kelvin Wrote:I'm a 3rd year Software Engineering undergrad at San Jose State University.
We have Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Software Engineering majors here. The main reason for the three separate majors is because of the way the departments evolved. Software Engineering is new (two years running so far) and is a joint major offered by the Computer Engineering Department (usually CmpE) with the Computer Science Department (usually CS).

The breakdown:
CS
- lots of math.
- lacks practical application.
- good if you want to do DSP, Audio, AI, Physics, etc.
- good if you want to persue a PhD
CmpE
- lots of engineering support courses (physics, stats, tech, etc)
- lots of low level details
- excellent preparation for work in an engineering field
- weak on math (compared to CS)
- good if you want to build commercial software for a company.
- Masters more likely than PhD
SE
- high emphasis on process
- excellent for Software Engineering management track
- lacks low level details.
- supposed to be a good mix between CS and CmpE

CS and CE can vary largely between universities. Make sure you check out both the CS and CE programs at whichever university you are planning to go to.

I always do this when asked this question, so please excuse the plug: Consider taking a year here in Stockholm. KTH (where I am at the moment) have really kickass educations, and the Swedish government pays the bill and gives you some handicash. You're most welcome.

sorry, I don't speak swedish

I think most people in Sweden can speak Swedish, German, and English, though. (correct me if I'm wrong, though)

Fenris Wrote:I always do this when asked this question, so please excuse the plug: Consider taking a year here in Stockholm. KTH (where I am at the moment) have really kickass educations, and the Swedish government pays the bill and gives you some handicash. You're most welcome.

There is a 99.9% probability that the Swedish government only pays for the education of its citizens, not any old migrant scholar.
Works the same way in just about any civilized country, except America where education = $60 to $80K in debt or deployment to Iraq first which means college might literally cost you an arm and a leg or your life.

Well, then hopp over to Switzerland and apply for the ETH. (http://www.ethz.ch) They have a pretty good CS department and you can take courses in other departments as well (I took some Computer Vision classes with the electrotechnicians.) plus the university is dirt cheap. Living isn't that cheap here though. We're talking less that 2000$ per year for the university. There are also student exchange programs like Erasmus or similar. You should get very easily by with English (some courses are actually held in English) and you get to learn a different country (and a different way of living) as well. So if you can finance it somehow, I'd definitely encourage you to spend a year or so abroad.

And if you'd chose Switzerland you'd be in the very center of Europe, within easy reach of several countries (France, Germany, Italy, and Austria are all only a few hours by train from Zurich (where the ETH is)). The only downside is, that you might run into me

AnotherJake Wrote:Humanities/liberal arts is a complete and utter waste of time and money.

http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archiv...60201.html



(Not to be taken seriously )

Dilbert rocks!

Quote:There is a 99.9% probability that the Swedish government only pays for the education of its citizens, not any old migrant scholar.

On the 0.01%, then. There was a discussion in January on whether or not the government should stop paying for the migrant scholars, but it was struck down. Also, all the exchange student courses are held in English.

I don't know much about the topic, but I found this:

"Foreign students may also receive study assistance if they have been Swedish residents for two years or more and have been granted a permanent residence permit or an EU/EEA permit."

http://www.sweden.se/templates/cs/BasicF..._4153.aspx

This might explain why enrollement in American schools has declined by 1/3 each year, every year since 2001.

I was interrupted while typing up my previous post...
Anyhow, somewhere along the line I forgot what I was talking about and my post ended up as above. Moreover, I actually forgot all the points I was trying to bring up.

Some how one of the points I wanted to make made its way back into my consciousness. So I'm posting again. I wanted to list the schools that have specific programs for creating games. One of which is Digipen. I originally thought of others, but as of right now I still don't remember what they were.

Monitor radiation finally getting to your brain?

One more thing. Make sure you also find out what languages are taught in any classes. I'm old enough to remember Fortran, COBOL, and PL/I. I'd never seen C until a fellow student at a nearby terminal (this was on a VAX btw) started typing alot of squiggley
characters. Aslo PASCAL was very popular. Even did a little LISP.

I got my degree but early in my career, I sat next to a Dance Major! who was programmig. I was really pissed off. Things have gotten alittle tighter beause of
off shoring so you probably wont get to experience that.

Nowdays, I'd stick to C and JAVA followed by C++ and maybe VIsualBasic just as a backup
C will get you started with procedural based languages and Java and C++ for object
oriented. Oh, and try to squeeze in Databases. Anything with SQL and Oracle will look
great on your resume.

Don't need a degree, but that was truer in history when computers were rambing up big time in society.

Also a degree will teach you alot of things that you might miss otherwise. Also, one very important point. Take some classes in Humanities, Arts, or Business. That is
where most of the cute girls are taking class. Don't get me wrong, there are some
beautiful girls in CS, but you've got alot of competition.

I heard great things about Southern Methodist University, seems worth checking out if you don't mind moving to Texas.