[plug] [OT] Soft Eng .vs. Comp Sci

[James L. Clarke]

Further on the whole "what to study at uni debate", the units that you think are
irrelevant now, may be ones that once you start working you realise were
actually more relevant than the units that you thought were relevant.

I did my first degree a Bachelor of Commerce (Information Technology) straight
out of school, the first year of that degree included common core units in
Accounting, Finance, Economics, Management, and Law. Most of the IT majors
(myself included) hated the common core units, I just passed through most of the
common core units (although in the Finance (mostly very easy maths) ones I
did well), some other IT students had to repeat common core units.

I found that some the concepts I studied in Law and Management have been very
useful in the "real world" when dealing with people and also with legal issues
that come up on contracts from time to time.

The Finance and Accounting concepts were very useful in when I was working on
systems relating to superannuation, investment portfolios, and revenue collection.

I friend who studied Computer Science part time after working the IT Industry
for five years (his initial entry qualification was a diploma) took the
management units from the Commerce Degree as electives. He found them extremely
useful for management issues he was facing (he was project manager at the time)
in the workplace.

Five years ago I went back to Uni part time and studied MBA (Master of Business
Administration) while only one of the units was directly IT related, the course
was flexible enough for me to look at IT perspectives of the topics covered in
almost every unit.

For example when I did Human Resource Strategies 660, in the papers which I
wrote I was able to look at Strategic Human Resourcing in IT consulting firms.

Doing the MBA helped me get a much better idea on how business work and helped
realised that the IT consulting firm I was working for had a very flaky
business model (at the time), and I was then able to find a new opportunity with
a much better company which I would not have seen without the knowledge gained
through doing the MBA. It really helped me see good companies from bad.

Having said all this, I know people who have Philosophy Degrees and have then
gone into IT and had very successful careers, and then there are others with
Computer Science Degree, that working in their Uncle's catering business as
delivery drivers! So a lot of it comes down to how you apply yourself in the
work force.

Cheers,

James

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