

Ask HN: CMU's Information Systems or Computer Science? - Spyckie

This question does not pertain to Information Systems in general, but rather the specific IS major at CMU. I would like some perspective so I can advise people about what they should take in college.<p>A little background; I'm a senior at Carnegie Mellon University majoring in Information Systems. In IS, you start off learning simple web development and project management (documentation and client expectation management) in your first 2 years, and in the beginning of the third year, you complete a full scale web application in Ruby on Rails. During the second half of your third year you do project courses where you get into groups of 4-5, come up with an idea for a website and build it. In senior year, you get a non-profit client who has an idea and you build it for them.<p>IS cannot compare in terms of curriculum to CMU's computer science program. In CS, you start off with an introduction to programming, and quickly get into both the low level (C/bit operations, memory management, etc) and the high level (data structures, advanced algorithms, etc). In your third and 4th year, you get into functional programming and machine level code, and either build a complete Operating System from the ground up or a complete webserver, protocols and all. CS also comes with a deep mathematical background and training.<p>However, CS is also very difficult, even to relatively smart people. All the classes are very time consuming and leave little room for other activities. The required CS classes go very deep into theory, much deeper than you would need to if you were just web programming.<p>When I first joined IS, there were hardly any hackers in the program - most people wanted to become project managers or technology consultants. However, I TA some of the 2nd year classes and a handful of the students there have a programming background and take IS because it is easier, gives you a lot of free time, and lets you do a lot of electives. They just use these electives to take the CS classes that they want, but have enough time to do side projects like creating their own websites. A group of them have already gotten together and build websites for fun on the weekends.<p>Granted, the majority of IS majors are not hackers at all, and the project management side of IS is quite a large aspect of the program (to accommodate these types of people). Also, the program doesn't push you very hard technologically or mentally.<p>Now that was a long intro - My question for you is what major would you suggest and why?
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giardini
CS at CMU can be a crushing experience for even extremely bright students. I
knew one. He chose to go into CS, but didn't realize that a large percentage
of the other CS students were already hardened developers far more prepared
than he was. He crashed and burned and almost lost his scholarship before
moving to another degree plan. Today he's a programmer but his self-esteem is
gone and he feels like he's faking it even though his work is good.

I chalk it up to the CMU CS experience. They should screen their CS students
more carefully. It is extremely difficult for students (who tend to be
idealistic and optimistic) to anticipate how difficult the workload will be.
It should be the university's responsibility to restrict class size or offer
alternative preparatory classes for less-prepared students. "Survival of the
fittest" may be great for the university but it's a tremendous waste of time
and effort for many students.

