better software engineering education!

It depends on the course. I'd also suggest that it's not that important. When you've finished a bachelor's, will you learn more about software engineering spending another year in academia or spending a year in industry? If you're comparing those two choices, you should consider the opportunity cost of spending time doing the master's degree as well as the benefits. It's a matter of opinion.

o.k. well, a year of experience is more important than a year of more school,but I really just want to make sure that I get a job. So the question I guess should be what looks better on a resume?

A project completed from start to end looks best on a resume. I was blessed in college with a software engineering course that required me to complete a corresponding document for every phase of development during a semester long project. Now, when I walk into a job interview, I have a professional looking, 300 page book that I can give to them and say "here, look what I did for a class." If you're looking for entry level jobs, it impresses the hell out of people because most entry level people wouldn't know a specification document if it punched them in the face. Try to look for a class that will give you a similar deliverable, or else make one on your own next time to start up a project from scratch. All that "documentation" stuff people love to complain about is actually quite useful.

If you're a practical person you should take as many software engineering courses as you can. Computer science classes tend to go way too theoretical and the professors usually aren't competent programmers (thus they won't have you program much).

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Original post by joeyg2477 o.k. well, a year of experience is more important than a year of more school,but I really just want to make sure that I get a job. So the question I guess should be what looks better on a resume?

Depends on where you want to work.

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Original post by cwhite A project completed from start to end looks best on a resume. I was blessed in college with a software engineering course that required me to complete a corresponding document for every phase of development during a semester long project. Now, when I walk into a job interview, I have a professional looking, 300 page book that I can give to them and say "here, look what I did for a class." If you're looking for entry level jobs, it impresses the hell out of people because most entry level people wouldn't know a specification document if it punched them in the face. Try to look for a class that will give you a similar deliverable, or else make one on your own next time to start up a project from scratch. All that "documentation" stuff people love to complain about is actually quite useful.

300 pages of docs for how many pages of code?

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Original post by Magmai Kai Holmlor Quote: Original post by cwhite A project completed from start to end looks best on a resume. I was blessed in college with a software engineering course that required me to complete a corresponding document for every phase of development during a semester long project. Now, when I walk into a job interview, I have a professional looking, 300 page book that I can give to them and say "here, look what I did for a class." If you're looking for entry level jobs, it impresses the hell out of people because most entry level people wouldn't know a specification document if it punched them in the face. Try to look for a class that will give you a similar deliverable, or else make one on your own next time to start up a project from scratch. All that "documentation" stuff people love to complain about is actually quite useful. 300 pages of docs for how many pages of code?

It was approximately 10,000 lines of C#. I didn't get an exact count, I know for sure it exceeded 6,000 lines, and I doubt it was over 12,000. We had a group of 4, but one slacked, and another lacked even basic competence. I suppose the real world is similar.

A lot of the documentation consisted of weekly management reports, but we had a 60 page specification, a 30 page design document, and substantial documents on testing results and inspections.

To me what looks best on a resume is work done on an internship. I have a BS in Computer Engineering with one year of internship during my college and was hired by and avionics company for software work before I even graduated.

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Original post by cwhite We had a group of 4, but one slacked, and another lacked even basic competence. I suppose the real world is similar.

In the real world you're more likely to encounter ego clashes than basic incompetence.

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Original post by cwhite A lot of the documentation consisted of weekly management reports, but we had a 60 page specification, a 30 page design document, and substantial documents on testing results and inspections.

If you're managing to convince people to hire you because you wrote a 300 page design document for a 285 page program (10k lines of code divided by roughly 35 lines per page) you'd probably do very well in sales or marketing.

My advice: do not go for computer science or software engineering. Both of these degrees are worth next to nothing. The reason is these degrees are worthless in real life. Here's why. Nobody figured out how to teach software engineering in a university yet. If they claim they do, they're lying. Computer science... well... it's just a cheap rip off of mathematics. It won't teach you how to code, and it won't be as good for your mind as math. So when you go into the real world, you'll be screwed.

My advice: learn to code on your own. Spent at least three-four hours every day. Attempt to contribute to some open source groups. Join some virtual teams. Make as many mistakes as you can, and learn from them. Read, read, read and code, code, code. As for the degree, I'd either go for a real degree like math or physics (if you're up for it) or a very liberal degree like history, philosophy or theater. I've done four years of CS and have nothing to show for it. I have a great job now (thanks to my own studies, university didn't do a damn thing for me) and I wish I would have picked a degree that's I would consider fun. Take antropology and go to an exotic island for a semester as a part of the school project. Do something like that. CS won't help you get a job and you'll end up regretting wasting four years on it.

