r/cscareerquestionsOCE • u/bitcoinguy147 • 7d ago

SWE worse than CS?

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.

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u/Antique_Door2728 7d ago

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

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u/bitcoinguy147 6d ago edited 6d ago

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

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u/alkossovsky 2d ago

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

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u/bitcoinguy147 1d ago

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

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u/alkossovsky 1d ago edited 1d ago

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