What are actually the major differences as they overlap alot?
Which degree are perceived better to employers? Thinking of dev/swe roles.
In: Engineering
They’re basically the same thing. My degree was a CS degree with a specialization in SE. It just adds a few electives that I otherwise wouldn’t have had to take. The software engineering aspect is relevant to architecture and design of the software system. SE does everything CS does and more.
You do not need a SE specialization to become a software engineer, and if your school is offering both degrees then get a CS degree, merely for the fact that every employer will be aware of a CS degree and the versatility of the CS degree, they may not be aware of the SE degree.
Every employer that is looking for a dev or software engineer will hire someone with a CS degree for it. Every employer that is only looking for a dev may not hire an SE degree for it.
BSCS is the typical and I’d say more respected route for an undergrad. “Interdisciplinary” or “Professional” degrees are more common as a Masters when you already have a foundation. Doing undergrad in SE is like doing an undergrad in Biotechnology, you can do as an undergrad but you’d be lacking the strong Biology background that is typical of someone in that degree field at the Masters level. A computer science degree would focus more on math, algorithms, and theoretical concepts of computation (along with other common development practices of course). A Software Engineering degree may focus more on implementation of certain algorithms, infrastructures, or specific use cases. Both have plenty of overlap. I think a BSCS is the way to go because while a BSSE may be more practical, you typically go to college to get the holistic concept; if you just wanted to become a developer for a certain job you could just attend a bootcamp or training for that specific thing.
I have a bachelors in cs and a masters in se, here are some example courses to paint this picture:
BSCS: Algorithms, Theory of Computation, math classes, programming language classes
MSSE: Computer Vision with Robotics, Cloud Computing with AWS, Data Systems
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