What schools? I don't know of any such degree at MIT, CMU, Berkeley, UIUC or any other top school. At best it will be a single course or some added certification to your degree, and even then they will teach you software engineering processes, not Node.js and React.

I went to CMU (econ major/CS minor) , and we absolutely had such a degree. It was called Information Systems, and generally taught people the skills needed to become a web developer. Skills such as front end developement, Ruby on rails, ect, as well as even some mobile dev electives I think.

Unfortunately, even though it was one of the best such programs in the world, and turned out graduates who made 80k+, it was still generally looked down upon, as the degree that people took who "couldn't get into Computer Science".

It is unfortunate that people in academia severely look down upon anything that has a more practical focus on useful skills, and only respect theoretical studies.

Information Systems programs are commonly business degrees. At CMU, it is offered by the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences[0]. In aerospace and defense, some employers and even the government do not value IS, MIS, or CIS degrees as highly because they are not considered engineering degrees like engineering proper, math, computer science, or physics. In those industries, the way to make up the difference is to complete an advanced degree from an accredited institution.

Whether academia is responding to signals from industry, vice versa, or neither is an interesting theoretical question. In practical terms, one might argue that better route for those industries at least is to choose a degree with higher perceived value.

[0]: http://coursecatalog.web.cmu.edu/schools-colleges/dietrichco...

With the caveat that this doesn't contribute much to the discussion, H&SS was known as "H&Less Stress" to CIT folk ;)

> In aerospace and defense, some employers and even the government

Fortunately, I wasn't talking about areospace, or defense, or whatever. The vast majority of people who come out of CMU, are not working in these very specific job areas, so they aren't relevant.

Instead, they are working at SF tech companies like Facebook, and Apple, and the like.

And if you look at the places that the Info Systems people go to, it turns out that the vast majority of them have the job title "Software Engineer", making a median salary of 90k$:

https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/2018_one_pagers/dc/Bach...

It turns out that a whole bunch of people with these degrees are able to get top software engineering jobs at top tech companies.

> In practical terms, one might argue that better route for those industries at least is to choose a degree with higher perceived value.

No, the facts show that a very effective way of getting a prestigious job, working at a top tech company, with the official job title of Software Engineer, is to get an Information Systems degree. The stats I showed, prove it.

Information Systems is NOT an engineering degree.

The problem for most schools is an engineering degree is a specific, formally defined degree. It seems that ABET has recently updated their Software Engineering criteria, but for decades a software engineering degree required extensive curriculum in physical science.

> Information Systems is NOT an engineering degree.

It teaches you how to work as a web developer. Web development being something that people often call software engineering.

Use whatever word or definition that you want to group Info Systems under, but at the end of the day, these people with these degrees are still getting jobs at Google, FB, and the other top companies, and/or startups, and are giving the job title "software engineer".

That is the definition of software engineer that I use. It is defined as "Those people who are working at google, or top startups or whatever".

Maybe not top schools, but schools that graduate a lot of students have software engineering degrees. That's why IEEE is talking about it.

Cal Poly https://csc.calpoly.edu/programs/bs-software-engineering/ San Jose State https://bsse.sjsu.edu/ Penn State https://behrend.psu.edu/school-of-engineering/academic-progr... Univ Washington https://www.uwb.edu/bscsse Univ Houston UT- Dallas UC Irvine etc.

Agree though that the Soft Eng degree is differs from CS largely by dealing with process, not technology. The first versions of the SWEBOK were pretty terribly biased towards a waterfall process.

I am not aware of any that offer SE. I went to a highly practical school and the SE discussion frequently came up - because many students preferred the pratical to theoretical.

Ultimately, my school could not offer a formal Software Engineering. "Engineering" degrees have not caught up with the times to include software. A software engineering degree would require completely irrelevant course in physical science - like thermodynamics, statics, and advance physics.

> Most major schools offer degrees called Software Engineering.

name three.

Iowa State University: http://catalog.iastate.edu/collegeofengineering/softwareengi...

UC Irvine: https://www.informatics.uci.edu/undergrad/bs-software-engine...

Penn State: https://behrend.psu.edu/school-of-engineering/academic-progr...

Those three schools are > 30k students each.

ABET lists 32 accredding software engineering programs

http://main.abet.org/aps/Accreditedprogramsearch.aspx

(UCI doesn't appear to be one of them.)

It is generally called something else.

The modern day web dev degree is called "Information Systems". Top schools offer it, but it is generally looked down upon as the degree that people take who couldn't get into Computer Science.

There are plenty, but they're mostly graduate degree programs. A full undergraduate degree in software engineering is probably impractical, as it were.

CMU offers a minor in Soft. Eng. It requires 6 courses (one is fluff) and a minimum 8 week internship in industry. What's also good about this CMU minor is that it's open to students of any major.