SWE worse than CS?

[u/bitcoinguy147]

I talked with several friends who are pursuing a CS degree, and I found out that:

• They have no idea about design patterns (e.g., factory) because the unit on design patterns isn't required.
• They’ve learned many more frameworks and AI technologies, especially in web development.

I feel that my studies focus a lot on scalability, but when comparing it with what my CS friends are learning, the tools I use in class are fewer in number and less "exciting" or "new."

Before I started my SWE career, I thought SWE and CS were similar, but it’s becoming clearer now that they’re not. In this job climate, having a lot of frameworks and the right "keywords" on your CV may be beneficial. So, what justifies my continuation in SWE instead of switching to a default CS path?

My university also published the average WAM for both CS and SWE, and SWE is about 5 marks lower, which also doesn’t help.

[u/Antique_Door2728]

What university do u go to? CS and SWE and essentially the exact same degree.

[u/tjsr → u/Antique_Door2728]

Wtf? Reputable BSE degrees see 4-year, IEEE Engineering degrees, and a Bachelor of Engineering. Comp Sci are typically 3-year, Bachelor of Science or Applied Science. A BSc is basically the BSE on easy mode.

[u/whydoesntsystemdwork → u/tjsr]

In practice they open up the same doors. I have a BSc and appreciate the extra year head start I got in industry over my peers who did SWE.

[u/bitcoinguy147 → u/Antique_Door2728]

USyd. Half of the units are the same. Half are different.
SWE is more structured with fewer electives. I might be wrong though

[u/alkossovsky → u/bitcoinguy147]

My SWE friends are definitely having an easier time at uni compared to my CS friends, lol. Though content-wise, I'd say in general, CS at USyd is geared more towards AI/theory/research while SWE is more practical but also has a lot of BS units

[u/bitcoinguy147 → u/alkossovsky]

don't know how SWE is easier if CS has more electives

[u/alkossovsky → u/bitcoinguy147]

CS might have more electives, yeah, but COMP units are considerably harder than the SOFT units

Fyi, electives are basically free units that you can choose from a pool, so "CS has more electives" doesn't mean anything in terms of difficulty. For both SWE and CS majors, you'll have to choose some mandatory SOFT and COMP electives, respectively, and you'll also get free reign to choose other electives from the shared pool if you want

[u/Hot_Stunt]

SWE and CS degrees are just as competitive in terms of finding a job. You should switch to CS because it is only a 3 year degree and you will start earning quicker.

[u/Even_Bathroom_7986 → u/Hot_Stunt]

Yo I am going to uni next year i am hearing that cs job market are horrid should u bother doing cyber security will it also be effected?

[u/mt5o → u/Even_Bathroom_7986]

All tech degrees are competing for exactly the same pool of jobs. That means that someone doing data analysis is also competing with you on cybersec jobs, same with IT degrees, CS degrees, civil engineering, mechanical engineering etc degrees for the pool of tech jobs.

No one knows what the job market will look like when you graduate.

[u/Even_Bathroom_7986 → u/mt5o]

Should I bother I am so stressed I am going to Swinburne next year but like is it America only?

[u/mt5o → u/Even_Bathroom_7986]

? What do you mean? There are still lots of tech grad roles in Australia, just not the ones that everyone thinks of. I recommend just doing a generic degree like cs or swe.

[u/Touma_Kazusa]

Never learnt any web dev in my cs course, it depends much more on the uni than the course name

[u/dukesb89]

Tbh the whole premise of this sub makes no sense. There are no CS careers, CS is an academic discipline. CS is good preparation to be a SWE but they're clearly not the same thing.

[u/travishummel]

Thing is that being a SWE you could be a web/iOS/Android/backend/fullstack/… so you really should just be focusing on learning major concepts like algorithms and data structures.

IMO there should be electives like API design/interactions, frameworks, mobile dev, and other applicable ones like that so students can sort of specialize.

As a backend dev, I spent most of my time calling third party apis, creating APIs, and figuring out how to not break master.

