My introduction and CS findings

[Stephen J. Barr]

Greetings,

Its about time I introduce myself to this list. I am Stephen J. Barr. The J
stands for Jeffrey. Jeff Barr is my father. If you know my dad's interests,
you pretty much know mine. But I'll list them again just in case you don't
know. I enjoy programming (currently Perl, C, and starting C++), using
linux/unix, open source software, reading science fiction, playing tuba (my
dad doesn't do this one), and the list goes on. So, I suppose you could
refer to me as a SoFoRK...Son of Friend of Rohit Khare.

I am 16 years old, and currently attend Bellevue Community College in WA,
where I am working towards earning my Associates Computer Science Transfer
degree. This will allow me to transfer to some higher level college to get
my Masters, or possibly Ph.D. if I decided to go that far.

My dad recently emailed asking which schools have the best CS programs. I
have been researching this for the past week, and I have been somewhat
conclusive in my results. According to the USNEWS education site,
(http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/beyond/gradrank/gbcompsc.htm), MIT and
Stanford are tied for having the best computer science programs, in a
general sense. Carnegie Mellon is 3rd, followed by UC-Berkley, Cornell, U of
Illinois - Urbana, and University of Washington comes next, at 7th place.

The University of Washington seems like a good choice right now because it
would be a very easy transition, credit wise. And with my resident status,
it would be less than 1/10th the price of MIT. However, when the time comes,
I suppose I will apply to MIT, Stanford, UC Berkley, and a few more,
depending on the conclusions I reach in this research. I will also have to
weight potential scolarships into my decision.

And about fallback plans for other majors, if I decide to change. I do not
believe that I will need them. I have wanted to study computer science since
before I could spell the phrase "computer science" (and I am a decent
speller). I have been programming ever since Dad bought an 8mHz 386 (with
40mHz turbo mode!). My language of choice back then was QBasic. But anyway,
if I have some dramatic change of heart somehow over the next 2 years, my
fallback majors are physics and aerospace engineering, so I thnk I will be
fairly safe at any school that I choose to attend, based on its CS merits.

Well, that wraps up my findings for now. They could change over the next few
months, but I want to have my plan fairly concrete within a year or so.

Thanks!

~Steve

Stephen J. Barr
steve@sortonce.com