Which university is the better for BSCS: NUST, PUCIT, ITU, FAST Lahore, COMSATS Lahore or UET?

 

This is one of the most important decisions you’d be making in your life. Whatever I write here, take it with a grain of salt.

Now with that out of the way, I’d be tempted to pick ITU as I find their VC to be a visionary leader who knows what constitutes a good CS program. For instance, take a look at the talk he gave to ITU faculty members: Umar Saif

On paper, ITU faculty blows NUST’s out of the water. ITU has been hiring aggressively and I’ve seen some of the better professors of NUST leaving for ITU. From what I know, these professors were able to set up labs at ITU along with the funding to afford multiple research assistants, which goes to show the value ITU places at research.

This is what is mostly missing from NUST. Teachers are so caught up with menial work such as marking quizzes and assignments that there’s no time left for research. NUST mostly serves as a temporary resting place for most faculty members as I haven’t seen any good teacher stick around for more than a few years. You could easily guess what could be the reason for this. Having spent nearly 5 years at NUST, I see so many problems but I’d rather not write about them here. The only thing working for NUST, I believe, is its stellar reputation. As it is difficult to get into NUST, it is rated very highly and it instantly gives you some bragging rights. This reputation sometimes also materializes into internships abroad for the very top students. As for other universities on your list: I don’t know much about them but if I had to take a guess, the situation is far worse.

Having said that, there is one caveat with ITU: it is still a very young university which is not as well-known as other universities in your list. Consequently, it is usually not on the radar of top high school students. Because of NUST and FAST’s prestige, top students don’t seriously consider ITU. As a result, one’s peer group at NUST would be, on average, better than at ITU. Now you must be thinking what difference could it make? Well, imagine you are a faculty member at ITU. If your students are not that good to understand what you want to teach them, you might be forced to water-down the course contents. So if you are one of those top students, you might not find the courses as rigorous as you’d want them to be. Also, strong peer group motivates you to push yourself to learn more. I should make it clear that I’m making assumptions here and If I were you, I’d visit ITU and ask their professors if this is indeed the case.

There’s one more thing to consider: job prospects and industry linkages. If you are studying computer science, university doesn’t even matter, but only what you learn. Computer science is booming and there are more jobs than competent programmers out there. At this point, I’d advise you to select a university where you feel you’d learn more. I feel it is ITU.

To conclude, if you are one of those people who care about the reputation of the university you’re going to, then by all means come over to NUST. If you are interested solely in learning, you should consider ITU and see how it stacks up against other universities by talking to ITU’s students and professors. If you are tempted to pick ITU over NUST after reading this, I should warn you that I haven’t been to ITU and I am only writing what I have seen as an outside observer.

Note: OP didn’t put LUMS as an option, otherwise that would have been my go to school.

Feel free to ask any follow-up questions. Good luck!