[laxx]

It all depends on what you plan to do. They dont outsource programming at a hedge fund company, so if that's your goal, there's plenty of money there.

 

[Elec]

You really have to go with what you enjoy. I personally have a CS degree and spend most of my time at work coding, writing algorithms, doing problem-solving in my head or on paper, and testing. There are lots of ways you can specialize in CS, either in school or the workplace. My specialty these days is network security, specifically network programming and applications. But there's also wireless, the more IT side of physical networking/management, databases, web programming and applications (which seems to be a really hot area lately), system-level programming (OS, file systems, drivers, etc.), generic application-level programming, embedded systems development, and all kinds of smaller fields.

IN THEORY a good Comp. Sci. degree should give you the fundamentals to understand and operate in any aspect of computing, down to the hardware level (though you may not understand the analog nature, you should be able to handle bits on a wire, what an ALU does, logic gates, etc.). Some schools now have CS degrees where they teach you how to be a Java or .NET programmer and that's it, and I'd avoid that like the plague. Yeah you'll get a job and make ok money, but you'll be so specialized you won't be able to do anything else.

As far as money, you'll probably never become rich as a developer unless you invent something or start your own company. Starting average pay right now is probably 50-60k, mid-career pay around 100k, and end of career at maybe 150 or better, depending entirely on your qualifications, part of the country, company, job role. You can always go into technical management eventually where you're likely to make more but be farther from the hands-on technical stuff. A bigger concern should probably be getting a foothold in the industry and then having some job stability over the course of a career. It can be tough to get hired in the first place and outsourcing/offshoring is always a threat, but if you manage it, the money's not bad.

I work with some CEs and even EEs who are doing very Comp. Sci. like stuff, mainly programming and VHDL. There's a lot of overlap, it's just the "core" focus of the degrees is different.

 

[no1likesme]

to answer your question bluntly yes CS is worth doing.

You could also consider double majoring in computer science and computer engineering. At my University there are only like 5-10 classes that differ between the two majors so you would be an extra year but it gives you more flexibility for possible careers.

 

[arnesto]

I work as a computer programmer. I'm do primarily web programming.

Offshoring. My company decided to start offshoring about 3 years ago. All the big projects are sent to India now. My role has changed from developer to system analyst. I still have a developer title, but I primarily write technical documents for the offshore group. I also troubleshoot their buggy code, because they don't always understand the business side. I know recently developers salaries in India have been going up 15% yearly. In the U.S., developer salaries are going up 3% yearly. Eventually, the pay in India will catch up and it won't be profitable for companies to send programming jobs overseas. Maybe they'll start offshoring to China. Who knows, but they'll always need an onshore presence to support the offshore group.

Lastly, programming jobs generally do pay better that other office jobs. I would say 20k more that a comparably experienced accountant. One of the reasons companies offshore is not only is it cheaper, but we don't have enough people here in the U.S. that want to do this type of work. So I think there will be always be a job market for CS majors, but because you are now competing with a U.S. and offshore job market, the salary for programmers will be less in the future.

 

[cconroy]

I'm a computer science major at Maryland. If you want to talk to me privately about being a CS major at UMD or any questions about the school in general, shoot me an email at cconroy [at] gmail

Now for the decision: It will depend somewhat on the school you go to. You may find that either the EE or the CS departments have better profs than the others. I've known CE kids to switch into either major (EE or CS) with minimal difficulty. Here at UMD, the CE course track for the first couple of years is equivalent to CS +some engineering/physics course work.

If you are really interested in things like computer architecture, building circuits, etc but still really like to code, then CE sounds like a good fit. Depending on the school, it's also probably a happy medium between CS and EE.

 

[mjg]

i just graduted last may with my CS and applied math major.Computer Science degree is a good path for being a programmer, though actually so is CE... Yet in essence, computer science is really supposed to be a background in the techniques to automate things using computers and math (thats one way of looking at it i guess). what it boils down to, is what do you want to focus on more? CE is very low level, and to most developers learning how micro processors work is irrelevant. Then again, to most computer engineers, understanding the power of higher level languages, operatings systems, etc is irrelevant as well...They overlap a bit, but once you move to the higher level sections in each major you specialize alot more.

 

[dan1son]

I have a bachelors in CS and another in Math. I'm only about 2 years out of school and am currently working as a Software Developer on an enterprise management platform based on a Linux Server running our custom C and Java code. We also have a couple of Java GUI applications we maintain to control our server and another product we work on. It's fairly entertaining work. We do things no one else in our market does so problem solving and algorithm work is top notch. The pay is quite nice as well.

Since we also make custom Linux kernels and modules for our embedded Linux devices we have a number of EE and CE majors on site as well. The CE is essentially EE and CS put together. They do most of our firmware and kernel work. The EE people do board designs, chip designs, and the like.

It's not impossible to go from a more CS role to a CE role once you get into the real world if you get a chance to work in the deeper inner workings of operating systems and embedded software design. The biggest problem with that is, as already mentioned, some schools consider CS degrees to be only Java and .Net and will not emphasize assembly, logic, and hardware designs as much.

It kind of goes from EE to CE to CS as far as the development process. EE is the lowest levels of design and CS is the highest (farthest away from the processor, memory, I/O, buses, etc...). I would also argue it goes in the same order of difficulty. However really good CS people are as hard to come by and as expensive as really good EE or CE people.

 

[hawky]

computer engineering here. in a nutshell, if you REALLY like programming get a CS but if you'd rather do some circuit designs, and some software implementation, etc, then CE is the way to go.