There can often be some flexibility in what CS and CE contain, and some schools just call the major CSE (computer science and engineering). EE can include topics not normally considered CE, such as electric power systems, signals and communications, etc., although someone designing such things will certainly include computers in them.
Interestingly, colleagues and HS friends who were mainly/solely interested in the design/implementation of software, computer programming, and examining the foundational mathematical theories used in those areas tended to avoid most CE programs or CS programs in engineering division due to greater emphasis on studying Electrical Engineering topics they felt weren’t relevant to what they wanted to pursue.
On the flipside, those who leaned more towards an interest in EE related topics or at least open to exploring it gravitated to CE programs/CS programs in engineering division.
This split also seemed to go back to a period before there were CS departments. For instance, some of the older CS Profs my friends had received their PhDs in Math or Electrical Engineering in the '60s as CS departments didn’t exist in the vast majority of universities back then.
That CCSC is for smaller colleges- none of the top tier CS schools. The amount of material covered in a CS course can vary a lot. A friend added a CS MS to her PhD in Physical Chemistry and then taught at a below average state school for a bit. She covered more material as a TA in her MS degree program that was quarter system than she was supposed to cover in a semester at the junky U.
Having taken courses at any given U does not mean learning as much as one would at another U in similar level courses. Beating another LAC in a contest does not mean the students would fare well against top tier CS school students.
This student has mediocre credentials for getting into top tier colleges of any kind. He needs to figure out what he wants to do within the realm of computer science and find an education suitable for his abilities and interests.
Yes, I think this is the crux of the issue.
@matadon – I think that applications->theory is the correct approach. When I look at the latest OS software (iOS and Android), it’s painfully obvious that the current CS approach is terribly lacking. Android is particularly bad. Look at the hoops you have to jump through to deal with portrait vs. landscape mode … which is simply a change in the aspect ratio of the “window” you’re using (the GPU can deal with the rotation if necessary). Want to use a TextBox with an unknown number of lines of text? Sorry, you’re limited by the texture size of the GPU on the device (on both iOS and Android)!
I think a kid with “lower credentials” could do at least as good of a job as that, maybe better.
follow above advice!