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Original post by CoffeeMug CS won't help you get a job and you'll end up regretting wasting four years on it.

I don't think that's true. The primary purpose of getting a degree is to prove that you are academically capable. Just about any degree you'd care to name will fulfil that role. I'd agree that you won't learn all you'd like/need to about writing software from any degree, but I don't think that's a good reason not to do it.

There are two main important aspects to your degree choice:

• You are interested in the subject and will be able to prove yourself academically capable


• Your potential employer(s) will think it's relevant

Mathematics and physics are both fine choices for academic study. Employers in the software industry are likely to find them relevant. History and anthropology are less likely to be seen as relevant, and I'd suggest that they're poor choices if you know that software engineering is what you want to do professionally. If what you're really interested in is computer science then I would suggest that you study computer science.

Like some other posters here, though, I think it's probably a good idea if you still write some code in your free time. That shouldn't be a problem because after all, it is interesting, right?

You get out of life what you put into it. Same goes for college. If somebody's degree is worthless, they have nobody to blame but themselves. Any decent college will offer a myriad of opportunities to study outside the classroom, either through independent study, independent research, or group research. It is invaluable to take advantage of these opportunities. You will only regret how you spend the four years of college if you waste them.

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Original post by joeyg2477 which would be better if i wanted to get the best education for se 1) a cs and se combo degree 2)a cs with a minor in se and a masters in cs emphasizing on se thanks for all that reply

I think this is an important topic as we start wrapping up an academic year so I'm raising it from the grave.

I've interviewed lots of people for lots of projects. In all cases I had only two criteria in my mind. 1) Can this person do the job, and 2) Is this person going to be a pain in the ass to work with? In most cases I expected a candidate to pass both tests.

Here's where education fits in. A person with an impressive degree and no experience can provide some indication for #1 but nothing for #2. Because he has no work experience and no legitimate references. With no experience he may not even know himself whether or not he works well with others. When I posted job ads and said I wanted X years of experience that was the main reason. So I would have reliable references to work with. It had nothing to do with skills because I can figure that out in the interview.

On the other hand, a person with no college education but with a number of years of solid development experience usually stood a better chance. It displayed some modicum of personal ambition and work ethic and of course a few references. But there would usually be some noticable deficits in the person's skill set because the variety of technology in a given commercial setting is very small compared to what is available in academia. They tended to be very competent with a handful of technologies but lacked a broader exposure that made them a little less useful. In that sense their capacity for broadening their knowledge was unproven, unlike a guy with an impressive degree.

So to answer your question, frankly neither of the options you presented would weigh any heavier in my mind than the other. With one undergrad degree you've already proven certain important qualities about yourself. An additional undergrad degree would not only be insignificant to me but might raise a red flag -- why are you avoiding the working world? In my opinion, if you're really interested in making yourself marketable you now need to go out and get some work experience under your belt. Four years with a decent software vendor is a good start, but no more than three seperate employers. If you bounce around a lot I'm not going to take you seriously, unless you can convince me they were to progressively more challenging positions.

By the way, some of the best developers I've worked with did not have science degrees. I have a friend who majored in English Lit who is the finest coder I know. Attitude, drive and commitment to the craft count for a whole lot.

"By the way, some of the best developers I've worked with did not have science degrees. I have a friend who majored in English Lit who is the finest coder I know. Attitude, drive and commitment to the craft count for a whole lot."

Agreed wholeheartedly

(11 plus failed)

I kind of agree, my CS degree was a serious waste of time, the Math one is the degree that get's me jobs and higher salaries. If I went back again I think I'd take one of the computer engineering degrees that are hybrid CS/EE along with a second major in math or physics.

But if you enjoyed the documentation aspect of the project, stick with SE and look for a very big company to work for. They'll have the rigurous process and communication problems that require extensive internal documentation.

In my experience, a degree isn't really a huge (although I do think it helps) assistance in doing your job in the industry. HOWEVER--if you are entry level with no experience (and nothing concrete that you can say you have done)--one of the best things you can have is a CS (or other) bachelors degree. The first thing most of the employers in my area ask is "Do you have a college degree?" (sometimes asking specifically for a BS or BS+CS, etc.) The smaller employers don't care as much, but in my area at least they are much harder to come by.

For *getting a job* a BS in Computer Science or any other computer related degree is NOT worthless. I've seen many job requirements out there saying "BS in Computer Science REQUIRED." Sometimes mentioning a few other computer related degrees as well, and sometimes mentioning industry experience, but not always.