Thread: Computer Science / Sofware Engineering

Okay, a few unis in my state offer a "Computer Science / Sofware Engineering" double degree with a duration of 5 years full-time.

Is that not pointless? I'm doing straight Software Engineering (4 years) and I can exit as "B. Computer Science" or "B. Sofware Engineering" without doing any extra units -- as most if not all core CS units are done in SE.

So my question is, what's the point that particular double degree!?! Is that something employers would go for, say a CS/SE double degree grad over a SE grad? It's just that I'm failing to see the benefit -- perhaps some of you who have jobs in the "industry" can shed some light :-). BTW, my uni doesn't offer the double degree*, and CS is 3 years, SE is 4 years. But you could do CS and the other SE core units you didn't do (as electives) as postgrad then graduate as SE after applying for previous credit.

And no this isn't a CS > SE or SE > CS debate. I'm sure we all know the answer to that one anyway...

Zac

I am a recent computer science graduate. To be honest that doesn’t matter when you apply for the job. Here, in this country people seem to like degrade the computer studies student, just because that they don’t have like core modules. All 5 modules are like options. But they do get the jobs!

When I was applying for jobs, no employer were like bothered about what grade I achieved in the uni, but instead they where all bothered about my previous work experience, which I gained from the placement year which was part of my course at university.

And they where also more focused on my final year project, and I had been hardly asked question on the modules which I took and the course which I was engaged, at the university.

But yeah some employers do look at the courses and stuff. What I would say, those details are like more seen from the HR point of view. That is, when you apply for any job, the CV’s gets filtered out by normally by the recruitment agencies or by the HR. It’s them who actually look through all these courses details. But to be honest not all. They look at your skills and the work experience mainly. By the time the CV reaches the manager most the CV are filters out.

ssharish

I remember reading an interview by Bjarne Stroustrup in which he said a minimum of six years is necessary for a CS graduate. Unfortunately i can't find that link now.Anyway I agree with ssharish.
Whatever may be the grade, experience and skill apparently seems to be more attractive from an employer's perspective.

Hmm thanks, so in other words it is rather pointless if there's no work experience involved. Not to worry! I'm in the process of getting a scholarship that places me in industry for a semester.

The company I work for do hire newgrads into a special "freshstart" program, where they get to learn about our way of working and what the company does. Many LARGE companies do this. Smaller companies prefer some other company to do this "introduction to real code" work - as you are probably aware, there is a significant difference between school projects - even PhD dissitations or final year project rarely go much beyond 10000 lines of code if it is something written from scratch. I calculated a few days ago, that there is 30 MB of source code only in my groups code-base - ok, so that includes a few duplicated functionality modules and a lot of test-code. But even "actual production code" is in the many megabytes for just the section I work with. Other groups in the company work on the same product, but in other areas, and also have megabytes of code.

Working in larger groups where everyone isn't aware of what everyone else does, source control systems, bug database, project planning, processes for submitting code to the main codeline, and many other things become very important when you work on a large chunk of code. Forgetting to submit a header file to your local source-control database isn't going to cause a big problem. Forgetting to submit your new or changed header-file that is part of the daily/nightly build and that will form the basis for submitting to the main codeline will probably make one or another project manager tell you off a bit (particularly if you have another project that is about to submit it's code to the main codeline too - so you are not just wrecking the plans for YOUR project, but also someone elses project).

So, if you have experience in working for a larger company, then you will be more attractive particularly to small to medium companies that can not afford hiring some newgrad that won't produce anything useful for several weeks if not months after first paying day. Even after lots of experience in various areas, it took me about 3 weeks before I got anything more meaningful than some "beginners exercises" done when I started for work at my current employer.

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Mats

My school had a Comp Sci/Math double major option with no significant extra work required... just swap out two of the "easier" math courses with some slightly more difficult ones and you're done!

Yeah same for my uni, I only did one of the extra (of 2) math units only so no math major for me. It's probability's fault, I can't stand that stuff!

At my Uni Computer Engineers are as rare as anything...

The only way to do Computer Engineering is to get invited from a CS or SE stream, there is no way to enter straight out of school. Because of this, they usually get the chicks. Well, there's only one doing SE in my year but they can have her!