I do want to ask though if I major in BA Computer Science can I still apply for graduate engineering school for software engineering?
Absolutely.
Seriously I can do that? I thought I needed a bachelors in software engineering to do that?
@DonAlexander Some schools (Penn for example) offer a less technical engineering Masters degree option for non-engineering undergrads. However, I think you are allowed to get the engineering version if you can do the work. I haven’t looked at the details, but I would guess that there is just more math involved. Probably discrete math, linear algebra, calculus-based statistics would be the types of math that a student would need to be comfortable with.
My husband and I met in engineering graduate school. We worked for about 13 years for other people, then started our own firm that we run from home. The recession was tough on us, but overall we have done very well, and you can’t beat the quality of life. I can go for a run whenever I feel like it. I don’t have to go outside in January if I don’t want to. We can buy structural design software that we need without having to beg for it! I’m really glad we became engineers.
Don, you are confusing. Berkeley has BA in CS or BS in EECS, both could potentially do software engineering.
Don: There is no specific degree in software engineering. You study/major in CS (BA/BS, MA/MS) then you go to work in software development/engineering. CS is usually taught in an engineering or science school or a department within a college.
A CS major will need to take discrete math.
@uclalumnus, are you saying that’s a disadvantage? My school’s requirements to get in the CS major only need College Algebra.
https://www.cs.arizona.edu/undergrad/documents/BAChecksheet04.13.15_000.pdf lists the following as required:
CSC 245/MATH 323/MATH 243 Intro to Discrete Structures
CSC 345 Analysis of Discrete Structures
Descriptions from https://www.cs.arizona.edu/courses/descriptions.html :
Coolweather - I know of at least one university that has a software engineering degree at all 3 levels - UT Dallas and I bet there are more universities out there offering it…
^ It’s just a naming.
There can be small curricular differences between SE and CS at schools with both majors.
Somehow I have never liked the term SE. To me, there is just a lack of a set of coherent “meat” to the subject of SE as an UG major. CS is fine as a major. But at least in my days (when the dinasaur still roamed the world), be prepared that a CS major was required to go through a lot of “abstract-math-y”/theoretical topics. If a person wanted a degree like this, he had to be comfortable with this. Not good at math = not able to be graduated. later on, more and more CS departments moved to the engineering and this “problem” for math-challenged students became less severe because the math as taught in an engineering department is generally less demanding in the aspect of being higher-level/abstract math.
Maybe it is different today, because many degrees become more and more “vocational” due to the market demand. (maybe also because many colleges nowadays hire “professional instructors” rather than traditional/tenured/research professors to teach the UG students for many of their 1st or even 2nd year classes.)
My son is graduating with his CS major. He is also graduating with his math major, as at is school it was only a couple more classes in math to get both. I always got the impression that a person good in CS has to be good at math too, but I may be wrong. I do love that if he gets burned out in the CS industry, with his math degree he can go in a different direction.
The kind of thinking that does well in CS tends to be similar to that which does well in math, although there are certainly people who like one subject more than the other.
Be careful, some software engineering program is not software development. It’s more process or soft skills and not technical.
http://www.quora.com/In-terms-of-a-MS-degree-in-CS-specially-software-engineering-how-is-USC-compared-to-Carnegie-Mellon-Silicon-Valley
And many (most?) others don’t?
^^^True. And it’s not uncommon for engineers to go to medical or law school either.