[tom_b]

My BS in CS is from NC A&T.

My MS in CS in from UNC-CH.

Anybody who thinks the hackers from Duke/UNC consistently outshine the hackers from NC A&T is a damn fool.

I was regularly FLOORED by the skills and raw programming chops from peers at NC A&T. Some of the smartest young men and women in the CS field.

I worked in a small research group at NC A&T. Maybe 10 undergrads. Last time I checked, there were something like 6 MS in CS folks from that group and a couple of PhDs.

When I was an undergrad at NC A&T, we had a weekly colloquium for all CS students. We regularly had alumni from NC A&T and other HBCUs on stage who talked openly about navigating the hiring world, which companies you could expect racism in, and what the working world of programming was like for "people who look like us."

If some shitty recruiter event occurred, we all knew about it.

Want to score some of the best engineers from HBCUs? It's easy. Hire the best ones you can convince to take your mega-FAANG package from. Then send them back every freaking year with a corporate card and tell them to impress people.

I hate these "stupid recruiter" stories. Somebody should get their ass fired.

[monksy]

I think that's pretty awesome. I went to Elon, and the only time that we heard about the A&T CS program is the time that I participated in an ACM programming competition. We heard more about the Duke program than anything else. (Research related). I knew a little about the UNC Chapel Hill program because I had a connection with Fred Brooks.

[malandrew]

In terms of CS, it's NCSU that regularly produces the most accomplishments of the NC higher education universities, but it doesn't have the same national standing because the humanities departments at NCSU are a complete joke. What Duke and UNC-CH do well is that all their departments are generally considered rigorous and that increases their standing in the rankings.

[DoofusOfDeath]

> Some of the smartest young men and women in the CS field.

Can you give any names and/or accomplishments to support that claim?

Personally, I haven't bumped into enough NC A&T grads to form my own opinions.

[Androider]

Can you do the same for say Duke? Even Googling, I couldn't find an obvious CS superstar name or practical everyone-knows-them Jeff Dean-type. And the whole point of the article is exactly that in the insular tech circles and parties we move in, we don't get to hear or see from the NC A&T folks.

[andi999]

So why did you go to UNC for your MS?

[zumu]

Out of curiosity, how recently were you at these schools?

I would think with big tech companies would be rolling out the red carpet to CS students at HBCUs at this point.

[stormbeard]

I can understand why one would think this. That assumption is part of the reason I shared the story. If that were true here, the A&T students would have had the experience of the Duke/UNC group.