What faculty to chose between electrical engineering and computer science?

What's it like to study Computer Science Engineering at BITS Pilani, Pilani campus?

• answer  in terms of curriculum, academic ambience,  peer group and not to forget faculty

• Answer:

  TL;DR: It's amazing. Curriculum is heavy and theoretical, Academic ambience is refreshing, and less rigorous, Peer group is terrific, Faculty is the best one can expect for one of the better colleges of India. Note that I am a sopho-no-more, which means that I have two complete semesters' load of experience with the Dept. of CS/IS and four semesters of experience with BITS Pilani. Curriculum As Gokul suggests, some courses do need some further restructuring. Languages like SML, Haskell, Javascript are still not part of the curriculum. The thing that I like about the curriculum is that there is a proper emphasis on the theoretical background of the subject (true for most courses I have taken - OOP, Logic in CS, Database Systems, DSA). However that can also turn out to be an impediment since there's not much time to practise the real world applications. Unless there's a course component (maybe a programming assignment), which is graded, and involves substantial amount of self-reading, and practice, CS students find themselves at a loss to be unaware of the actual wonders of the course. Discrete Math is pervasive, which is good. Math + CS students have a major advantage in this regard, since they have already completed courses like Optimization, Graphs and Networks, Algebra-I before embarking on CS courses. Academic ambience There are way too many courses in a semester - though this is a major issue for students of all branches at large. The focus is on breadth, and not depth of learning. With too many courses come too many assignments, quizzes, lab tests, etc which ultimately builds pressure, and some people break down, and turn hostile towards the system(true for all branches). But for the majority, this feels like a continuous battery of tests to make the college believe that we actually study during our stay at Pilani. Acing the tests involves hardwork, (mental)presence in classes, good memory, unparalleled problem solving skills, and obviously, adequate rest and luck.. The ambience of hardwork seems missing at Pilani, and is replaced with smart work instead. A typical CS student is involved in at least 1 club/dept/assoc, follows around 1-2 TV series, movies, works on some project which may/ may not relate to current coursework.  So this means that one does not study all the time, and is involved in some activity or the other - which directly/indirectly hampers the amount of learning one could imbibe. Hence the ambience may not be academically rigorous, but is thoroughly enriching for the students. There are dedicated student discipline associations like the CSA, ISA, or chapters like BITS Firefox Community, BITS ACM, Google Developers Group, IEEE student chapter, or organizations like BITSEmbryo - which conduct loads of activities to expose students to the almost state-of-the-art in the field of Computer Science - be it academia, or research, or competitive programming, etc. Disclaimer: Sadly, there is NO such coding culture which one might expect at colleges like IIIT Hyd. A select few group of people maintain their interests, find their niche, and bring glory to the college in competitions, and events like GSoC. Peer Group The peer group is what makes the experience of being a CS student at BITS amazing. You will be surrounded with people with all sorts of hobbies, and weird interests, but who share with you a common skillset - natural interest in problem solving, a flair for programming, logical thinking, dedication to stay up late and work, etc. So you end up learning a lot, and have fun along the way. Needless to say, everyone is insanely competitive ( or make it seem so from the marks that they get :D ), so procrastination and good grades don't cohabitate here. Faculty seems to have covered most points. I'd like to add that all faculty members are very cooperative, and are willing to help you only if you ask for it. Students sign up for all kinds of projects and work with the faculty - which is an edifying experience. I would hope that more and more faculty members begin to use Open Source software ( primarily Linux based OSs ) and motivate their students to do the same. BITSians may rant about learning facilities all the time, but if one looks closely, the fault is generally ours (the students') for not putting in that extra bit of effort to understand something ourselves, or consulting a faculty member about the predicament. Ranting in space amounts to nothing here. Miscellaneous Points No FOSS culture AT ALL. This scenario will likely improve in the coming semester. Class Timings not convenient for nocturnal people. It's an accepted cliche that most of CS work happens at night, and BITSians are no exception. Result: CS students miss the morning classes (which can be alloted to an important conceptual course) Decent web-development initiatives by student organizations, etc. Computing Facilities are enough to keep you engrossed for four years - with labs specially designed for High Performance Data Analysis, Parallel Programming, use of open source hardware projects like Arduino, and Raspberry Pi, Kinect Sensors, Android, iOS devices, Linux workstations, future-proof desktop computers. CS students get a fair amount of Electronics exposure as well, and the faculty, as well as the EEE/EnI peer group is amazing. Scoring is tough, though. I hope that this answer satiates the reader's curiosity.