<p>Odd comment your father made about it being a bad time to be a software engineer. I’m an IT director and just this afternoon our CIO told me he read an article that demand for IT folks (including software engineers) will be high through at least 2020. Obviously once you have some experience your prospects are even better than as a new graduate, but jobs are out there. As usbalumnus commented, as long at your CS program is ABET certified their standards should be sufficient.</p>