Comment I agree, but dissagree (Score 1) 654
I have a Bachelors in CS myself, and could honestly say that if I had all my limbs hacked off, I could still effectively count how many times an employer has asked me to write a compiler. Its just not a "real-world" skill.
That being said, I have also worked with many IS majors. We refered to IS at my school as "CS for dummies". Basically, they had mostly the same general programming classes, but while were were in ODE, Fundamental Physics, and Calc 3, they took Intro to Business, Economics, and Business Writing courses. There is nothing wrong with this track, but I can honestly say that the quality of people who enrolled in IS over CS were not of the same caliper.
I am not knocking IS at all...most of my best friends were IS majors, but they are not the geekiest of the geeks. While I was building a mame machine or some other geeky project, my IS friends just looked at me like "Why would you want to do that?"
Now, fast forward to today. I am a Software Developer, and I still work with IS majors. And even though I have never written another compiler since school, I HAVE used the skills I learned in doing so, like languange parsing. Plus, knowing how the internals of a compiler works helps understand what certain errors mean. The same is true for most of the other classes.
I guess my point is, take what you can from the classes you are in. The knowledge may not be directly applicable, but you can apply anything.
That being said, I have also worked with many IS majors. We refered to IS at my school as "CS for dummies". Basically, they had mostly the same general programming classes, but while were were in ODE, Fundamental Physics, and Calc 3, they took Intro to Business, Economics, and Business Writing courses. There is nothing wrong with this track, but I can honestly say that the quality of people who enrolled in IS over CS were not of the same caliper.
I am not knocking IS at all...most of my best friends were IS majors, but they are not the geekiest of the geeks. While I was building a mame machine or some other geeky project, my IS friends just looked at me like "Why would you want to do that?"
Now, fast forward to today. I am a Software Developer, and I still work with IS majors. And even though I have never written another compiler since school, I HAVE used the skills I learned in doing so, like languange parsing. Plus, knowing how the internals of a compiler works helps understand what certain errors mean. The same is true for most of the other classes.
I guess my point is, take what you can from the classes you are in. The knowledge may not be directly applicable, but you can apply anything.
