Best universities for computer science degrees 2019

Find the best universities for computer science using Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings data

November 29 2018

Studying computer science is a smart bet in today’s world, as the career opportunities for tech-savvy graduates are expanding every year.

There’s also an extensive choice of universities when it comes to deciding where to study computer science.

Some 684 schools feature in the ranking for computer science by Times Higher Education this year.

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Nearly a sixth of the featured universities are American colleges and almost a third are based in Europe. Nearly 200 of the universities are based in Asia.

Computer science degrees vary in their focus and specialisms. Some courses are more theoretical and some are more focused on programming.

The ranking uses the same methodology as the World University Rankings, but with slightly higher weighting given to the innovation metric and lower weighting for citations. The full methodology can be found here.

Scroll down to find out what you can do with a computer science degree.

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Top 5 universities for computer science

1. University of Oxford

Although computer science is a relatively modern discipline, the University of Oxford has one of the oldest departments in the country, formerly known as the Oxford University Computing Laboratory.

Since its beginnings, the department has provided lectures for undergraduates and trained research students at postgraduate level.

In addition to core computer science topics, students can take courses in computational biology, quantum computing, information systems, software verification, software engineering and computational linguistics.

The department offers three undergraduate degrees: single honours computer science, maths and computer science, and computer science and philosophy.

Like students of other subjects, computer science students – whether undergraduate or postgraduate – belong to one of Oxford’s colleges where they have the option to eat, socialise, study and live.

2. ETH Zurich

ETH Zurich has a history of developing software and designing computer systems. Eventually these projects called for a dedicated computer science department, which was formed in 1981.

The department covers many areas of computer science, including computational intelligence, networks and distributed systems, algorithms and theory, and information security. Different programming languages are also taught on software engineering courses.

There are close relationships with other departments within the university and with partners in business and industry, such as IBM, Microsoft, Google, SAP and Disney, with which the university collaborates on research projects.

ETH Zurich dates back to 1855, just a few years after the formation of the federal state of Switzerland. It was created as a centre for scientific knowledge and innovation and remains a top institution for a range of subjects.

3. Stanford University

The Stanford University computer science department was established in 1965. The department offers bachelor’s of science, master’s of science and a doctor of philosophy.

The department undertakes research in many areas including artificial intelligence, robotics, foundations of computer science, scientific computing and programming systems. There is also a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary research across chemistry, genetics, linguistics, construction and medicine among others.

The home of the computer science department is the Gates Computer Science building, named after Bill Gates, who donated $6 million to the project.

What can you do with a computer science degree?

4. University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge computer science department offers undergraduate students the Computer Science Tripos course, a three- or four-year computer science course.

The university also offers an MPhil in computer science as a general master’s degree, which helps prepare students for a PhD in computer science.

There are many research groups based in the computer science department looking at artificial intelligence, security, graphics and interaction, and computer architecture.

5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The department of electrical engineering and computer science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology confidently declares: “Our students change the world.”

Many of its alumni feature on lists of influential entrepreneurs who are making changes at home and abroad.

Students are encouraged to develop start-ups and research projects have explored problems such as calculating the financial risks of renewable energy and developing faster parallel computing.

Undergraduates are enrolled on a flexible curriculum that allows them to focus on both abstract theory and practical problems in computer science. Students can major in computer science or in both computer science and molecular biology.

Graduates go on to design video games, work on supercomputers, research robotics and often join big companies such as Google and Microsoft.

Student experience of studying computer science

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Best universities for computer science 2019

