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Switching into Software Engineering from Computer Science

 
Old 01-31-2011 at 11:51 AM   #1
julianface
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Switching into Software Engineering from Computer Science
I was wondering if it was possible to switch into Software in second year from computer science. The only courses Software engineering has are software engineering courses (only prerequisites are computer science courses which I have) and Math (where I have the 3 first year engineering maths). Would it be worth talking to an advisor to see if a switch is possible without taking first year engineering based on the fact that I have all the prerequisites for the 2nd year program?
Old 01-31-2011 at 12:24 PM   #2
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I'd say it is always a good idea to talk to an advisor. While it does sound like you'd be able to make the switch without any problems, talking to an advisor might bring up some information on how to do it and what the switch will mean for you that you have overlooked until now.
Old 01-31-2011 at 12:53 PM   #3
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You would need to fill in the gaps for the other courses-- physics, materials & professional engineering. Talk to somebody, since I doubt they'd let you do all 4 courses in the summer as well as get shoved into a 2nd year program.
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Old 02-09-2011 at 09:35 PM   #4
keish
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Definitely talk to an academic advisor for your program but don't expect to be put into 2nd year software right away. Most likely you'd be moved into a very easy general engineering 1 year first (to pick up those courses you're missing like materials, professional engineering, drafting and all that fun first year stuff (do you have chemistry and physics btw?) After that year you'd most likely be applying to software engineering along with the rest of the first year engineers.

If your comp sci marks are extremely good though they might make an exception and let you straight into software but you'll still be expected to take all those first year engineering courses you're missing since they're required to graduate as an engineer of any of the disciplines.
Old 02-09-2011 at 09:56 PM   #5
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Out of curiosity, is there a reason why you want to change? There's a lot of overlap between the two programs. Currently, in third year compsci, I'm taking 3 fourth year soft eng (only 1 of which is a fourth year compsci) and 1 third year soft eng courses.

Most of the time, I'm not even sure what the difference is. I think it's that compsci learns more about the theory of computing, how to use those concepts in designing/developing good, efficient software. Soft eng deals more with the requirements side of things, and managing software projects. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong; I just know that most of my compsci-only classes have been theory/specification, and looking through the list of soft eng courses, I see more requirements/analysis courses.
Old 02-09-2011 at 11:59 PM   #6
julianface
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I'm just hypothesizing mostly because of the large overlap in material, I don't even think I would switch because it is just a heavier course load for basically the same stuff.
Old 02-10-2011 at 02:50 AM   #7
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Pretty sure they'd make you take engineering chemistry and physics. Comp Sci's better anyway.
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Old 02-10-2011 at 04:54 PM   #8
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What you learn software engineering is more about the safety/organization side of things. As a software engineer you'd be qualified to write the software that controls the safety backup for anything automated. As a comp sci student you would not. So basically in soft eng they teach you how to be extremely rigorous in your programming and how important it is for your code to not only do what it's supposed to but to not to anything it's not. What you actually learn programming-wise is likely the same between the two courses. You learn basic methods so that when you get a job you have a starting place to learn what you need to for whatever project you end up on. My guess is that comp-sci involves more application than engineering.

During my two years of software engineering we actually didn't do very much coding for our classes. It was expected by our profs that we spent our own time writting code and developing those skills. And then in 3rd/4th year you do projects that assume you know how to code well because you've been doing it on your own time. Kinda weird.. but it makes sense I guess. Basically weeds out people who aren't very serious about programming (like me, lol) so only serious programmers graduate from the program.. which is a good thing imho.
Old 02-10-2011 at 06:05 PM   #9
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Computer science is more mathy. So you ought to stay in it.
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Old 02-10-2011 at 07:00 PM   #10
revolution27
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Nobody I've talked to seems to be able to give me a clear answer on the difference between these two programs. I was planning on going into software eng but it seems you dont spend much time doing actual coding in that program. I dont want to graduate knowing only theory and be useless in an actual software development environment. I'm starting to think CS might be the better option for me. Anyone in the Soft. Eng program want to share your opinion on this?
Old 02-10-2011 at 07:18 PM   #11
keish
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Like I said, you really don't do a lot of coding in software engineering until your 3rd and 4th years when you start doing projects for your classes. I guess you do some in first year... but that's really really really basic coding. I would choose your program based on what you want to do when you finish because they're both geared towards very different targets. Do you want to write code for a motion simulator or a factory robot? Software engineering. Do you want to write software for computers? Computer science. If you want to lead projects you could do comp-sci with a commerce or econ type minor or you could do software engineering. You really need to have an idea of where you wanna go to make that descision. Also.. engineering is quite difficult simply because you overload almost every semester. So you might want to take that into consideration as well. (It's easy to spread out your program over extra years though to not overload if you really decide Software Engineering is your thing but you want to avoid the overload)
Old 02-10-2011 at 08:32 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by revolution27 View Post
Nobody I've talked to seems to be able to give me a clear answer on the difference between these two programs. I was planning on going into software eng but it seems you dont spend much time doing actual coding in that program. I dont want to graduate knowing only theory and be useless in an actual software development environment. I'm starting to think CS might be the better option for me. Anyone in the Soft. Eng program want to share your opinion on this?
Unfortunately, I think the amount of coding is fairly even between the two programs.

