What are some great science colleges or universities?

Why do Engineering colleges in India have different departments for Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (some have Electronics Engineering too!), while western universities have a single department offering both the majors?

• Much of the curriculum of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering overlap in one way or the other. While western universities offer flexibility to students in terms of electives, their counterpart Indian universities continue to have a fixed curriculum. Both of these branches can't be kept separate, and this seclusion affects many students, in terms of their knowledge, future prospects, etc. Many students who go for higher studies have limited specialization opportunities, and end up taking courses, they should have covered in their undergraduate curriculum!

• Answer:

  Well, actually there's more to that. The first thing is that most engineering universities in India, don't view computer science for what it is -  a branch of mathematics dealing with the science of computation. Most engineering universities in India, actually offer applied computer science(i.e software engineering), in the name of computer science. Computer engineering on the other hand, is a sub-field of electrical engineering, that deals with the design of computers(embedded or otherwise), and there are very few universities in India that offer this at the undergrad level. Foreign universities on the other hand, make this distinction quite well. For example, Imperial College London, offers both a degree in computer science(under the department of computing) and a degree in Information engineering(under the department of electrical engineering). Most American and European universities, also have separate programs in Computer Science and Computer/Information Engineering. The Computer Science program has a higher content of mathematics in it, and in many cases, it is possible to dual major in mathematics. The Computer Engineering program has a significant amount of hardware content(mostly digital design) and also signal processing, and it is possible to dual major in electrical engineering. The fact is that most courses in Indian universities are designed on a 'what's in demand' basis. That's why we have computer engineers who neither know enough mathematics nor enough digital hardware, in our industry.Also look at the curriculum of any B.Sc computer science program, and see how much mathematics there is in it(except for top universities like ISI or CMI).