<p>Isn’t the career path pretty set for people like this?</p>
<p>You get your degree (and it doesn’t matter whether it’s in CS or EE), get an entry level job intended for people in that major, work there for three years or thereabouts, and then go back to school for an MBA. After that, you work in a management capacity in a firm where your comfort with technical stuff is an asset.</p>
<p>Of course, you could also be an entrepreneur. But aren’t most of them 23-year-olds who went to Stanford?</p>
<p>One of my kids has a nice career going in software engineering (with no interest in management). The other recently quit an economic consulting job to go back to school for an MBA (but has no interest in computer science or engineering). Now, if it were possible to combine them into one person, I can’t even imagine what that person could earn…</p>
<p>^^^He does not seem to want that sort of predictable track - no interest in “working for the man,” as he says :-S H was an entrepreneur who only worked for a large company for a couple of years out of college, then did his own thing. S would like a similar situation, but he thinks that his major will matter with funding/venture capital - says the guys who make those decisions like to see EE. He’d probably be a “better” engineer than programmer, but I’m not sure if that matters. He’s meeting with the EE advisor today - someone who teaches a class he is taking right now, and he likes the guy. Hopefully he’ll be helpful.</p>
<p>@Gourmetmom, lots of good options for your son. My guess is that CS beats EE for employment. Not sure how venture funders view the degrees for funding purposes. I suspect that venture funders care a lot more on the nature of the idea and the quality of the team and EE or CS matters only to the extent it is more relevant to the venture he is trying to start.</p>
<p>Although there are some standard paths (as suggest by @Marian), @Gourmetmom, there are lots of ways for your son to get there. Like @oldfort’s D, ShawSon was a math/econ major (though with a higher GPA – his transcript is ridiculously good). No programming experience (despite my advice to take a class or two). Finance, consulting and econ firms all interviewed him, but he realized that he would be a grunt in any job and thought, like your son, that he would be a better leader than a grunt (particularly because he is severely dyslexic). During the early fall of his senior, he and some friends started up a software firm of which he became the CEO. He hadn’t pursued interviews far enough to get offers and decided he’d rather do the startup and raised seed money from a VC before graduating. @Marian, I guess that was at age 22 but he wasn’t at Stanford but at an LAC from which very few students became entrepreneurs right out of the box. He ran it for 1.5 years before turning the reins over to a much more experienced manager. ShawSon applied to grad school and now at the advanced age of 24 is in the process of getting an MS in Data Science (which is pretty programming-intensive so he is learning coding on a forced march) and an MBA. The objective is to run startups in big data or maybe groups within a bigger company. Fallback is finance (hedge fund or VC maybe). He’s hoping that he has leapfrogged the grunt years. Interestingly, he is taking the first year of the Data Science curriculum this year and has gotten received quite a number of recruiting letters including at least 5 in the first week of school.</p>
<p>There is no common ground at all between EE, CS, entrepreneurship and finance. Does he want to add music and art just to round them all for a really big picture? I would do just that, and maybe pre-med…</p>
<p>@MiamiDAP, I assume you are being facetious rather than serious, but it appears that you may also be missing the point. I don’t think the OP’s son is anticipating classes in entrepreneurship, but one can prepare for being an entrepreneur in a variety of ways. Many startups are started by techies, who often have EE/CS backgrounds. Hedge funds are interested in serious computing so will hire CS guys (though often PhD types rather than BS types) as well as math, stats, physics, … . I was at dinner this weekend talking to the son of a friend who now does financial consulting after getting an engineering degree. If you can break down problems into pieces in a structured way (which you can learn in EE, CS, math, stats, physics, … but not necessarily in entrepreneurship, music, or many basic pre-med courses), you can apply the same set of skills in other areas. I’ve helped start three firms including two financial ones and never took a course in entrepreneurship or finance although I taught myself finance when I was a post-doc/young prof.</p>
<p>Thanks Shawbridge - it’s interesting that your son is just now coding, and forced march is more or less what my S did this past summer creating an investing app. His experience sounds a lot like something S aspires to do.</p>
<p>@MiamiDAP, not getting the sarcasm, but he’s deciding between EE and CS (no finance or entrepreneurship major at his school and would never do either of those anyway) with the intention of starting his own business at some point - he has a few business ideas that have to do with finance.</p>
<p>Seems like CS would be more applicable in more ways to finance than EE would.</p>
<p>But if he does not particularly care for either subject, why would he want to major in one of them, instead of something he really likes, such as economics?</p>
<p>My $0.02…
I would do CS instead of EE (being an EE/CE myself). I do not see a lot of hiring in EE.
