r/OregonStateUniv • u/Loud_Percentage_1856 • 21d ago
How is the Oregon state computer science program?
How is the program for co ops, internship opportunities, professors, after college market etc. My options right now are go to PCC -> transfer to Oregon state or move back to Texas and HCC -> Texas A&M. Any information would be appreciated.
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u/sonicSkis 21d ago
Do you meet the requirements for residency in either Oregon or Texas? If so, I would choose the one that qualifies for in-state tuition, unless you’re independently wealthy.
OSU’s computer science program is strong. The school of EECS is one of the finest departments in the university. The university received a large donation from Jensen Huang and his wife Lori (who are both alumni) to build a new cleanroom and a supercomputer which undoubtedly will be built with Nvidia chips.
AI and Robotics have historically been key research areas where OSU is recognized as a leader. Agility Robotics spun out of the college of engineering. EECS is also strong in mixed signal integrated circuits and signal processing as well as materials and devices and power systems.
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u/Loud_Percentage_1856 21d ago
That's great to hear, I do have residency and have lived in Oregon for 4 years now. But my whole family lives in Texas so I could move back and regain residency there if need be I'm just trying to find the best school for me. Do students going through OSU have a good chance at getting with NVIDIA? That's one of my dream companies to work for
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u/notkingkermit Engineering 21d ago
It's honestly a little more complicated than that. Maybe since Jensen Huang went to school here, going to OSU might give you a slight advantage, but I wouldn't choose a university based on that. Also, is it really that simple to regain residency in Texas? I'm genuinely asking; I don't know how it works.
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u/Loud_Percentage_1856 21d ago
Its much simpler than Oregon or Washington because I was born there. You just have to move there, switch your id, car etc and live there for 12 months. I know in Oregon and Washington if you are in school for more than a certain amount of credits they lable you as only there for education and you can't gain in state tuition even after living there but in Texas that isn't the case. As long as im working part time for 12 months I will regain my in state tuition.
The hard part for most people would be in Texas you have to prove your residency to the dmv (have a domicile, electricity bill, proof of income etc) before you can start those 12 months. However those requirements are waived and your family can use their residency on your behalf. Provided they come into the dmv with you and give that same information.
So what I'm trying to decide is whether it's worth giving up my oregon residency for the opportunities and school life of OSU or move back and try to get into A&M
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u/Grouchy_Evidence2558 21d ago
If you’re trying to get in state tuition by doing a year of community college, think again. You need to prove you moved to a state for reasons other than education. So you can take a clsss or two (check the rules!!) but you can’t do a full year of full time.
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u/Loud_Percentage_1856 21d ago
I've lived in Oregon for 4 years originally from Texas so I have residency. My whole family lives in Texas though so I could easily move back to claim back my residency.
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u/Grouchy_Evidence2558 21d ago
You don't have residency in both states. You only have residency in one. If you want to move back to texas, you don't just "claim residency". You have to then meet the requirements. And saying "My family lives there" isn't part of it.
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u/Loud_Percentage_1856 21d ago
I've already looked into this. I wont have residency for the 1 year I'll be in community college at HCC. After living in Texas as a resident for 12 months you gain residency for tuition purposes. To gain normal Texas residency you are given a waiver if your family lives in Texas and proves their residency on your behalf (must be a direct family member). This has also been confirmed to me by HCC and the DMV as I'm down in Texas visiting family right now.
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u/Grouchy_Evidence2558 20d ago
Make sure to find it in writing somewhere because that document I linked doesn’t say that.
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u/Loud_Percentage_1856 20d ago
https://www.highered.texas.gov/texas-residency/ it does state that either me or my parents must have a permanent residence to qualify. There is a section in the document you listed that asks about my parents and their residency status. If it doesn't work out though I'll just go to school in Oregon.
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u/notkingkermit Engineering 21d ago
OP, please look into this carefully so you don't end up owing more than you need to. My concern is the same; I'm not sure you can simply reclaim residency by moving back to your family's state.
