Should I get my computer science degree from a large engineering university or a small liberal arts college?

My answer will be unpopular with some, but I would consider school rank first: rank is reasonably correlated with average grad quality and strength of network.  For example, Cornell and Princeton beat most large engineering universities.  However, they don't match U-C Berkeley.  If the schools are in the top 20, a difference of 5 matters.  Between 20 and 50, I would probably require at least an increase of 10 or more to distinguish the "better" one.  I don't have enough experience with schools ranked below 50 to give useful advice there. For schools of equivalent rank, I would generally follow and go to a larger engineering school.  The exception I would make is if you want to go to graduate school and a particular professor that you want to do undergraduate research with is at the liberal arts school.

Let me give you a different option.  Drop the CS major and pick up a major in any of the liberal arts, and figure out how to apply CompSci to it.  Then get a 2-year MS degree in CompSci and go on the job market. 1)  I have seen too many CompSci students go right out of high school and into a BA degree (and even continue on to an MS) who have no life experience outside of classwork and research in CompSci.  They're all great coders, but if you stop asking them how to code something and rather ask them why it should be coded in the first place, they get unhappy.  If you want to be known as a big-picture person (and get the big-picture person's salary) then learn how to code by hacking a liberal arts major and pick up your CompSci credentials with the MS. 2)  Getting an MS before you hit the job market gives you a leg up on the hordes of BA students that you're competing against.  You'll also likely have a much more interesting story to tell during the interview.  Most BA students have coded up a text editor and a game (it's a rite of passage).  You will have coded up something unique for Philosophy or Classics or whatnot that they've never seen before.  3)  And perhaps a bit more philosophically, we code using metaphors, and the more metaphors you have under your fingers the better chance you'll have of finding exactly the right one.  Aristotle laid the groundwork for theatrical criticism in The Poetics; does any of that inform how we read, write or perform (perhaps?) code?  Computer language grammars came directly out of linguistics; what didn't we pick up from that field that we should have?  How can a deep understanding of sociology help you write the killer social media app? By way of introduction:  my BA was in Theater, my MS in System and Network Administration, and my Ph.D. is in CompSci.  My undergraduate thesis was a statistical analysis of the vocabulary in Shakespeare's Richard III (back when doing work like that involved typing in the text by hand).  The longest coding gig I had between the MS and Ph.D. was doing laboratory robotics.  I now do research that influences the design of the next few generations of supercomputers.  So, to sum up:  going to the big-name school is definitely the safe bet.  The problem with safe bets is waking up on your 35th birthday wondering what the hell you were thinking back then.  A Philosophy or other liberal arts degree has far more uncertainty, will cause you to work much, much harder, and will take you well outside your comfort zone.  You may have to do more years of schooling than you planned to accomplish it.  But the upside is far higher.

I like what wrote. However, I also wrote an answer to a somewhat similar question about a year ago here: To give a little background: I have taken classes at larger universities like the University of Pittsburgh and classes at community colleges like Pennsylvania Highlands Community College and Allegheny College of Maryland.I think what I wrote previously still applies here in different ways and hope some will find it useful. I will copy and paste that response here: When I was a kid, I had aspirations to apply and attend some larger and well-known technical universities for my computer science education. A lot of people told me I would have trouble getting in and my effort toward applications to these schools probably wasn't worth it. But, I wanted to be a kid who went to a "good" school. Of course, I applied to these top schools anyway. I did not get into a single school that I applied other than what might classify as a "random liberal arts college". I was ashamed. I thought, kind of like your questions asks, that my degree wouldn't be worthy because it's from a liberal arts school. I thought that my degree might mean less because it's not from one of those Ivy League schools or a top technical school. For some reason, I thought that by going to one of those top schools it'd automatically make me a better person. But, it just isn't true (for me at least).I reflect on how I ended up at a liberal arts college pretty regularly. I've been there for two years now and have loved almost every minute of it. I have come to realize that: yes, the name of your school can make a difference yes, some parts of the curriculum or education at the top schools are just better yes, students at these schools could be afforded more networking opportunities However, I truly believe your education will be what you make of it. What you put in, you can get out. If you put effort towards your studies and work hard to find internships and opportunities outside of the classroom, the "advantage" students have at top schools almost entirely disappears. When I didn't get into my dream schools, my dad said this to me Sometimes it is better to be a big fish in a little pond than a little fish in a big pond. -My dad (otherwise unknown) I don't think he (or whoever originally said this) could be more right. When you get accepted into a large, top-tier university most of the students who get accepted, like you, will have been top of their class, have had great SAT scores, and probably be unaccustomed to failure. All of these students will be competing for the best grades and the most recognition at that top college or university. There will be dozens upon dozens of them and most likely the department will be very large. They will have TA's lecture and have TA's hold office hours, sometimes rather than the tenured faculty member who should be teaching the class and holding the office hours. The classes you take will probably be held in large auditoriums or large lecture halls. The lecturer, who is probably a TA, won't know your name and possibly won't care what your name is. That top-tier university or technical college's Computer Science Department (more likely CS School) is a very large pond. And with such competition from all the students, you are a small fish. When you get accepted into a random liberal arts school, most of the students who got accepted will be, maybe like you, average or better in school for grades, probably top 20% of their class, had slightly above average SAT scores, and for the most part will be "regular" students (or at least, more "average" students). Some of these students will be competing for good grades and recognition at the liberal arts school. There may be a lot of students, but most likely the department won't be very large. There probably will not be TA's that hold lectures and the tenured faculty member who taught your class will hold the office hours. Your classes will probably not be in an auditorium or a large lecture hall but a smaller classroom for around 30 kids or less. The lecturer will (in every class I have taken) make an effort to learn your name and cares about you as a person. This random liberal arts college's Computer Science Department is a rather small pond. And you, the student who wants to excel and get the most out of it, can be a big fish. When there are less kids to compete with, recognition can come easier. When the classes are smaller, the professor is more likely to notice your individual performance. With recognition, comes opportunities like recommendations, research positions, and job referrals. After starting at the Liberal Arts school I currently attend, every professor in the Math/CS department knew my name after my first year (even though I had only taken 12 classes so far). Every class that I took had around 30 kids or less and every class was taught by a tenured faculty member. After my first year, I was elected the president of the Computer Science Club on campus and hired by a faculty member to perform undergraduate research. This led to recommendation letters for positions within industry and I recently finished my first internship on an algorithm development team with Lockheed Martin. I think that I would have struggled to gain the same opportunities, should I have attended a larger, top-tier university for my computer science education. I think that I would have been overshadowed by many of the other students, suffered from a lack of interaction with actual tenured faculty members, and not felt like I was a real part of the department. So, is it worth it to get a Computer Science degree from a "random liberal arts college"? I think yes.But I think the better question is: Do you want to be a big fish in a little pond or a little fish in a big pond?