Click each institution to view its World University Ranking 2019 profile

Computer Science Rank 2019	Computer Science Rank 2018	University	Country/Region
1	3	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
2	4	ETH Zurich	Switzerland
3	1	Stanford University	United States
4	5	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
5	2	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
6	=6	Carnegie Mellon University	United States
7	8	Georgia Institute of Technology	United States
8	12	Princeton University	United States
9	11	Harvard University	United States
10	=6	California Institute of Technology	United States
11	9	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
12	NR	University of California, Los Angeles	United States
13	10	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland
14	15	Cornell University	United States
15	13	National University of Singapore	Singapore
16	NR	Yale University	United States
17	14	University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom
=18	26	University of Texas at Austin	United States
=18	22	University of Toronto	Canada
=20	20	Tsinghua University	China
=20	19	Columbia University	United States
22	17	University of Washington	United States
23	18	UCL	United Kingdom
24	NR	New York University	United States
25	21	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	United States
26	16	Technical University of Munich	Germany
27	NR	University of Michigan	United States
28	=28	Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong
29	31	Nanyang Technological University, Singapore	Singapore
30	24	University of California, San Diego	United States
31	NR	Johns Hopkins University	United States
32	25	Peking University	China
33	23	University of Pennsylvania	United States
34	56	University of Montreal	Canada
35	=28	University of British Columbia	Canada
36	30	University of Southern California	United States
37	38	Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
38	77	Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris	France
39	27	University of Wisconsin-Madison	United States
40	35	The University of Tokyo	Japan
41	33	University of Waterloo	Canada
42	36	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	Germany
43	34	University of Chicago	United States
44	32	University of Maryland, College Park	United States
45	=45	Zhejiang University	China
46	55	University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
47	37	RWTH Aachen University	Germany
48	47	LMU Munich	Germany
49	=68	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
50	40	Seoul National University	South Korea
51	44	University of California, Santa Barbara	United States
52	39	University of Melbourne	Australia
53	41	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)	South Korea
54	54	KTH Royal Institute of Technology	Sweden
55	49	University of California, Irvine	United States
56	=42	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands
=57	71	University of Science and Technology of China	China
=57	52	Rice University	United States
59	48	Brown University	United States
60	53	National Taiwan University	Taiwan
61	70	École Polytechnique	France
62	51	Kyoto University	Japan
63	63	University of Manchester	United Kingdom
64	57	Technion Israel Institute of Technology	Israel
65	=45	University of Massachusetts	United States
66	50	KU Leuven	Belgium
67	=72	Technical University of Darmstadt	Germany
68	=58	Nanjing University	China
69	=58	University of Freiburg	Germany
70	=42	Technical University of Berlin	Germany
71	76	ITMO University	Russian Federation
72	NR	Duke University	United States
73	66	University of Amsterdam	Netherlands
74	=88	Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hong Kong
=74	64	Eindhoven University of Technology	Netherlands
=74	=83	University of Technology Sydney	Australia
=76	=61	King’s College London	United Kingdom
=76	=61	Vienna University of Technology	Austria
78	60	Lomonosov Moscow State University	Russian Federation
79	=95	McGill University	Canada
=81	NR	Sorbonne University	France
=81	=88	Tel Aviv University	Israel
83	NR	Michigan State University	United States
84	=83	Australian National University	Australia
85	=74	University of Twente	Netherlands
86	101–125	University of Bologna	Italy
87	101–125	Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU)	South Korea
=88	90	Aalto University	Finland
=88	NR	University of Zurich	Switzerland
90	78	University of Luxembourg	Luxembourg
=91	NR	Boston University	United States
=91	101–125	University of Trento	Italy
=93	=74	City University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
=93	=95	Polytechnic University of Milan	Italy
95	101–125	University of Queensland	Australia
96	97	University of Minnesota Twin Cities	United States
97	=68	Pennsylvania State University	United States
98	101–125	University of Alberta	Canada
99	=72	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	United States
100	101–125	Queen Mary University of London	United Kingdom
101–125	126–150	University of Adelaide	Australia
101–125	79	Arizona State University	United States
101–125	101–125	University of Bristol	United Kingdom
101–125	126–150	University at Buffalo	United States