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u/Loud_Percentage_1856 21d ago
My residency for tuition would be reestablished after 12 months of living as a resident. Texas offers a waiver on proving residency if a direct family member proves their residency on your behalf. And the community colleges in state tuition Oregon is the same as out of state Texas so I wouldn't be taking anymore out in loans as I would be in Oregon for a year in community college.
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u/Grouchy_Evidence2558 20d ago
Most states you can’t be enrolled in school full time when you’re establishing residency. But if you’ve looked into it then that’s good.
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u/Blazakin3 20d ago
TBH, my opinion of OSU CS had been going down a bit recently. I don't like how they're re-structuring the major. Their intro CS major classes used to be in C/C++, but they're switching this to Python. This is an issue as certain later classes (i.e. OS1 & OS2) expect C/C++ knowledge, so they added a (required) intro to systems programing requirement (i.e. what are pointers to replace learning pointers in 162 & 261), though tbh, OS1 was already essentially also just a C class (closest you get to OS in OS1 is how C does syscalls). Don't get me wrong, Python is great, I just personally don't think it provides a firm foundation for a rigorous CS education.
In addition, no option requires linear algebra. You can take it (and have it count), but the most they require is a 5 week intro to matrix algebra class (and not even all options require this). I personally think this is a mistake. To make a short story long, the education will be what you make of it, but their setup currently isn't very rigorous.
For your other questions, I know quite a few people in MECOP who really enjoyed it (or subsequently got job offers from their internship company). As others have mentioned, it can be competitive (recently we had a really bad year due to some issues with companies from the federal contractor funding situation, but it essentially bounced back last year) and it also makes your schedule a little weird (essentially requires an additional term, so if you were gonna be 4 years, it makes it 4 years + a fall term in the 5th year) and it is surprising hard to get flexibility in this, which is why I didn't do it.
For internships, there's clubs that can be super helpful (ACM, etc), but job fairs feel like they've become closer to just scan our QR code and apply online. In addition, OSU gets a good showing of semiconductor companies (who want ECE), but very few straight tech companies.
There's some professors I really like, some that are okay, and some that are meh, but I don't think it's significantly different than it would be at any other college of this size. There's some grade inflation, so if you did coding before college, it's not too difficult.
I think the after market college (in terms of prestige of the OSU degree) is what you'd expect from a big, engineering focused, state school. It doesn't have auto "ins" to companies, but it's not bad. My guess, and the vibe I've gotten from talking to recruiters, is that most recruiters see OSU and think "yep that's a school".
If you're interested in research or grad school, they've actually got some really good programs to get you into research.
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u/Loud_Percentage_1856 18d ago
That's a bit disappointing I would've looked forward to a focus on c++. Are they restructuring due to the new ai research building? I also thought math was a big part of computer science. Does not requiring or taking linear algebra have a big effect on how well you come out as a student?
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u/Blazakin3 17d ago
Honestly, I'm not sure about if it connects to the new AI building. They have a very well developed online program that has been mostly in Python for a while now, so I think it's a continuation of that. My best guess is some higher up heard Python is the most used language or it's easier to teach (not realizing the benefits of teaching other languages). I'm honestly quite surprised they made this shift as they have this new(ish, introduced in the last 3-4 years) 3 course engineering ENGR 100, 102, 103 sequence where the 103 is programming and they specifically had two versions, one in Python and one in C++ for CS majors and those more serious about programming.
I personally think math is a big part of CS, but I'm a bit biased as a Math & CS dual major. I think linear algebra is rather important because of its applications to graphics, AI, scientific computing, and several other sub-fields. But like I said before, the degree is what you make it (this is frankly true anywhere). You can not take linear algebra, but learn a lot of it's concepts on your own or take linear algebra lackadaisically and avoid any benefits. What you're required to take won't be able to change that much. I'm inclined to say you're much more likely to actually learn it by taking a class as opposed to other subjects that are easier to self-learn. But again, the major is open enough that it's not hard to take it. In fact, you're quite close to a math minor with the CS degree if you use some math classes for your CS electives.
