Haha lots to unpack here but I'll do my best to be thorough: 1. Most CS classes I've been in are pretty big (lectures); in pre-COVID times, think 100+ people in an auditorium. I tended to sit near the front of my lectures so I never minded the size, but if you sit in the back it's definitely easy to get distracted. During COVID all of my CS classes have been online (so class sizes were irrelevant), but I have had some smaller CS classes this year (I'm currently in a Computer Law class with ~25 people in it). 2. I'll preface this part by saying different people will have different perspectives, but I would generally say collaborative and very stressful. There will always be some people who are more competitive than others, but I've actually been quite happy with the culture in that sense. The stress will depend somewhat on what kind of GPA you're aiming for, but I have been able to hold a 4.0 with a fair bit of work and luck :) 3. In the past year things have been a bit different on campus because of COVID, but historically I've always enjoyed the campus atmosphere. You're very close to Atlanta (which has lots of things to do and places to eat), but you feel safe and isolated on the campus itself. There are less campus events than there used to be, but I expect that next year (and the rest of your college career) a lot of things will be coming back. I should add that recently there have been more events on campus though - we had a comedy show last night with Preacher Lawson, and there was laser tag on Tech Green the night before. 4. This can be a bit of a mixed-bag. In theory, you'll be allowed to if you have all of the pre-reqs, but people who need to take it for their threads will get priority. Thus, the class might fill up before you can sign up. That'll vary class by class though. 5. I was able to get three summer internships (and I know other CS majors who have done the same), but landing one freshman year was definitely the hardest. Most companies have the mindset that they're "looking for Juniors" (you'll hear that phrase a lot unfortunately), but there will be some that are willing to take a chance on underclassmen. If you do well, have side projects, and apply to enough places, you have a solid shot of getting something (and those odds increase as you take more and more coursework). In terms of research, I know a few people who've done it, so that's definitely an option. GTRI has some good summer internships that pay pretty well, and then you can work directly with a professor outside of that to my knowledge. I think that covers pretty much everything; hopefully this helps! Best of luck to you!

@@KyleKeirstead Thank you so much for the informative answer! Looking forward to becoming a yellow jacket this fall :) Good luck!

​@@KyleKeirstead Hey! Just wanted to update, I officially committed to Tech! Thanks a lot for the help, your answer really pushed me to make the final decision!

If you want, you can message me through Instagram, but you can also ask here so other people can benefit from it too! Just to give some basic info about my experience with AP credits, I believe I was able to convert ~12 AP credits from getting 4s/5s on tests. I also was able to get credits from an SAT Subject Test I took, so I came in with 15 credits.

I can only really speak to my threads (Devices + Intelligence), but that sounds like a good combination to me. I believe I heard that ~50% of all CS majors choose Intelligence as one of their threads, and from what I can tell Info Internetworks would be good if you're interested in data. Of course, if anyone watching this has experience with Info Internetworks, they can feel free to chime in :)

Thanks! There's a lot of different ways you could go, but here's what I'll say. If you're interested in coming to Tech, the first language you'll work with is Python - as a result, if you want to get a head start, you could try out Python. Some of the other GT computer science classes will be in Java, so that would be another good one to play around with. This won't mean anything to you yet, but Python is a dynamically-typed language (versus something like C++ or Java, which are both statically-typed). Personally, I started by learning C++, and I felt that it was easier for me to move from a statically-typed language (C++) to a dynamically-typed language (Python) than the other way around. That being said, lots of people start with Python and don't have any problems with the transition, so it's really up to you what you'd rather explore :)

@@KyleKeirstead Thanks for this invaluable comment! I decided to learn C on Cousera as my first programming language.

I have gotten small amounts of experience in other languages from Tech (we worked a little in C and Assembly for example), and it's possible that there are classes here that use other languages, but Java and Python have been very dominant during my time here. I wouldn't worry about that much - at every one of my three internships, I was hired for a language/technology that Tech never 'officially' taught me. Through clubs, personal projects, and self-studying, you can definitely round out your skillset if you're concerned about not having enough languages. From what I've heard, a lot of other people have this experience too, and they're still able to be very competitive in the industry :)

Why not just apply to computer engineering?

