So I declined the engineering offer from UWO and picked up Comp sci (same place) but lately i've observed things like these:

-Some recent Computer science graduates that i meet all have good jobs though they aren't programming related.
-Engineering enrollments are apparently slowly dropping it's, I think, mostly because the tough nature of programme. job outlook is strong as ever.

My question for Eng/Science students...how are the math, physics, chemistry courses in the first year?

What do you think about combination of Science and Business or economics majors, will it broaden the job compatibility?

To summarize, i'm unsure about careers in computer science and actually surviving engineering.

I was in engineering first year, and I just switched into comp sci. First year Science and Engineering, in my experience, are pretty much just a recap of gr 12 with maybe a couple of new concepts. If you understood everything in highschool it shouldn't be a problem, especially with courses like chem...i didn't learn much but i think the profs know this and made the exams/midterms kindof tricky.

Comp sci jobs aren't that bad nowadays, if you do some research you'll find that avg salaries are close to that of electrical/comp engineering grads, and grads are usually competing for similar if not the same jobs upon graduation. I guess the only difference is that your not a certified as a professional engineer and cant sign stuff, but its not like your building a bridge so im not sure how often that happens. But again as you said, many including myself, dont want a job related to computer science or programming. And there are alot of other things you can do especially if you can get a high GPA, which in my my opinion is much more attainable in comp sci than in engineering. From what I've seen there are alot of people in engineering with sub 2.8 GPA's banking on the fact that they'll land a job when they graduate regardless, i don't necessarily like that mentality but its there.

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Mcgill BSc 2010

If you are unsure, it would probably be easier to start in Engineering (particularly Computer or Electrical - and definitely Software) and switch to CS than the other way around. Engineers need a programming course, which is usually a different course from what CS people take, except possibly in (some of) the disciplines I mentioned above, but depending on where you do it it could be flexible.

Combining CS with business is a fairly popular choice.

CS, along with the more related engineering fields, had a few rough years in terms of getting jobs but it's recovered now.

As an aside, I would actually be interested to see what proportion of people who go through Software Engineering programs actually fully get their P.Eng. I don't think it's that high, but I don't claim to know. The one important thing is that both Computer Science and Software Engineering as degrees can lead to "Software Engineer" as a job title.

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I can't comment too much on this, I think Kayla would be of more help but Comp Sci has a LOT of deep, abstract mathematics, algorithm design, statistics, etc. I would relate it to more of a mathematician but in relation to the science of computers. And there's a reason why it's called Computer Science.. because it is a SCIENCE field.

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-University of Toronto Electrical Engineering 1T0!

Yeah but many people thing comp sci is just

if(this == that)
do this
else
do that

type thing and that's not really what it is. It's a completely different thing. I would say the comp sci's come up with certain algorithms and ways to interpolate stats with some crazy math and then the software engineers actually write the code for it. But it's the comp sci's who give the use for the math to the engineers

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-University of Toronto Electrical Engineering 1T0!

My whole point from the beginning was that comp sci isn't JUST coding. Yes some comp sci grads do end up coding but it's not a lot of them and it's certainly not the only thing to do when you go into comp sci

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-University of Toronto Electrical Engineering 1T0!

I just mentioned it! lol algorithm design for one (which is NOT programming, pretty much pure math).. statistical analysis (kind of fits in with algorithms)

creating new system architectures, doing system designs (file types etc, which does not imply that they are coding anything but rather that they are coming up with the system). New ways of data structures, etc

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-University of Toronto Electrical Engineering 1T0!

Saying Computer Science is all about programming is like saying an English major is all about reading and writing.

In both cases, they are fundamental tools that you will use a lot but they do not define the essence of what you do.

With intro programming, you could probably write up a simple text editor that lets you save and load files. You couldn't duplicate Word.

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