

Ask HN: Software Engineering or Computer Science? - cmelbye

Hi all, I have a quick question. When hiring someone, is it more desirable that they carry a Software Engineering degree or a Computer Science degree, or are both equally desirable?
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shrughes
It doesn't really matter, except that if they got a Software Engineering
degree from a university that offers both, they're probably a soulless cretin.
(The actual manner in which their education is judged is based on the quality
of the university, and, if you even have the information, the sort of courses
that they took.) When I see somebody that willfully decided to take boring
software engineering courses, I tend to have prejudicial thoughts about them.

~~~
eshvk
> It doesn't really matter, except that if they got a Software Engineering
> degree from a university that offers both, they're probably a soulless
> cretin.

Or you know they could have done a EE degree and decided after they had done
enough courses that EE was not their thing and they would probably do Software
Engineering so as to graduate with some degree that made use of the
requirements that they had already completed and was at least related to what
they wanted to do in real life.

~~~
shrughes
> EE was not their thing

Like I said, soulless cretin.

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3amOpsGuy
That's really hard to give a decent answer to. The answer really depends on
the people involved in filtering the applications.

Can you mirror what the job advert lists it's looking for?

A bit more outlandishly, could you identify a person working in or near the
position you're after, then google their CV to see what they listed?

For me personally (not that it should be used to base your decision at all)
i've never distinguished between either.

Just for contrast someone i used to work with (an electronic and software
engineering graduate) detested the idea of anyone without an engineer's
charter (himself included until recently) referring to themselves or their
education with the word "engineer". More than once he gave graduates a
dressing down for using the E word... life's too short for that IMO.

