<p>Basically I'm not a top candidate for engineering at most schools due to my low GPA. But thats ok, as I dont want to do engineering. But I want to do something in computers. I was reading the lists of majors on many college websites and I saw this: "Computer and Information Sciences." What is that exactly? It wasn't in the department of engineering either. </p>
<p>What is the difference between that and computer engineering/computer science?</p>
<p>Computer and Information Sciences is probably the most undefined of all kinds of computer science. You'd get a better idea about the tilt of those departments by looking at the course lists.</p>
<p>A brief description of types of computer science:
EECS/ Comp Engineering: Usually computer science for engineers. I'm at a loss for words to describe it, but generally it has to do with computer security, computer hardware and extremely low-level (not in difficulty, but in scale) computing, like building CPUs from scratch. Raw programming skills are also emphasized.
Information Sciences -- the term tends to lean towards database work and information technology, but I can't be sure -- I've also heard the term 'Informatics' used to describe...
Computer Science proper -- this, as I see it, is where computer science has the most elegance and interest to it but doesn't overlap with mathematics. This is where programming classes are typically just the intro-level courses, and algorithms/informatics is the focus afterwards. Figuring out how to attack individual programming problems efficiently -- not building an application or something, but simply questions like "What's the fastest way to visit each of N cities exactly once each?" -- is what I see as computer science proper.
Theoretical CS -- typically, the brunt of your work isn't on a computer but in your head. This is where questions like "is it possible to solve this problem efficiently" and "can I prove that this problem can't be solved any faster than X" reside, and overlaps significantly with mathematics.</p>
<p>Okay, end of spiel. I didn't answer your question as well as I'd've liked, but it's the best I can do.</p>
<p>thanks arkleseizure, i learned a lot from that post...never knew it entailed that much.</p>
<p>anyone else?</p>
<p>bump (10char)</p>