News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Ask HN: Software Engineering Vs. Computer Science by allenc on Tuesday April 19, 2011 @05:13AM (#2462071)
On one hand, it's great that academia is finally starting to teach what people in the industry lament as a lack of engineering education in their new grads.

Then again, like what others have said here, you're probably better off doing the traditional CS education for now. As much as SE in school may teach you, having an industry job where you'll learn from system architects, QA teams and project managers is probably a better education anyway. Think of the CS material as more future proofing - if you ever decide to try to get a job at a place that values computer science (think Google), having CS will let you be on par with all the other candidates (seriously, I've seen some interviewers downgrade a candidate because they didn't have a CS background).

Re:Ask HN: Software Engineering Vs. Computer Science by riskish on Tuesday April 19, 2011 @07:48AM (#2462318)
If my plan is to start my own company (not work at one, so I would not pick up things as you mention), wouldn't the SE degree make more sense, to kick-start the formalized processes in software dev?
Re:Ask HN: Software Engineering Vs. Computer Science by allenc on Tuesday April 19, 2011 @07:33PM (#2464660)
Sure. I'm operating under the assumption that life might throw you a curveball or two - maybe some company is offering you enough money and a chance to network with great people that you'll take them up, but get stuck in the interview process b/c you don't have enough CS. To me sticking w/ a pure CS curriculum is the least risky and what you miss in SE you can quickly make up after anyway.