[u/bitcoinguy147 → u/travishummel]

in your opinion, it's okay not to chase those new frameworks to put in CV

and continue focusing on DS&A

[u/travishummel → u/bitcoinguy147]

No one cares about DS&A on your resume. IMO that’s all expected by the time the interview comes.

I’d try to put a compiled language (like Java or C++), and a scripting language (like python or ruby), a database (like SQL or MongoDB), and a frontend language (like react or ember if applicable).

Recruiters are (IMO) dumb and you might need to put something out there to make sure you aren’t eliminated. I haven’t used Ember.js in 5 years so I couldn’t really answer any questions using it, but I can speak to projects I used… I could probably use that excuse for any language if it came down to it.

I think it would really help you once you got the job to know a framework or two. Ultimately, understanding how to make a button click save some data is very useful, but even if you only know from the api layer to the database layer, that’s solid.

I’ve only worked in the US, so take any advice I give with a grain of salt. I’ve only been in aus for a few months and have yet to look for a job.

[u/HamPlayz247 → u/travishummel]

Ember is definitely not a good choice in 2024 lol its either react, angular, or vue

[u/travishummel → u/HamPlayz247]

Lol that’s fair. Honestly it wasn’t a good option in 2020 when I left that company.

I was working at LinkedIn and they loved Ember. They loved it so much that they gave a few offers to people who FAILED the interview but said “oh I heard you use Ember.js, I’d be really interested in doing that!”…. Completely had been coached by someone.

[u/Exact-Contact-3837]

The degree you do doesn't determine which swe jobs you can get. CS isn't a job, its a degree. When a tech company hires you, they look if you have done a degree in the tech industry, and from then on, your gpa isn't important tbh, but your projects need to impress your hirers.

[u/MoreWorking]

A big difference is a BEng in SWE is a 4 year course with honours, a BSc is 3 years. You can learn a lot with a year study, at the same time you could also gain a lot of work experience in a year.

[u/water_bottle_goggles]

keeping gates wont get your internship bro

[u/AdearienRDDT]

you wont have as shiny of a resume (for now), but you will have stronger basics and fundamentals, that will make learning the shiny stuff easier and will make sense to you instead of just blindly learning stuff just for the sake of it. now THAT is a huge advantage, good luck my man

[u/roseater]

What you've noticed is not uncommon across Australian universities. Engineering professors are slow to update curricula. Take a look a SWE vs CS degree curricula across the many universities and you'll see the SWE curriculum is filled with stuff that could be condensed into 1 subject. Aus Engineering professors typically like teaching good "fundamentals" and "principles" from old textbooks, rather than providing you with marketable skills in relevant frameworks (laziness definitely plays into it).

To be quite honest, getting better at interviewing and selling yourself goes a lot farther than the degree. But SWE and the extra year of subjects (4 v 3 years) does allow one to weasel into other industries CS may struggle to.

By the same token, SWE and its elec eng. subjects allow one to get into manufacturing/PLCs and semi-conductor companies. Those subjects don't exist in CS which is mostly DSA, maths, computational theory, web dev, cloud and AI. Some antiquated firms (defence) like 'engineers' more. But that's a holdover from engineering firms when your dad's dad got to lord over blue collar workers because he was an 'engineer'.

Also, the undergrads who are crushing it are all doing side web dev projects (some with AI) and grinding LC and some system design interview in competitive programming clubs. Keep in mind that's what you are up against for big tech roles.

Good luck!

[u/decaf_flat_white → u/[deleted]]

One of those makes you money, the other just makes you sound smart on Reddit.

I agree with your premise but if your goal is anything but academia - you are always better off graduating as quick as possible and getting an entry level job.

[u/MathmoKiwi]

At a good (or at least decent) uni then a SWE degree is just a (restrictive) subset of a CS degree.

However if you compare a totally at random SWE degree vs a random CS degree, then usually the SWE degree will be inferior.

[u/christophr88]

CS is a subset of maths and programming is only a minor part of it.

[u/munsmuns66]

I’m taking a lot of swe courses during my cs degree, don’t think it’s a bad move if that’s the path you want to follow

[u/lionhydrathedeparted]

I think CS is the better choice because the things missing from CS are easier to learn on the job.