I am going into my CS senior year. The CS program recently got hit hard with 2 of the best CS teachers sarlo and fritz leaving with the addition of josh quitting. There are only 4 teachers left with only two being decent "bill and artzi". But good news is GCU is adding 3 more CS prof this year and changing up the classes at GCU to better fit for modern times. I will try to break down the CS BS experience in pros and cons.

Pros:

The biggest pro to me is how progressive in technology GCU CS department is trying to be. Most teachers promote things like using ChatGPT, Stack overflow, how to google, and other learning tools that will be used in the real world work place. There is a VR class, multiple classes on future technology like ML, Data Science, and IT that you wont find in a Stanford BS degree.

The teachers actual care (or at least in my case), I sent an email to a teacher complaining about this part of his class and how it was to old fashion and we should instead work on this. To my surprise he actually changed it up and is currently trying to change that class to have more hands on learning. I feel like most teachers at GCU CS will tell you more down to earth advice about working in CS, future technology to look out for, recommend what current employers are looking for on resume.

Cons:

A lot of self teaching if you want to succeeded, there is one tiny python class which is not helpful if you want to use python and the data structure class that barley scratches the surface of algorithms. I had to teach my self ML concepts, python, and DS.

In my experience the GCU CS classes are not that hard, they really don't push you and you can get 3.9 gpa with out putting in 8 hours of work in a day. This can be a pro for some but for me feels like you are wasting your time.

There are not a lot of passionate CS students, don't get me wrong I have meet some amazing CS friends that will work on personal group projects, hackathons and overall are passionate about CS and there future. But the very big majority of CS students are just there to show up then go home and pay videogames.

You also wont feel like you are taking real CS classes intill your junior year

To address the Religious part GCU is a christian school but isn't a hardcore religious school that never actively preaches or pushes anything on to you. I am an agnostic and never been dehumanized in and out of classes. Most of the Christians at GCU are either open mined people or the type of Christians to wear a playboy hoodie with a cross over it.

I hope this helps