What is the toughest university if you want to be a programmer?

MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is probably one of them. Here is a link to their selections of undergraduate majors and minors. Most have a PDF that goes into more detail on the specifics. From what I understand, MIT has a pretty darn good reputation.

My cousin got his PhD. in Computer Engineering there and loves his job. He travels all over the world meeting with computer technology companies to find out where they want to be in five or so years. Then he goes back to his team of engineers and programmers to develop the technology to help these companies achieve their goals.

I second MIT. What’s really great about them is that they participate in Open CourseWare so you can literally watch the videotaped lectures from hundreds of classes, read pdfs of the handouts, do the homework assignments and learn a hell-of-a-lot for free. I think it’s one of the most amazing free things out there. Of course you won’t get the degree, but you can still receive a $20k/year education for the cost of the internet connection.

MIT. Other great computer departments are at UC-Berkeley, Carnegie-Mellon and Stanford. However, there are many other schools at which you can do just fine; my sons majored in Computer Science at NYU, Brown and Penn. One is now working for AOL and the other for Google in Paris.

I would say “the school of hard knocks”. MIT is a great school, and there’s no doubt about that. But going to a great school is not “the toughest” way to achieve your ends. It would be nearly impossible to get a decent job in IT without a solid education in the field.

If your question was “what is the best school”, then I might also agree with MIT. But that’s not what you asked.

Stanford is really good too. I don’t know what they’re doing over there, but it’s working. Think of who’s come out of Stanford: Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google), William Hewlett and David Packard (HP), Steve Ballmer (Microsoft), David Filo and Jerry Yang (Yahoo), Reed Hastings (Netflix), Andrew Grove (Intel), Blake Ross (Firefox), etc.

There are tough universities if you want to become a computer scientist such as MIT or Stanford. If you want to become a programmer a community college might do too.

Hey @mattbrowne! Haven’t seen you in a while.

We decided to go on an Internet-free vacation. Just mountains and nature and long hikes. I lost 4 pounds. It was wonderful.

Nice!