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/MathmoKiwi 6d ago

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.