<p>Computers are sort of my thing…and I’m very logical but my concerns:</p>
<li>My school is mainly known for engineering</li>
<li>Size of college of computing has gone down considerably over years and still shrinking (as far as enrollment).</li>
<li>Don’t really want to sit in front of a computer in a cubicle 12 hours a day for a job</li>
<li>Not as marketable as engineering degree?</li>
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<p>Any advice or info appreciated.</p>
<p>It depends on what engineering major you’re in. Most of the jobs computer scientists are good for are also open to electrical and computer (hardware) engineers.</p>
<p>is your schools CS department within the engineering school?</p>
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<p>No</p>
<p>btw im in aerospace eng right now, and school is gatech</p>
<p>Just a thought on what pandem said. EE majors used to be selected for CS jobs much more often in the past then they are now. Computer engineers can get some of the jobs that CS majors can and vice versa. It al depends on what yo want to study. Nobody is going to hire a EE major to do web programming or Systems programming. They would most likely be hired for what they were trained to do, which is low level stuff. Most EE majors take the basic C++ class and then a assembly class. Not really qualification for the majority of jobs.</p>
<p>The only way the EE major is going to get hired over the CS major for a programming job is if they can prove they have superior knowledge. This will usually involve study outside of school because EE’s take maybe two programming classes in their four years. But employers have no problem hiring EE majors to do these jobs. </p>
<p>Since you are an AeroE major the change is a big one. They are completely different majors. Is switching a bad idea? That all depends on if you’d rather do programming than aerospace engineering. I’d say CS is just as marketable as engineering, it is just marketable for different jobs. </p>
<p>Maybe look at your school’s CompE program? or even EE?</p>
<p>Thanks for the assurance.</p>
<p>If I were to do engineering, I’d probably stick with aerospace or might change to mechanical. I’m really interested in computer science though, even though I haven’t taken any classes.</p>
<p>I guess my main concern, and it might have been asked somewhere else, is the difference of experience gain between computer science and engineering. For example, in twenty years won’t computer technology be drastically different, meaning I won’t have as much edge as someone fresh out of college? Compared to engineering, where the fundamentals might stay the same? theoretically</p>
<p>^^ Once you graduate and enter the working world your learning doesn’t stop. In order to do your job in CS you’ll need to constantly be learning new technologies, languages, techniques, etc. The same is true for other branches of engineering. Your college education only prepares you to ‘enter’ the field - i.e. get you a starting position. Twenty years from now you should still be ahead of the new graduates as long as you’ve kept your skill set current. By then you’ll have current skills plus real world experience - something the new grads have little of. Also by then you may have moved into different positions entirely such as management or any of a number of speciality positions.</p>
<p>“For example, in twenty years won’t computer technology be drastically different, meaning I won’t have as much edge as someone fresh out of college? Compared to engineering, where the fundamentals might stay the same? theoretically”</p>
<p>Computer Science programs are typically a combination of theory and practice. The theory endures throughout your career. Practice changes over time with technology.</p>
<p>There’s a book called Readings in Database Systems by Michael Stonebraker (I think that he’s at MIT now) which is a collection of papers going back many decades. This text is still used in advanced database courses and the information used in the papers is still seen in modern commercial databases today.</p>
<p>I consider the fast growth of technology within Computer Science a good thing. It keeps the field from weakening and/or becoming obsolete. Sure, this means that you have to keep up with the times, but at least the entire thing won’t go obsolete or get shipped off-shore to a different continent (ie: textiles).</p>
<p>Consider EE, for instance. Much of the theory in EE is literally decades, if not centuries, old… some say that EE really hasn’t advanced much since the 70s. CS is changing every day. The potential of any one person in making a difference is therefore much greater than in EE. This also means the competition will be tougher… but at least it will be exciting. Just one example of the advantage of CS’ fast growth is the ease with which one can launch a CS related startup.</p>
<p>You go to Ga Tech? A CS degree from GA Tech would be very highly regarded, I can assure you of that. It’s a top program.</p>
<p>There are many CS jobs that involve sitting in a cubicle for long hours, but you’d get the same with most engineering fields. It’s not unique to CS (nor universal within CS).</p>
<p>I’ve heard a drastically different opinion </p>
<p>My dad has a phd in EE, he graduated from Illinois for undergrad, which at the time was the top CS degree. He had a friend who graduated valedictorian in CS, she went to work for IBM after her BS. She, after memorizing all the different data structures, and CS specific whatever, was put in with a bunch of guys who hadn’t even gone to college and had taken like a 6 week programming course, she was really ****ed off. But the truth is anyone can program, I mean I enjoy it, but it’s easy, and it won’t set you apart. If you like computers and have aptitude you should do CE, you can do everything they do, but more, and if you are doing the same job you’ll get payed more. EE and CE are almost identical at many schools, I don’t know about Georgia Tech, the more marketable degree is EE. If I were you I’d switch to EE</p>