I have not seen any big VC funding for chip startups in a long while. “Social media” s/w startups seem to be sucking up all the dollars out there (not even EDA s/w startups are being funded).</p>
<p>CS courses can be pretty rigorous. Combinatorial algo classes are incredibly interesting. Got my butt kicked in the graph theory class.</p>
<p>Computer Science is NOT programming. Software development is not merely writing a bunch of code. My son had minimal programming skills with his second major of comp sci (math being primary), he was hired at his first job for his thinking skills, not how fast he could do programming. My understanding is that most actually in business fields as a career have nonbusiness bachelor’s degrees. I would also look at engineering as the hardware aspect of computers while comp sci is more the software aspect. His choice should be based on which type of work more appeals to him. Another comparison would be Chemical engineering versus Chemistry for a major. Some overlap in courses but very different. A Chemistry major I had zero interest in Chem E. Likewise your son needs to consider which aspects he prefers.</p>
<p>Bottom line- pick something he likes, not for prestige et al.</p>
<p>“Computer Science is NOT programming. Software development is not merely writing a bunch of code”
-while first sentence is incorrect, the second is very true.<br>
This is an opinion of one with over 30 years experience being in whatever you wnat to call it. The label is not important. this days nobody just " merely writing a bunch of code". One have to figure out requirements (surprise!!! nobody will present you with them on a platter, it is your job). Got to work with lots of people and come to a design that fits everybody’s needs (and fits technology available at certain place. But when I refer to what I do I usually answer “I am justs tupidprogrammer”. I have made a point to assume that I do no know anything about system, this is a very good starting point that leads you to very productive communication, if you solicit valuable information from all parties beforehand, there is a better chance that they like your solution.<br>
Programming (or CS or I can throw many other positions thatI have held at various jobs) has absolutely nothing to do with science, engineering, math, none…But everybody is entitled to think about it whatever one wishes…it simply does not change job of people like me (who has been also in engineering for many years, I mean working, not just having a degree) </p>
<p>I say he should major in what he is good at, to develop his skills. Sounds to me like math, applied math or econ would be the right majors. If he doesn’t want to get his hands dirty with coding, CS is right out-- the other students in those classes will LIKE coding.</p>
<p>We have friends who are VCs. They don’t care what the person’s major is; they just want people who can execute. </p>
<p>I don’t understand Miami DAP’s response. I repeat- Computer Science is NOT programming- it is so much more. People can do 2 year AA degrees, or have no degree, to do programming. Programmers are not computer scientists. Much more is involved, especially when you look at some of the courses for the major- including upper level courses cross listed with a math department at a top CS school. I’m not sure liking coding is a priority for kids like my son who became practical after indulging his intellect in pure math then added the nonmath types of CS courses to complete that major.</p>
<p>S met with the EE advisor this afternoon. A couple of interesting points - the advisor said that any CS major who wants a top job needs to complete 18 CS credits, not just the 12 required for the major. So, if S takes this to heart, EE and CS are fairly equivalent in terms of course load. The advisor also made a strong case for engineering in general - career preparation, etc. Many of the electives he selected (has to plan out every term until graduation) are in CS, so I guess it’s the best of both. He’s inclined to stick with EE and try to add an extra class per term when possible to allow for a few more non-stem electives.</p>
<p>My son has a similar choice in some of his courses between a CS track and a Computational and Mathematical Engineering track. I asked him what the difference was and he said the CS track is a lot more conceptual (hence easier for him).</p>
<p>I cannot keep up. My son’s specialty is machine learning, but he calls what he does as software engineering.</p>
<p>Even tho his UG degree was in CS, it he took more advanced math classes. </p>
<p>As a parent totally ignorant about programming and the nuances between disciplines, I offer no opinions. How fortunate so many of you CCers understand these fields and can advise your children.</p>