I don't know how it is in Germany, but in Norway at least, software engineers are actual engineers. We have the same basic package: a little physics, a lot of calculus, some discrete maths, basic economics, basic signal processing, and a bunch of business-related softer topics around leadership, planning etc. The non-software engineers also have a bit of programming in their programs, of course.
Similarly in Russia where I am from, but I've always seen it as a sign of the education of software engineers being outdated. I work in embedded, so actually have some use for physics (thought a tiny part of what has been taught), calculus and signal procesing - but most other software engineers do not at all. They don't even use discrete math really at any deep level. So looks like a lot of time wasted that would better be dedicated to learning version control, cloud computing, up-to-date tools or just a second domain.
As of leadership and planning, I hope yours is better that ours. We f..g learned Gantt charts, but zero of Agile or modern project and product management, and equally zero about finance of tech startups (funding rounds etc.).
Been a while since I finished but I wouldn't call it engineering, based on these (maybe) arbitrary criteria:
- you're mostly only doing the slightly? easier math courses
- zero physics and the signal processing stuff I'd rate "kinda basic"
- you're not allowed to call yourself an "engineer" unless your university has built your program that way, in former times it would be "Diplom-Informatiker" vs "Diplom-Ingenieur" (I am the former).
I am not a huge fan of the last point, but it's a fact, so I'll put it here. One of my more specific gripes is that this is still arbitrary. I'm not completely sold that my uni education was brilliant, but I've seen people who are allowed to call themselves engineers know and do, and it comes down to the same knowledge (or worse) but they had like one semester of hardware stuff (out of 9-10 semesters).
Also any code of ethics is usually completely absent, or maybe they actually did change that for some unis now.
Also another caveat, they mostly got rid of the old "Diploma" systems and for the last 8-12 years most people graduate as BSc and MSc, so whenever the topic comes to it I'll say "it's about equivalent to a MSc in CS" because it was supposed to be 9-10 semesters in total, with some sort of cut in the middle, that did not directly correlate to a BSc, but was a 2y part.
Oh yeah, everything they teach about software tooling is out of date, so it wouldn't do any good to spend more time on it. At least physics doesn't go out of date so quickly.
Same in Australia atleast back in my day. As much as I hated back then I am so so so grateful for the breadth of problem spaces (and associated toolsets) it exposed me to. Never mind that people seldom value generalists (to pay them really well). I get plenty of confidence to work on and successfully finish side projects completely unrelated to my day job!!;