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<p>I believe CE is treated as a subarea of EE here. Anyway, supest is absolutely right. A CS degree really is an academic degree and not a practical or job-oriented degree, so don’t be surprised if you can’t do much more than program. If you really want to advance in the computer world, you will need to know high and low level details of computers. In my experience, few CS programs will teach you computers down to the hardware/PCB level.</p>
<p>Also, to the OP: EVERYONE’s college of computing has been shrinking since about 2000. GT still has a very well-regarded CS program; There’s a reason Google’s offices in the South are located a couple blocks away from campus.</p>
<p>
There are many jobs of all types, not just engineering/CS, that involve sitting in cubicles for long hours. I’d say the majority of white collar jobs involve doing so with interruptions for meetings and even some of these are done via concalls from one’s cube. I’m not sure what people imagine they’ll be doing in a white collar position if not working from a cube unless it’s a doctor/lab type of position. I guess people focus on the cube-sitting for engineering positions due to ‘Dilbert’.</p>
<p>Some of the cube sitting is interrupted by traveling depending on the position which breaks things up a bit. Sometimes it can even be too much traveling where one yearns to get back in the cube for a while.</p>
<p>supjest and gthopeful - You’re both incorrect in your statements regarding CS majors so I guess neither of you are in the field.</p>
<p>supjest: If you think a CS major is easy and anyone can do it - you’re very wrong. In fact, CS has one of the highest attrition rates of any major due to the difficulty and rigor of the work. I don’t know what group this CS ‘val’ grad ended up in at IBM but I assure you that very few real SW development groups are filled with HS grads with 6 weeks of programming training. </p>
<p>I don’t know why students who haven’t even graduated from college, or in some cases even HS, would try to advise people on careers. I’m not trying to be condescending - just realistic. Anyone posting on this forum for advice needs to take into account the background and experience of the posters throwing advice at them.</p>
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In my experience (> 30 years) few CS grads will ever ‘need’ to get down to the hardware/PCB level. There are thousands of different areas to be involved in when one enters the real world of development and just a few would involve getting down to the hardware/PCB level.</p>
<p>CS and true CE are two different majors. In many ways they overlap but in many ways they are different. Neither is superior to the other.</p>
<p>they’re definitely different at my school, but I was referring to engineering in general. I don’t have much of an interest in CE.</p>
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<p>I know what the CS curriculum is, but I’ll give you that I’m actually a graduate of ECE rather than CS. When you get down to it, you learn very little skills that can be IMMEDIATELY applied to a job. Of course, the tools given are powerful if you wish to pick up a book on a specific protocol/language/what have you, but you’re not going to waltz into a job with just a CS degree and expect to be able to function well; The true could be said of many engineering jobs as well, where specific training is often required to get you productive. The degree is necessarily structured this way because it is a quickly changing field at the moment (as has been mentioned in this thread), but at the same time this makes it less practical.</p>
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<p>The OP would prefer not to sit at a computer for 12 hours a day. Sounds to me like he wants to work with hardware. Many CS grads SHUDDER at the thought that their perfect programs may not work 100% like it should on paper due to quirks in the hardware. Yes there are many jobs where you simply build software, but if you want to branch out I consider it very important that you know computers from top to bottom, and CS does not do a good job with the latter (However, GT’s CS program is pretty good in this regard).</p>
<p>I have taken CS courses, EE courses, and yes I am still in college, but that is irrelevant as the advice I gave wasn’t coming from me it was coming from a guy who has 30 patents, according to him he knew many people who were dissappointed with there CS degree. </p>
<p>The fact is the jobs that CS guys get except for a small handful who get to Design microarchitectures, is a programming job, a tedious, boring programming job. With electrical engineering you have all that knowhow plus advanced physics, math, solid state, all that crazy fun ****. I have a question for anyone who disagrees with me: If CS had the equivalent prestige why are they payed so much less? Why can EE’s do there jobs? why are there so many EE jobs?</p>
<p>I didn’t say that cs was easy, but it is easier than EE.</p>
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<p>at my school
average salary for EE grad $52,200.00
average salary for CS grad $60,000.00</p>
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<p>I don’t want to work with hardware. I don’t mind working on a computer but I don’t want to be a program monkey.</p>