Why Linux?
Linux(and Unix) is everything an OS should be and the more and more familiar you get with it the more you'll get "sucked in." There is no doubt a steep learning curve at first, (I would recommend http://linuxcommand.org/learning_the_shell.php to get started) but getting a user-friendly distro like Ubuntu or Mint running is even easier than installing Windows (since there is less bloated crapware you don't need), and will run much faster. Windows 8 is like turning your PC into a tablet, and I can guarantee after a few years as a Comp Sci major you will hate it if you don't already.
There is nothing you can access in Windows that you can't in Linux. Compilers? You'll most likely be taking classes in C and C++ which Linux is based on (and one of the reasons C, a language written in early 1970s, is still so popular), Java isn't an issue as Eclipse (arguably the most popular Java IDE) is available on Linux as well as compilers for almost any language you'll be using (Python, LISP, Perl, etc.. avoid any Visual Basic classes if you can it will teach you bad habits early on) Not only that, but once you have a grasp on these languages you can actually write small programs and implement them much easier than in Windows. If there is something that runs in Windows you absolutely NEED for school you can install Wine, a sort of Windows VM, to run the software although Linux' open-source equivalents are almost always more lightweight, less buggy, and just better all around. LibreOffice will replace your MS Office products and allow you to save in the same formats (.doc, .xls, etc.), save you the $100 Microsoft would charge, and (in my opinion) boots up and run much faster. You'll also have 'street cred' with the other comp sci geeks (I say that in a loving sense) who have been programming since they were 10. Your computer knowledge will grow exponentially and can be applied to many aspects of design and development (as much as they like to cover it up, Windows still runs on a kernel and borrowed a lot of Windows NT ideas from MacOS and OS X who in turn borrowed ideas from Unix/Linux) You'll learn to love the CLI, which if you want to be a programmer or even a system admin you will be seeing A LOT of. For every fancy, graphical GUI application you use, there was some guy staring at a black screen with a blinking cursor writing the code that created that interface and the more you use the CLI the more you'll find it more flexible and efficient than a GUI believe it or not. I run Arch Linux on my home laptop and I only use the GUI for conky to display system info, any file moving or executing and upgrades/installations can be more easily on the command line than a GUI. (it still drives me crazy Windows 7 makes MOVING a file so difficult. I can copy a file but I cant move it? Wtf.) Want to move all your GIF images to another folder? 'mv *.gif ~/pictures/mygifs' will do what would take a GUI a lot of clicking, selecting, and dragging to accomplish.
Professional Life:
If after college you want to go into the tech industry (which I'm assuming you do) you WILL be working with Linux and/or Unix systems without a doubt. Inexperienced PC/Mac users will laugh at Linux as being a dead OS or only for super-geeks, yet most are ignorantly oblivious that they interact with Linux (albeit indirectly) everyday on their smartphones, online through Google or Facebook (which uses LAMP front-end, Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), even OS X is Linux-based and opening a terminal on a Mac will throw you into a bash shell. I work at a large corporate software company (not Oracle, but one of their biggest competitors) as tech support for their RDBMS (relational database management system) software and I can honestly say 70% of our customers run their enterprise servers on Linux, the remaining 20% run on some proprietary version of Unix (AIX or HPUX) and maybe 10% or so run on Windows. These are big companies too, hospitals multinational banks, Hollywood movie studios, huge financial firms, etc. Learning the shell and how to work and troubleshoot a Linux system will be invaluable on a resume and in almost any tech job you wish to pursue.
Alternatives:
If you're still intent on keeping Windows 8 there are some other alternatives you at least get a feel for Linux and it honestly may be a good way to start. Oracle's Virtual Box will let you run a virtual version of Linux on your Windows OS. Its not quite as fast since it is a VM, but it will let you play around with a Linux distribution without having to worry about destroying your files/applications.
Another great option is Cygwin. It might be tricky to first install for a new user since you need to choose each package you want individually, but do a Google search on a basic Cygwin environment and once you get more experience you can always add or remove packages as you find what you need or don't need.
Here are a few cool links for more reading if you're interested:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
-The Hacker Manifesto, one of the 'holy scriptures' of the open-source and hacker community. A must-read for any would-be programmer.
http://bash.cyberciti.biz/guide/Main_Page &
http://linuxcommand.org/learning_the_shell.php
-Shell Scripting and Shell Tutorials, if you do make the Linux conversion, learning to script in the shell can be extremely helpful and allows for the flexibility to create scripts to make your life easier. Windows doesn't have a program to easily do what you want? In Linux you can create your own. Throw it in your /bin directory and you can access it anywhere on your computer.