StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I figured this would be the place to ask this question.

I graduated this year with a two-year associate of arts degree from a local community college. I plan to transfer to a four-year university this fall (I've already been accepted into one and the other is practically a shoe-in if I choose to go there). I would much rather remain at home, so my choices are limited to two local universities:

Washington State University, and Eastern Washington University (WSU and EWU).

Now, in the state of Washington the universities have an arrangement with the community colleges that with an AA degree they simply wave all the GE stuff, so no worrying about what transfers and what doesn't. Quite handy. WSU's campus is located downtown (I live in Spokane), however, the Spokane campus' only computer-related degree is Informatics. I've talked to the director of the program- any student that enters the program is guaranteed to go through the entire thing after they start, even if the program is cancelled, they will see the class until graduation. The program is very new to that school and they haven't had anyone graduate yet (it hasn't been in place long enough), and it is not accredited.

http://www.spokane.wsu.edu/academic/inf ... s/faqs.asp


The other option is Computer Science at Eastern (or, alternatively, Computer Information Systems). Now, there's an incredible amount of overlap between the two, but since the Computer Science degree comes out with a minor in math and physics and I already have all three Calculus classes done, and I see more interesting classes in the degree, I'm looking at that.

Eastern is a 45 minute bus ride away, after a 45 minute drive to the bus stop. So a lot of commute time every day.

http://www.ewu.edu/x15783.xml



Really, I just want to know how much the differences between these various degrees will affect my employability. If I get the Computer Science degree and later find that I don't like sitting around writing code all day long, could I still get a job as a network admin? Database admin?

How about vice versa? Could I get a programming job with the Informatics or CIS degrees if I found I enjoyed it? What is the best option?

While I'm a bit tired of math, I'm not adverse to going the route that requires the most math- I took Calculus I when I was 15, I'm fairly good at mathematics. I've mostly decided on taking Computer Science at Eastern, but I wanted to get the opinions of the people who've been working for decades longer than me before I made any decisions (no, I'm not calling you guys old I'm 18 ).

Thanks for any advice!

A few months ago we interviewed a few people for a software engineering position. Based on those interviews, here's what my boss would probably say:

Informatics? WTF is that? Next!

CIS? Isn't that IT? Why do I want him programming?

CS? Ok, this is what we're looking for, what kind of experience does this guy have?

*I* don't even know what Informatics is, and I've only been out of college three years. There's no way more than a handful of employers are going to know what it is by the time you graduate.

Now employers do know CS and CIS degrees, and they usually know just how different they are. There's no way in hell I'd let a CIS do software engineering, and after the hell my two CS coworkers went through to setup our servers, there's also no way I'd let a CS do IT work. They're two very different jobs, with very different skill sets.

One of my friends has a CIS degree and does IT for a non-profit organization. He's constantly on his feet, answering help calls, gutting machines, repairing and upgrading old servers and trying to figure out how to get new servers. You will be working with a lot of mission critical software in this field, and you will also be dealing with tons of people, consisting mostly of idiots.

Now, as a Software Engineer with a CS degree, I don't sit around and write code all day. My team is constantly working together, creating requirements docs, analyizing those requirements, designing the systems needed to meet those requirements, implementing them (coding), testing them, doing even more documentation on them, and then fixing bugs you missed but your end users didn't. You'll deal with far few assholes here, but if their are assholes in your team, they'll be around you constantly.

My advice, decide what you like doing better: Tinkering with PCsand existing software, or creating software (and possibly hardware), and go for the CIS or CS degree. Avoid Informatics (why does that sound like the Short Bus version of CIS?).

That's my imsonia fueled advice.

Edit: After looking it up, Informatics seems to be a mix of AI, database design and management and user interface design. Medical Databases seem to be the big thing (according to my two minute search), and I'm guessing search engines would use the same techniques. I'd consider to be something to get a Masters in, but not a BA/BS, where'd you probably be better served by a CS degree, which has a much broader job market.