Computer Science or Info Tech? 380
An anonymous reader writes "I am currently completing my final year of secondary schooling, and in the next few weeks I need to submit my university (or college to all you Americans) preferences for processing. I've decided that I want a career in the IT industry, but am unsure of whether to apply for a Computer Science course or an Information Technology course. I understand the difference between the two courses (CS being the study of the principles and concepts involved in Computing at a more fundamental, and often more sophisticated level, and IT being a more practical, application based approach to computing), but would like to know from anybody who has studied either or both of the courses what kinds of careers each course would lead into and what would you recommend for someone such as myself, having a broad range of interests and wishing to dabble in everything before deciding where to specialise?"
Plan for Them Both, Take Your Time & Pick One (Score:5, Informative)
If you're planning on doing a two year technical college kind of thing then I recommend you to do otherwise. The auxillary courses that a four year technical college gave me have to a great extent been useful (possibly more so than the technical courses I took).
Assuming you've got a four year college plan, I would recommend you make two separate plans from your college's website. Take the IT path and pick out all your generals & then all your electives (it doesn't have to be accurate, just a rough guess). Then do the same with computer science. I'll bet you'll see that a lot of general electives overlap so take mostly those your first semester. While you're there, I think you'll be exposed to more students in the same and other realms. How do you so easily discount electrical engineering when IT & computer science are your obvious choices?
In America, there would be absolutely nothing wrong with changing from one to the other in the middle of your college career. It might mean more work but that's better than a lifetime of regret. In fact, it's almost expected you change your mind five or six times in college where I went to school. Sure, it'd take people five or six years to graduate but it's their choice.
I would recommend you do the above for not only IT & CSci but also EE & Computer Engineering (kind of a cross between CSci & EE). In my undergrad, I took CSci, Math & Music Theory courses to a heavy extent. I finished one class away from a math minor and one class away from a music minor. I'm really happy that I was able to take those diverse courses that were often a refreshing break from Computer Science. But, in the end, I almost wish I had committed to the Computer Engineering course even though it would have edged out the extra math and music I took because it is such a demanding program.
In the end, there's jobs in both these fields. I can't argue for one over the other because I don't like IT/Business people. Why do I hate them? Because I don't think they really care about anything other than money and they're often performing trivial jobs
My vote: CS (Score:4, Informative)
I hold a BA in Computer Science, and would highly recommend its study. The principles you learn are not solely relegated to computer science -- at least, not most of them. I've been able to successfully apply them to the fields of physics and mathematics in college, and continued to do so to problems in my research in the fields of nuclear engineering and fusion energy science today. It certainly has aided my job as a scientist -- a position you may not have considered relevant to CS/IT. Keep it in mind, we always need more bright people! :)
That said, I'm a bit of a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to IT. It certainly is helpful to be able to solve a problem with the tools at hand. IT problems tend to be a bit more lucrative to solve (or solve more efficiently than those who came before you).
If you plan on being a creative problem-solver in your chosen line of work, seriously consider the perspective a CS background can offer. In my mind, that gives you the ability to pick up whatever the latest nifty tools/utilities that help you solve your day-to-day problems.
Re:Plan for Them Both, Take Your Time & Pick O (Score:1, Informative)
Anyway, I did both IT and EE and it worked out great. I got a 2 year degree in CIS (Computer Information Systems) and went right on and completed a 4 year in Electrical Engineering. What has this done for me? Made me have a lot of opportunites and not be locked into one field. One day I'm writing C code and working on embedded projects and the next I'm setting up a Linux server and creating a MySQL database. Never boring and monotonous
Get a 4 year for sure. Don't do EE unless you like Math and/or pain as it has lots of both. Personally everyone I know looks much more highly on a guy who went through EE than a CS guy. All the EE guys who take CS classes can't believe how easy they are
Plus if you go EE you can do IT, you can be a code monkey (CS) and you can do EE stuff. Can't do that with a IT or CS degree.
Hey, you can't spell geek without EE man.
Re:CS vs IT (Score:5, Informative)
At the end of the day, CS writes the big applications, but you only write a couple at a time. IT/IS writes glue -- they take every service they need to run and make it run together - various directory services, authentication engines, web services, etc, etc..
Ask yourself, ultimately, do you want to write code that others rely on, or do you want to make a programmers code work the way it's supposed to?
CS for me (Score:1, Informative)
I'm not trying to rag on IT guys, of course. I appreciate all of the stuff they do. I've been in situations where I've had to do the network and server admin, and it kept me from being able to program. IT guys are welcome to the day-to-day issues of keeping things running - I'd much rather be doing the creative work.
If I had to do it again.... (Score:4, Informative)
I would go for accounting and a minor in computers....
First, all anyone cares about 3+ years down the road is you have a degree in something more technical than basket weaving. I have worked with computers my entire career and have a technical degree but it is not Comp-Sci. When the new manager finds out what the degree is, I get no problems as it is a harder degree to get that Comp-Sci.
Second, by having a degree in something other than computers gives you a business advantage. Say you had accounting, then configuring SAP or some other ERP system and understanding a credit and debit, journal entries etc. will all be simple to you.
One good thing about college/universities is they teach you how to learn... using that you can self learn any I/T skill you will need. In fact, a C/S degree does not adequately prepare people technically anyway, and many with a C/S come into the work force thinking they are prepared when they are not. They soon realize that technical skills development is a life long endeavor in this I/T business.
