My S will has accepted a guaranteed transfer offer from UMich and will be attending as a sophomore in Fall 2017. He is currently a Marine Science/Computer Science double major at UMiami. Any idea if going the SI/Comp Sci (minor) route is a common thing? Does it make sense?
the Bachelor of Science in Information is fairly new, so a lot of recruiters/employers aren’t completely sure what it is. But a number of the grads work as Tech Consultants are big companies such as Microsoft or Salesforce. It’s a combination of business concepts integrated with light software skills.
BSI + CS minor isn’t uncommon.
Keep in mind this is a 2-year program, where many applicants from mostly LSA apply for UMSI during their sophomore semester.
Btw, anything a BSI can do, a CS major can also do
SI is known for dumbing things down a good amount when it comes to programming, and focuses a lot more on applications rather than the programming itself. If somebody really wants to learn programming, they may be better off doing the traditional CS major.
My S is currently proficient in Java, Unity, and will be learning Python in the SI school at UMich. He is looking less for hardcore programming skills and more at the user interface and business aspects of computing along with possibly creating and marketing some gaming applications. He doesn’t necessarily want to be a cubicle robot. I understand the SI is a top program for someone that wants to go more interdisciplinary. Again he also wants to do the CS minor.
He will also learn C++ which I believe is not too much different than Java
Too bad EECS 494 won’t count for his CS minor which is the game design capstone for CS majors. He may not even be able to enroll in it either because the slots are reserved. However, WolverineSoft is a student org which any student can join to learn to build video games.
Outside of UMSI, there are actually a lot of other departments that touches better than SI classes
Human Computer Interaction - Cognitive Science, IOE
Management - Ross’s Management/Organizations, Org Studies, Complex Systems, TechComm
UI/UX Design - Penny Stamps ArtDesign (Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign)
Business Tech - Ross’s Technical Operations, Prof. Soloway’s Software Consulting course
Interdisciplinary - UARTS, EECS 498 Multi-disciplinary capstone (take sometime after EECS 281)
Entrepreneurship Minor
Analytics - Statistics/DataScience
You can actually design your own major with some of the courses above (with an advisor**). Its not the end of the world, if he doesn’t get into UMSI, since its a new program anyways. In my opinion, there is so much more outside the UMSI program than inside.
Thanks so much for the insight!