Is Computer Science a hard major?

College Majors Engineering Majors
21

<p>Nope. BS & MS Computer Science (not the IT/Business type stuff) from a non LAC type directional state school. In fact, I took programming, algorithms, discrete math, software e0ngineering, computer architecture, and many other CS courses (prog languages, assembly, operating systems…) . As I had done the math and science in Civil in a previous college career I did not have to take it and took classes in all kinds of nefarious subjects. We did have 2 discrete math, one stat, and one operations research class as part of CS. </p>

<p>The school was Cajun State University (aka University of Louisiana) which was a decent CS school back then and still is. Civil was done overseas, and Industrial/HFE at Purdue. </p>

<p>Since the mid 80’s I’ve had a pretty successful career programming anything from software tools (compilers, graphics) to source code management systems, to a few years doing engineering IT, and the last 15 has all been embedded development for consumer electronics, those days Linux etc. My current program is all PHP ironically :)</p>

22

<p>Whether or not a major is hard depends on YOU, and your SCHOOL. Some schools have poor CS curriculums, but that doesn’t mean CS is easy. Some schools have kick-ass, tough CS curriculums. In a school where the EE curriculum is poor, with lack of resources, EE might be the easier field(I was an EE, and I found EE to be far easier than CS), and at some schools it’s the reverse.</p>

<p>Decide what you enjoy, and stop worrying about what is harder. If your good at what you do, that is what matters.</p>

23

<p>Graduated with a BS Computer Science from Rutgers U. - New Brunswick</p>

<p>CS111 had 45% of its students getting an F on their transcripts. Those that passed moved on to CS112.</p>

<p>CS112 had about 40% of its students getting an F on their transcripts.</p>

<p>So basically right from the get-go, you would weed out nearly 70% of those who attempted CS.</p>

24

<p>I think Ice Cream Engineering is the hardest major anyway. :-)</p>

25

<p>I heard CE and CS are the easiest out of all the engineering disciplines.</p>

26

<p>^ Nope, wrong. They’re all at about the same difficulty: that of designing, implementing and consuming large quantities of delicious frozen dairy product.</p>

27

<p>My neighbor was Agricultural Engineering from Purdue. He showed me a container of ice cream he was developing with fudge on top that should be microwaved, with the ice cream staying cold (in the microwave oven!) and softening just a bit and the fudge melting.</p>

<p>We consumed a good amount of QA samples for this and other foods. Serious money and fun stuff.</p>

28

<p>At my school it goes like this:</p>

<p>Construction Management (obviously)</p>

<p>Industrial Eng (Industrial eng is mostly business management and leadership classes. Then alittle bit of the core engineering classes)</p>

<p>Civil Eng (mostly depends on the concentration but geol students take most of the classes that are required for civil eng majors (with an environmental concentration), but without the core eng classes)</p>

<p>Comp Sci ( concentrations: bioinformatics/embedded systems/ software eng/ game design and a few more…) funny that game design has to take more physics classes than all the other eng majors.</p>

<p>Biology Systems eng (this major entails alot of diverse classes: core eng classes inluding E-Circuits, thermo, organic chm, some more civil classes, and biology)</p>

<p>Mech Eng (mostly core eng concepts)</p>

<p>Electrical Engineering (I tutored a C programming class for EE majors and most of them were failing, but still i give them credit EE classes seem very difficult)</p>

<p>Computer Engineering (Required to understand both sides of the world- literally just a mixture of CS and EE classes)</p>

<p>Chemical Engineering (not too sure why I am giving them this spot but they are required to understand chem and core eng concepts)</p>

29

<p>in my college, the requirements consists of mathematics, physic and chemistry classes besides from the computer classes.</p>

30

<p>My younger one is looking at Systems Biology and I would not wish a semester that includes Organic Chem, Diff Eq, some unpronounceable Biology course, a circuits or CS class, and thermodynamics on anyone. Unless the school is in a planetary system where the day is 42 hours or so…</p>

<p>I agree with Industrial Engineering being the ‘easiest’ but not because of management and leadership courses. Take some heavy duty manufacturing operating systems or facilities layout courses and these can get ugly in a hurry. If you want theory, there are some upper level or grad classes in simulation theory that will keep you from sleeping at night (material not necessarily difficult but way too obtuse). Take a course like Human Decision Analysis (part of human factors) and it might as well be a philosophy class.</p>

<p>IE, like CS (in my view), are the easiest because there is not too much domino dependency from one class to another. In EE, mess up a basic topic or calc and it will haunt you till graduation day. In CS, or IE, the field is a lot broader.</p>