The other advantage is if you don't like it you have a second career path... I/T is not for everyone. And if you have the smarts to be really good technically in I/T, getting a degree leading to a CA should not be hard at all.
Re:Plan for Them Both, Take Your Time & Pick O (Score:3, Informative)
There is a significant difference in the content and structure of the courses arising from this. A US degree intends to provide a general education focussing in a specific area. A UK degree aims to provide a specialised education. In the US, a student is offered a place at a university (typically sponsored by a specific department) and can graduate with any degree they meet the requirements for. In the UK, a candidate is offered a place on a specific course. It's often possible to transfer to other courses taught by the same department (between masters and bachelors degrees, for example, since these often have the first year or two in common), but it is generally very hard to transfer between unrelated degrees (it basically involves dropping out and starting again).
With this clarified, I'd offer the following advice:
An IT degree is likely to be a vocational course, while a CompSci degree will be an academic degree. This doesn't always hold, however. A CompSci degree from a former polytechnic is likely to be a more vocational course trying to pretend it's CompSci, and is also likely to be less valuable than a real vocational course from the same university. If you want a vocational qualification, then go for IT, but get it from a university with a good reputation for vocational degrees; irrespective of what you do, a good vocational degree is likely to be more valuable than a poor academic one. Generally academic degrees give you more flexibility, while vocational ones will give you an advantage getting your first job in the field. If you are completely sure you want to be a programmer, then you should probably look for a Software Engineering degree, rather than IT. If you want a more SysAdmin type job then go for IT. If you aren't completely sure what you want (and, remember, you have to be sure you won't change your mind in three years), then go for CompSci, and keep your options more open.
Re:My vote: CS (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I would avoid IT (Score:3, Informative)
I would agree, based on a general principle. As a young person, when in doubt, take the harder path. The harder degree opens more doors, and when you are young, opening doors is why you are getting your quals, even when you don't know what you want to do exactly. As other posters in this thread have stated, there is no job for which an IT degree qualifies you that a CS degree does not qualify you better. Go for the CS degree. A little bit of a side note: like the person I am responding to stated, some CS degrees are now programming degrees. Some are more mathy and theoretical. If you believe that you can tolerate the math and theory, go for it. If not, either pick a software engineering major or make sure the CS degree you are going for is in line with your plans for four-to-five years of your life.
The IT degree is meaningless. I can only see a couple of valid reasons to get an IT degree. 1) you believe you can't cut the harder degree, or 2) you are doing something like an IT-MBA combo or IT-law combo (such as for intellectual property attorney), where the IT is more a quick way to become generally aware of but not particularly strong in technology.
C//
Re:If I had to do it again.... (Score:3, Informative)
From a US guy's point of view... (Score:3, Informative)
At the University of Oklahoma (and at most universities in the USA), universities break up into Colleges by discipline grouping, and each College generally has an associated "quality" level. At the University of Oklahoma, and at most US institutions, this perceived quality level breaks down as follows:
Tier I:
Engineering
Medical
Law
Tier II:
Business
Science
Tier III:
Liberal Arts
Tier IV:
Education
Depending on the University in question, individual programs within the various tiers may move up or down a level. The University of Texas, for example, has an outstanding Computer Science curriculum that is organized under the "Science" banner, but it is without a doubt a Tier I program, UC Berkley's Chemistry program is Tier I, etc. And I'm sure there are universities with absolutely terrible engineering programs that might be better off as falling under Tier II. But that said, in general, the discipline groupings break down as above.
At the University of Oklahoma, the Computer Science department falls under the umbrella of the College of Engineering. They have to take all the calculus the engineers do, one of the two engineering physics undergrad classes, and an additional hard science chemistry class. (ie, they swap out Eng Phys II for Chem II). The Computer Science curriculum is considered by most folks in the College of Engineering to be a tier II engineering curriculum, which is to say that it's considered to be an average program in the College of Engineering (... but because engineering falls into Tier I, it's still a Tier I program...)
Now to the point:
At the University of Oklahoma, our "IT" degree is known as Management Information Systems (MIS). It falls under the business college. It's like this at most universities in the USA. At most universities in the USA, it also happens to fall on the lowest rung of the business college; it's the very lowest tier. At the top are accounting, finance and economics, then everyone else, then at the very bottom is MIS. It's bad when even the marketing majors have more to be proud of.
MIS is where all the kids who tried and failed at CS end up. MIS is where a lot of the kids who tried and failed at accounting, finance and economics end up. MIS is where the dregs go. It is at the bottom of the barrel. Most of the time, the MIS programs are so bad that they fall out of Tier II (as above) directly into Tier III or IV.
Now, this is not to say that everyone who is in MIS is a low quality churl. But because it's where the low quality churls end up, you will often find that it's what's expected of MIS majors. Many people, myself included, have zero respect for MIS degrees.
I guess IT could be different in Britain, but I doubt it.
I would recommend going for either an engineering degree or a computer science degree, and if you really want business exposure, take some business classes as electives or pursue an MBA style graduate degree.
And as another piece of advice: If you haven't already, become skilled at public speaking; take some classes if you need to. There are many, many sins that can be made up for when you have the ability to give a good presentation.