Hi Casey, it depends on whether you mean the class as a whole (like the incoming class size) or individual class sizes. The class as a whole is pretty big; a couple of years ago CS became the most popular major at Georgia Tech, surpassing (I think) Mechanical Engineering. In terms of individual class sizes, it'll vary by class. A lot of classes will be large lectures in auditoriums (think 100+ students), but a lot of those will have recitations with closer to 20-30 students. There are also some smaller CS classes I've taken here, but I'd say most of them have been relatively large lectures.

@@KyleKeirstead Thank you so much!

Hey! As far as being an international student - Tech has a lot of international students, and I'm confident that you'll be able to fit right in (then again, I'm not an international student, so take my perspective with a grain of salt haha). As far as being into sports - it doesn't matter. Some people are into sports, but I personally didn't go to many games throughout college. Tickets are free (I think) for students, so it can be fun to go to a game just to see what it's like, but I wouldn't worry about that.

Hey if u don’t mind what was ur stats to get in gtech as international student btw iam international student as well

I actually don't think I personally know anyone who's done that, but I do think it would be doable (especially if you're coming in with some AP/dual-enrollment credits or you're willing to do >4 years). Just be careful not to overload yourself during your semesters if you're trying to fit all of those classes into a short time-frame since that might be overwhelming!

I would also recommend looking into Create-X if you haven't already; that might be interesting for you since you want to explore entrepreneurship.

I'm admittedly not well versed in cybersecurity, but I believe we have a Master's program dedicated to it. I majored in Computer Science, which gives you some flexibility through the threads program (essentially, you choose two specializations to supplement the core CS curriculum). For the full list of majors and minors, I think you'll want this link: www.gatech.edu/academics/all-degree-programs

Someone actually asked this recently on another video, so I'll paste my response here: "As someone who isn't an international student, I can't speak to that from personal experience, but to my knowledge it seems that there are scholarship opportunities. If you've looked into this before, you might've already stumbled upon this link, but I figured I'd put it here just in case: oie.gatech.edu/content/financial-assistance-international-students, specifically the section for Scholarships and Financial Assistance Resources for International Students. You could also potentially get a part-time job during the school-year to help cover expenses, but I realize in the grand scheme of things that's not going to come anywhere close to paying full-tuition. Hopefully you can make it work though!" Like I say in the response I can't speak from my own experience, but what I read at that link seemed to imply you might be able to get aid. Hopefully this helps!

I get this question a lot; though having some experience will make your life a bit easier (especially in the beginning), GT doesn't expect you to have any knowledge before you start the program. The first CS class (CS 1301) starts from the basics of Python and you'll be totally fine even if you've never done any programming. I did have some experience from high school but I know a lot of other people had never coded before they came to Tech. If you have the time, I'd recommend you do a little bit of Python over the summer just to get a feel for it; you don't need to become an expert, but when you're first getting acclimated to college having that little jump start can lessen the shock of learning Python/coding from scratch. Hope this helps!

@@KyleKeirstead Thank you!

Sorry to hear that :( but I'm sure you'll still have a great college experience wherever you end up!

@@KyleKeirstead thank you so much, Kyle. I’ve watched your videos for nearly a year now, as you guided me through the college application process. I’ve witnessed your videos improve through each upload (they’re are amazing), keep it up!! 🙏💙

Stats? Ec?

I lived on West Campus for 3 out of 4 years (Montag as a freshman, and Nelson Shell junior and senior year); there's a few videos on my channel where I talk about and show west campus. Overall, it's more isolated, quieter, and closer to the CRC, but if you want to be closer to the frats/stadium/Tech Square, then you'll probably want to do East.

@@KyleKeirstead do you have any recommendations on outside, cheaper student housing?

Not specifically since I never personally looked into it - if you haven't already, I would definitely recommend looking on the GT Reddit for opinions on that. The one thing I noticed as a trend in college was you probably want to avoid anywhere that's still under construction that claims it'll be ready by the time you want to move in. A bunch of people ended up being more-or-less homeless for several months because the apartments weren't finished when classes started, at which point it's too late to get on-campus housing.

I didn't end up choosing a minor; I thought about it when I was an underclassman, but I decided I'd rather focus solely on computer science.

@@KyleKeirstead Cool. Did you think there was no other areas of study you were interested in or just because there's too much work on CS?

I briefly considered doing something involving electrical engineering but I decided it wasn't a good fit. I think I could have done it if I really wanted to, but I ultimately decided it wasn't worth it.