DS is a Fall 2019 freshman. He’s looking at both programs. We printed out the four year course path of each to compare.
But any BTDT advise? He prefers the programming, so we are leaning towards the CS. Oddly, math is not his strong suit.
It depends on the school how big the difference is.
Generally speaking, CE is usually an attempt to strike a middle between EE and CS. As mentioned, it varies from school to school and specifics will matter more than these generalities. CE doesn’t tend to map 1 to 1 to an industry like CS and EE do and tends to mean that CE grads pick one to specialize in more for careers. There is some danger with CE of becoming a jack of two trades, though this is similar to the danger of many combined majors programs and shouldn’t deter someone passionate about both computer hardware and software from selecting CE. If it’s easy enough to pick one between CS and EE, IMO it’s probably best to do that. CE tends to best serve those truly in the middle that have a passion/desire to understand a computer itself from top to bottom, not simply an interest to know the hardware while primarily programming or vice versa. That would be the criteria I’d use when thinking on it generally.
Of course, the best thing to do is to look at the two specific programs and the required classes for each, and figure out which sparks the most interest.
This is quite common. While much of CS can rest on top of math and strong math will be needed in certain areas of CS as you get towards more theory, much of CS is actually about design and mathematical thinking, not what math is presented as in high school or even college. I would not let math ability stop someone from pursuing CS initially.
Ironically I would say strong math skills are more important for engineers than software engineers/developers. Still, not all CS majors will be software engineers/developers.
Thank you for your reply, PengsPhils.
There is a program at his first choice school designed to support STEM majors through their 1st two years of math. He will participate in it and the Honors College with a CS major.