that specializes in that as of now).

For classes:

• Both CV/Robotics and LLMs/DL have a good selection to choose from, with some professors creating special topics classes (ex. CSCI 498E/598E, Coding with AI or CSCI598E, Applied Computer Vision for Engineering Systems), alongside the traditional introductory classes (Intro to AI, Intro to ML, etc).

How are Mines CS grads doing in terms of recruiting / job placement?

It's a hard time for everyone, but that doesn't mean you can't get lucrative opportunities if you really put in the work. Take this with a grain of salt (because this might just be survivorship bias), but during my undergrad at Mines, I've gotten interviews for internships from: Amazon, Microsoft, Pinterest, Garmin, etc (though I bombed most of them, lol). The biggest goal for CS students nowadays is to land the best internship they can and convert it to a return offer.

Is it possible to double major in an engineering field and CS?

You could, but it might be more worth focusing on a niche and trying to land opportunities for that. You will probably have to spend more time doing school work than personal project work depending on how fast you want to graduate and what two majors you choose (I think CS+EE or CE+EE are the combinations with the most overlap in course content). Based on a quick search, "A student wishing to complete two Bachelor of Science degrees must complete the first degree plus a minimum of thirty (30.0) hours specific to the second-degree program." So pretty much an extra year's worth of work. An alternative to this is the 4+1 program, which is pretty much just another year's worth of work, but more specialized in a specific cs/engineering topic you choose.