Hello all,

This is my first post here and I thought it would be the perfect place to ask this question. I'm currently attending Penn State University at a branch campus for two years (one down). After that I have two choices, I can go to University Park (main campus), and choose to major in Computer Science. University Park is the most alive town for college students in my state. All in all its my best option for "the college experience" so to speak. Or I can choose to go to Erie and major in Software Engineering. They have a better engineering program then University Park with the REDC building there (Research and Economic Development Center). It looks like it would be a more practical hands on approach. They definitely have better technology. However, Erie is a cold, dead town, with a lot of snow most of the year. So I'm kind of at a crossroads and am looking for advice =)

edit: Forgot to add that I'm looking to get into the gaming industry, but I figured thats a given being posted on this site haha.

Thank you all for your time and input.

I tried to research the difference between the majors but couldn't come up with much. I see people hiring for the Software Engineer title but require a Computer Science degree. So is there really any difference between the two? I know Software Engineering is relatively new and not much info about it yet.

I grew up in erie. It's absolutely gorgeous in the summer, and it is a nice small city with a lot of really nice scenery in the suburbs. Weather shouldn't factor that much into your choice of college anyway, unless you REALLY hate cold.

I can only speak from my own experience, but perhaps it'll help.

I faced the same dilemma two years ago when I started as a freshman at the Rochester Institute of Technology. They have a fantastic CS program and one of the best SE programs as well. I started out as a CS and found that (at least at MY school) the main difference between the two programs is what type of environment you want to primary work in. In my case choosing to major in Computer Science meant I would be subjected to a monumental number of personal projects consisting of a lot of theory and tons of algorithmic work which did not really interest me. As a result the next year I switched to SE after doing my research and discovering that the SE degree puts you in small teams for the majority of projects and gets you in the "group mentality" of software development as a whole. In my case the choice was simple, and I've had infinitely more fun as an SE major than as a CS major and I feel I've learned a lot more, but that's just me. Ultimately there's not too much difference between the two majors, and like someone previously said a lot of the time in the job market they seem interchangeable. I've got a job at the moment that I was hired for as a CS position although I'm an SE. No matter which major you choose you'll end up sitting in PLENTY of classrooms alongside your CS colleagues, so what it boils down to is if you like working in teams and focusing on design aspects inside and outside of the IDE more than you enjoy perfecting your fastest parser / calculation / compression algorithm, go to school as an SE major. Otherwise start out as a CS.

And of course, in my experience the VAST majority of students decide to switch their majors at one point or another, and it's usually not a huge deal as long as you don't do too many conflicting courses before hand. I wouldn't worry about it so much.