Computer Science or Engineering---hands down (Score 1)

My major was Computer Engineering and I would recommend it or Computer Science to anyone interested in succeeding in IT. None of the IT programs I have seen or had employees enrolled in prepare you as thoroughly as the more technical majors. Most of my level 1 technicians have come from IT programs and it boggles me how often they are completely lost with basic ideas of computer operation. Let me clarify a little. I don't work in programming (at least not regularly) the vast majority of our work is systems administration. The IT guys are missing so many of the fundamentals of computing that the higher level stuff is largely a mysterious black box. Understanding new technologies is largely memorization for them. Try managing our supercomputing clusters without ever really grappling with kernel theory, shared memory usage or schedulers. What's the difference between traditional PBS scheduling vs Mosix type clustering? The CS and ECEn guys have often compiled kernel modules or written virtual memory simulators or any number of things that makes carrying those concepts over to supercomputing trivial. Even simpler functions like wireless networking or Active Directory are aided by an in depth understanding of basic intercommunications when you've coded up your own TCP stack before or written your own security authentication handshakes. IT degrees will need more maturity to develop into something besides being the "I want to earn a lot of money working with computers but I'm too lazy/dumb to earn a hard degree" in my eyes.