101–125	126–150	University of California, Riverside	United States
101–125	101–125	University of California, Santa Cruz	United States
101–125	101–125	Chalmers University of Technology	Sweden
101–125	126–150	University of Colorado Boulder	United States
101–125	101–125	University of Erlangen-Nuremberg	Germany
101–125	151–175	Fudan University	China
101–125	101–125	Hebrew University of Jerusalem	Israel
101–125	65	Heidelberg University	Germany
101–125	126–150	Lancaster University	United Kingdom
101–125	126–150	University of Malaya	Malaysia
101–125	67	Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology	Russian Federation
101–125	126–150	National Tsing Hua University	Taiwan
101–125	=98	Newcastle University	United Kingdom
101–125	126–150	Northeastern University	United States
101–125	=98	Queensland University of Technology	Australia
101–125	91	Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey	United States
101–125	85	University of Southampton	United Kingdom
101–125	94	Stony Brook University	United States
101–125	101–125	University of Sydney	Australia
101–125	151–175	Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam	Netherlands
101–125	101–125	University of Warwick	United Kingdom
126–150	151–175	University of Birmingham	United Kingdom
126–150	92	Dartmouth College	United States
126–150	126–150	Durham University	United Kingdom
126–150	101–125	École Normale Supérieure de Lyon	France
126–150	176–200	Free University of Bozen-Bolzano	Italy
126–150	=86	University of Geneva	Switzerland
126–150	101–125	University of Groningen	Netherlands
126–150	NR	Harbin Institute of Technology	China
126–150	93	University of Helsinki	Finland
126–150	151–175	King Abdulaziz University	Saudi Arabia
126–150	126–150	Université Catholique de Louvain	Belgium
126–150	151–175	University of Mannheim	Germany
126–150	126–150	McMaster University	Canada
126–150	101–125	University of New South Wales	Australia
126–150	126–150	Ohio State University	United States
126–150	101–125	Osaka University	Japan
126–150	=86	University of Pittsburgh	United States
126–150	101–125	Polytechnic University of Catalonia	Spain
126–150	151–175	Queen’s University Belfast	United Kingdom
126–150	151–175	Sapienza University of Rome	Italy
126–150	126–150	Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna	Italy
126–150	176–200	University of South Australia	Australia
126–150	151–175	Stockholm University	Sweden
126–150	176–200	University of Surrey	United Kingdom
126–150	151–175	Technical University of Denmark	Denmark
126–150	201–250	University of Tübingen	Germany
126–150	126–150	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	United States
151–175	101–125	Aalborg University	Denmark
151–175	NR	University of Exeter	United Kingdom
151–175	101–125	University of Glasgow	United Kingdom
151–175	251–300	Griffith University	Australia
151–175	126–150	Korea University	South Korea
151–175	151–175	National Chiao Tung University	Taiwan
151–175	126–150	North Carolina State University	United States
151–175	126–150	University of Nottingham	United Kingdom
151–175	201–250	Paris-Sud University	France
151–175	151–175	University of Passau	Germany
151–175	176–200	University of Pisa	Italy
151–175	126–150	University of Potsdam	Germany
151–175	176–200	Radboud University Nijmegen	Netherlands
151–175	NR	University of Rochester	United States
151–175	126–150	Royal Holloway, University of London	United Kingdom
151–175	126–150	Ruhr University Bochum	Germany
151–175	=81	University of Stuttgart	Germany
151–175	151–175	Texas A&M University	United States
151–175	151–175	TU Dresden	Germany
151–175	151–175	Uppsala University	Sweden
151–175	101–125	University of Utah	United States
151–175	151–175	Victoria University	Australia
151–175	126–150	University of Virginia	United States
151–175	100	Washington University in St Louis	United States
176–200	176–200	University of Arizona	United States
176–200	151–175	Bar-Ilan University	Israel
176–200	201–250	University of Essex	United Kingdom
176–200	151–175	University of Florida	United States
176–200	151–175	Free University of Berlin	Germany
176–200	176–200	University of Göttingen	Germany
176–200	176–200	University of Granada	Spain
176–200	176–200	Graz University of Technology	Austria
176–200	201–250	Hong Kong Baptist University	Hong Kong
176–200	176–200	University of Illinois at Chicago	United States
176–200	101–125	Indiana University	United States
176–200	101–125	Indian Institute of Science	India
176–200	126–150	Indian Institute of Technology Bombay	India
176–200	151–175	University of Innsbruck	Austria
176–200	201–250	University of Leicester	United Kingdom
176–200	176–200	Linköping University	Sweden
176–200	176–200	University of Macau	Macao
176–200	251–300	Middlesex University	United Kingdom
176–200	176–200	Simon Fraser University	Canada
176–200	176–200	Temple University	United States
176–200	151–175	Ulm University	Germany
176–200	201–250	University of Warsaw	Poland
176–200	201–250	Washington State University	United States
176–200	176–200	University of Western Australia	Australia
176–200	NR	West Virginia University	United States
176–200	126–150	Xi’an Jiaotong University	China