In second year, both share CS2SC3/SE2S03, "Principles of Programming", in which we learned OCaml and C. This is, I'd say, the last course that they really teach you programming in.

In third year, both share CS3GC3/SE3GC3, "Computer Graphics", in which we used C to learn about OpenGL (the prof explicitly said that the purpose of the course wasn't to learn C, but OpenGL).

Also in third year, there's a compsci only course CS3MI3, "Principles of Programming Languages", in which we use SML, but focus on the theory behind the language.

Those are the only courses I've had that have a heavy programming load; I've had programming assignments in other courses, using MIPS, Perl, Python, and of course C/C++.

Ultimately, it's left up to you to learn programming languages. It's not what you want to hear, I know, but it's there all the same. I remember in compsci 2SC3, a few people asked the prof why we were learning OCaml, since it's not used in the industry. His response was that it's not his job to teach you languages that prepare you for your first job; it's his job to instill in you the principles that are fundamental to software development.

tl;dr: You won't program as much as you want to, but you will what's important: the fundamentals of software development, that still be around when no one uses C/C++/Python/whatever anymore.
Old 02-10-2011 at 08:40 PM   #13
keish
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I took SE2S03 a few years ago... it was all pseudo-code and no actual coding. The prof chose a language only for syntax and logic. I can't speak for how much is in comp sci cause I can only go on what I've heard.

Quote:
Ultimately, it's left up to you to learn programming languages. It's not what you want to hear, I know, but it's there all the same. I remember in compsci 2SC3, a few people asked the prof why we were learning OCaml, since it's not used in the industry. His response was that it's not his job to teach you languages that prepare you for your first job; it's his job to instill in you the principles that are fundamental to software development.
That's the position of the Software Engineering profs as well, like I said... you're expected to be doing programming outside of school on your own time. "Marking" code takes too much time that they would ever bother to pay TAs to do it for anything even remotely complicated. Almost everything we did was pseudo-code other then the two courses with major projects and the capstone.
Old 02-10-2011 at 09:29 PM   #14
MarkA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by keish View Post
I took SE2S03 a few years ago... it was all pseudo-code and no actual coding. The prof chose a language only for syntax and logic. I can't speak for how much is in comp sci cause I can only go on what I've heard.
Well, it's the same class for compsci and soft eng. One of the many shared classes. A few years ago it may not have been, because that may have been before compsci became part of the Engineering faculty.

Out of curiosity, who was the prof when you took it? Last year we had Dr. Farmer, and he chose OCaml and C. His solution to marking, if I recall, was to tell us required function names and behaviour, and automatically test them.

You do raise a good point, though, that the amount of coding you do in a course relies entirely on the prof; everything I tell you about courses I've taken may change as the profs change.
Old 02-10-2011 at 09:33 PM   #15
keish
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This was a while back, I had farmer for digital logic which apparently doesn't exist anymore. Farmer is pretty good, his jokes can be funny. Getting him to tell stories was always good times. I had Janicki for 2s03. Worst. Experience. Of. My. Life. Seriously... no idea how that guy became a professor. My friends and I had to learn the material ourselves because his notes were completely useless and illegible and his assignments were more about making your hands cramp by having to write out sorting algorithms long-hand on paper with every SINGLE step shown then actually learning anything. I had nightmares about that stuff because of him.

Standardising the function names isn't a bad idea.. but the problem comes when something doesn't work 100% and you need to give part marks for doing some stuff right. And that doesn't mark someone on how well organized or well documented their code is which is almost more important for software engineering then if the code actually works.

Last edited by keish : 02-10-2011 at 09:35 PM.



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