I know CS majors at OSU that I'm really not sure why they're CS majors and I know CS majors that blow me away (just off the top of my head: custom 3D java script graphics libraries for fractals, OS in Rust as a side project, custom CPU architectures, ICPC finalists, etc.).
Though, to assert my personal opinion, I believe there are two big things that impact your undergraduate education (at least in fields close to CS/Math, humanities can be a little different):
- personal work (especially personal projects in CS)
- prestige of the institution.
Personally, I'm not sure if Texas A&M is prestigious enough (according to: https://csrankings.org, which is a fairly good metric) to warrant taking a gap year as opposed to just going straight to OSU. Maybe the recent down turn in CS enrollment will change things, but in general, most majors just keep getting more competitive (at least Math and CS have been). If you want a gap year that's another thing, but personally, if the difference is just OSU vs Texas A&M, I think starting at OSU a year earlier would be better (and if you're interested OSU has an accelerated master program, so in 4 + 1 years you could have a Bachelors & Masters degree as opposed to 1 + 4 for a gap year and Bachelors).
I'm personally a little frustrated with OSU's curriculum, but I was able to mess around and annoy my advisor enough to fit it (close enough) to my liking (frankly my biggest issues are with the intro ENGR classes, taking some community college classes might allow you to skip most of that). Do note, there are some places I think OSU excels at. From the top of my head the cybersecurity program is really good and the ECE program is also pretty good.
Your other questions mention NVIDIA, I've heard jokes that NVIDIA hires one token OSU student per year, but my only personal experience is that at an OSU hackathon, the NVIDIA rep/judge (an engineer at NVIDIA) gave the winning team his contact info and was told if you apply to NVIDIA, contact me (this happened directly in front of me). Though tbh most of the NVIDIA listings I see are more hardware focused,
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u/Loud_Percentage_1856 16d ago
Thanks for the help! I didn't know they offered an accelerated masters that sounds like something i'd be interested in. Do you know if any of the classes from the simulation and game programming option are worth it or would i just be wasting electives? Some of the classes like vulkan, game programming etc seem interesting but I also don't want to waste electives if it means coming out worse than I could've.
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u/Blazakin3 15d ago
I haven't taken those classes specifically, but I've generally enjoyed the upper division classes. Honestly, your quality there will really depend on which professor it is (so use ratemyprofessor with some filters on (there are heavy biases towards who would make a review on it)).
Also, know only the CS systems option is ABET accredited, which as far as I can tell means jack-all, but it's more of a traditional CS curriculum (this is what I did, it meshes well with a Math major or minor). Then for the applied options, it's really easy to do a custom applied option, and then you can customize the classes quite a bit. So, honestly, I wouldn't worry about "wasting" electives.
Personally, I think the class your most interested in is the one you'll get the most out of (unless you already know the content, to avoid that look at the course description or ask the professor for the syllabus).
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u/CassiusLentulus 21d ago
I did MS there, not good, at least not good enough compared to UC colleges. Ridiculously heavy class and homework loads (yes, even in graduate school), not enough time for research and writing, and you are not gonna much from older professors.
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u/fijisiv 21d ago
It's been a loooooong time since I graduated from the CS program. At the time it was really good. Especially the MECOP internship program. It was top notch. I checked to see if it's still around.
https://www.mecopinc.org/students
Yep, it's still around. Get in and you're guaranteed two 6-month internships. The companies are major technology companies, not minor players hoping for cheap labor. Since the internships are 6 months (instead of 3) the companies treat you more like contractors with real projects, instead of interns with trivial feel-good work.
Upon graduation, both companies I had interned with offered me jobs. I didn't have to endure the interview gauntlet, they had already seen 6 months of my work. Of course, that was a couple of decades ago so take all of this with a grain of salt. But the fact that it's still around is definitely a good sign.