<p>All other variables controlled, which is better for achieving employment as a software engineer at a top company like Google, Amazon, etc.?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Bachelor of ART in Computer SCIENCE? Uhh…what? My gut feeling is that the latter (BS Computer Science) is the more legit program.</p>
<p>Also, on a somewhat-unrelated note, a cousin of mine hated working as a software engineer at Amazon so much that he threw a small party when he got laid off.</p>
<p>Unless you specifically want to work in computational linguistics (a small field at companies like Google and Amazon), I say go for BS Comp Sci.</p>
<p>Alright. Thanks for the responses.</p>
<p>If you ever become a REAL computer scientist, like the guys that do research on algorithms and publish articles in journals, it might be advisable to stick some linguistics into your curriculum…</p>
<p>Old post but whatever:</p>
<p>@svenbay: actually, Berkeley gives both a BA and a BS in CS, and it’s those with the BA that make the most money. (The reason it’s a BA, I think, is that it eliminates most of the needless ‘physical’ studies that pure CS people ignore anyway in BS programs.)</p>
<p>To the OP: I’ve looked into this extensively (my area of research), and I can tell you that neither would confer a real advantage over the other in a general sense. The BA/BS distinction won’t matter to those who matter–i.e. people who want to hire those who have experience in computational linguistics. But even if you want the more general CS route in industry, I can say with some certainty that having this BA from UCLA would be just fine.</p>
<p>As for Google and Amazon, it’s hard to say. Of course, both typically hire CS (primarily engineers). While Google has always had a statistics-driven approach to keywords and language, they have begun to beef up their focus on more linguistic approaches. Peter Norvig downplays this approach, but from what I’ve seen, Google still sees the need for such (especially after Microsoft acquired Powerset for their newest search engine incarnation Bing, which uses much more natural language analysis). If you really want to go into something with CL, it would be a good idea to go for the BA in ling/CS.</p>