MIS vs. Comp Science Options

[Dogmeat]

You must have slept through the cryptography portion of Materialsa and Mechanics Lab ...

[impala454]

I guess I'm just odd then because from experience it feels like I have learned more than the CS majors I've talked to.

I had to present at some CS class last semester about cryptography and multi-key hashes and most of the class looked at me dumbfounded and at the end I actually had a few of them come up to me and ask me what a public and private key were 

It's all a matter of opinion. I think that if you want to get into networking then MIS may be the way to go, but I suggest you go talk to professors in both departments and lay it out for them. Don't talk to the advisors, they know very little about the majors besides what classes you have to take.

CS is harder because of the engineering classes? I can believe that, but then again, MIS majors have to take finance, accounting, and 3 semesters of economics, the focus is a little different and it's all in your opinion of what's hard. I know some very smart people who can't figure out finance for the life of them...

This whole thread is kind of a testament to what the one problem with CS majors is, the "holier than thou" attitude. I don't have a problem with it, y'all are smart folks, but in certain environments it pisses people off.

Well I wouldn't call it a holier than thou attitude. It's more like CS people get defensive when MIS people trivialize CS like "MIS is just CS without engineering". When I work my ass off to be one of the 20 out of 100 that passed my calc based phyics course, and then have a MIS major comparing that to some finance class, you could imagine people getting defensive.

Then compare the MIS classes where you learn about databases, SQL, web pages, etc to CS where you have classes where you design a cpu from scratch, have automata theory that would drive a person insane, design and implement your own operating system, etc etc. Now don't get me wrong, the web page/sql/database type stuff does exist in CS, but it's an assumed knowledge and not really a class.

It's not a personal attack on yours or any other MIS major's intelligence, but CS is definitely a much harder major.

[Hartmann]

Well I wouldn't call it a holier than thou attitude. It's more like CS people get defensive when MIS people trivialize CS like "MIS is just CS without engineering". When I work my ass off to be one of the 20 out of 100 that passed my calc based phyics course, and then have a MIS major comparing that to some finance class, you could imagine people getting defensive.

Then compare the MIS classes where you learn about databases, SQL, web pages, etc to CS where you have classes where you design a cpu from scratch, have automata theory that would drive a person insane, design and implement your own operating system, etc etc. Now don't get me wrong, the web page/sql/database type stuff does exist in CS, but it's an assumed knowledge and not really a class.

It's not a personal attack on yours or any other MIS major's intelligence, but CS is definitely a much harder major.

I didn't want to be a CS major for the reasons you pointed out. I don't care about writing an OS or designing a CPU, it's not for me. I really like writing support applications. I like analyzing a problem, finding the business motivation behind improving it, and then implementing it.

I understand what you mean about MIS people lowering the difficulty of CS to something they can compare to. MIS people have different concerns though, it goes beyond web pages, which we don't even really touch, I think that's a Mass Comm thing now. We focus on analysis, design, and project management. It really comes down to CS and MIS majors working together, depending on the company.

We have one class in Databases and SQL, but a lot of our curriculum focuses on Object Oriented stuff and the MVC model.

[Dogmeat]

Soooooooooooooooo in other words, MIS is exactly like the analogy I made. It's engineering vs. engineering technology.

It's the difference between a guy who works on a car and the guy who designs the car

MIS by everything I've seen is just a fancy-shcmancy network admin job....

[Hartmann]

MIS by everything I've seen is just a fancy-shcmancy network admin job....

No.

It's not like the guy who designs the car and the guy who works on the car at all.

MIS people design software as well, just a different type. CS majors design an OS, a VOIP protocol etc. MIS majors design business software. None of the jobs I have been offered have anything to do with network administration, at all. All of them are Java or .NET jobs in which I would be doing programming and consulting. CS majors can put a VAX system in place but they (generalization) can't create a custom software solution without learning accounting and understanding business processes, that's why we're around.

So in other words, you're wrong.

[Dogmeat]

So in other words you write programs that don't require any real math involved in them

[Seeker]

i see accounting and business processes as something that everyone with common sense should know, don't really need a class on it

[Hartmann]

So in other words you write programs that don't require any real math involved in them

No, when I worked for Shell I wrote plenty of code that did bit math and oil/gas physics and the funny thing about that job was that they specifically did not want a CS major.


And Lance, you'd think so, but it goes beyond the basics of revenue, profits, etc.

[Dogmeat]

I actually wish that universities would dump the bullshit general education requirements they make engineering majors take like anthroploogy and such and make us take more economics classes. Engineering econ, even though it was grossly simplified and easy, I think should have been the beginning of a series of econ classes. I mean seriously, we go through all this basic engineering shit but *EVERYTHING* we will EVER do as an engineer is completley goverened by economics, which even after getting an A in that class I still feel like I know very little about....


I dunno I mean I guess that's why they have the thing called "industrial engineering", but I still think that's an aspect that's reall overlooked in 4-year undergrad engineering degrees.

[hodge]

the issue with CS is it has no clear path. lance is right, you'll learn about how to design circuits, logic boards, write your own languages, understand the fundamentals of all languages, etc etc... but never have a clear "path" you are striving for. its like a movie where they try to cram 8hrs of story to 2hrs of screentime. its like you get a hint at what they REALLY want you to learn but never really expand upon the idea. combined with the fact all the teachers are there to research...

and yea, its hard as balls. 120 undergrads with 12 graduating each semester last i saw.

[chook]

The CS degree Hodge? Its got a pretty high attrition rate, the highest one is the EE/CS if you count just dropping one.

[chook]

looking at what you said, i'd go MIS. But business classes could be your bane and you have to deal with some really stupid shit from the business school before you get into the better classes.

[Seeker]

the business school pissed me off at tech and i wasn't even in the business school, so i can only imagine what they do to actual students

[Dogmeat]

the issue with CS is it has no clear path. lance is right, you'll learn about how to design circuits, logic boards, write your own languages, understand the fundamentals of all languages, etc etc... but never have a clear "path" you are striving for. its like a movie where they try to cram 8hrs of story to 2hrs of screentime. its like you get a hint at what they REALLY want you to learn but never really expand upon the idea. combined with the fact all the teachers are there to research...

and yea, its hard as balls. 120 undergrads with 12 graduating each semester last i saw.

Mechanical is engineering is the same way ... It's so broad there's no clear path.

I know ME's do everything from analyze avalanches to sell insurance

[Seeker]

if you really want to be successful do what every ceo of every fortune 500 company has done, drop out of college