On the Differences Between MIS/CIS/CS Degrees? 526
Dark Ninja asks:
"I find that after having a professional IT job (C++ programmer/DBA)
for four+ years, not having a degree is a hindrance to finding a job. So with this in mind, I'm planning on attending
college soon, but I want to know the difference between an Management
Information System, Computer Information System, and Computer Science
degrees? Better yet, which ones do you suggest (ie. to allow
advancement, which allows for what jobs, etc)?"
CS != MIS (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact is that Computer Science is not only about becoming a IT worker. Its about using computers to solve problems, and about designing these computers to solve this problems. And about understanding and modeling the problems to begin with. There are actually great programmers who are mediocre computer scientists, great computer scientists who are mediocre programmers (usually of the thoretic cs kind), and great it workers who are great computer scientists (and really shitty programmers and Computer Scientists). And since these are different things, that is why it takes about 5 years to graduate a computer scientist.
Sometimes, a programmer who "learned CS" by his own, has acquired many bad habits that he would not have acquired if he had any formal training ("goto statement considered harmfull" comes to mind), and design rules, software engineering, etc. By the other side, self-learned IT professionals have a much more "getting the work done" attitude, and finding things out by himself, which is *extremely* usefull in industry.
So the idea is that one thing complements the other, and yes, it would be nice for anyone who works with technology without a formal training to really spend the time *learning* CS.
Just my 2c.
Think about that.... (Score:0, Insightful)
shortsightedness in hiring practices is a clear sign of management's shortsightedness. you will be unhappy in such a job.
(that's my experience)
Depends on where you are now. (Score:1, Insightful)
not a flame... but it's the truth (Score:5, Insightful)
the fact is, once you get that paper... you could say you majored in History, Art, Literature, etc... but if you have certs and so forth... expect to get hired...
i have a few friends who work for big companies (IBM, Lotus, Computer Associates) and they all never majored in CS/CIS/MIS... but they still landed the job, just because they went to college and they had certs...
another option you might want to consider, is consulting... i consult... and i don't have a college degree... and get this... all the clients who i have worked/am working for... have never asked me for my college degree nor resume (even though i do have a resume)...
the other good thing about consulting is, that once you build up your client base... you'll be working off referrals too... so that's another good thing... only bad thing about consulting is that you'll get no benefits... and no insurance
but if you're married and your wife has medical insurance for the family.. and so forth.. that shouldn't be a problem
Re:Computer Engineering (Score:2, Insightful)
Hope this helps.
"Who is more foolish, the fool, or the fool that follows him?"
Whatever you do, be careful. (Score:2, Insightful)
I've met people with CS degrees that didn't have a clue. They could write C or C++ programs, but they needed strict guidelines, their "skills" essentialy made them word processors. And don't get me started on the CS graduates that don't understand that Windows isn't the ONLY OS out there. (Trust me, they exist, even now)
Arg (Score:2, Insightful)
My answer:
Get whatever you want you want. All you need a degree for is to get your first job, after that, its experience and references that matter. So, get whatever degree you'll have the most fun getting. Comp Engineers, Comp Sci, College drops outs, we all work together, and we all do the same job. University is just there to seperate the rich from the poor and to enforce the class system.
Re:CS good. MIS/CIS bad. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a load of crap--MIS is a very advanced field. The emphasis is placed on business, the same business courses that are taken by people in human resources, accounting, finance, management, marketing, production and operations management, you name it. The point of the course is to take it in an IT direction, and many of the biggest money makers are the ones who get jobs at places like SAP and PeopleSoft, people who end up as specialists in their management software and can consult regarding the business impact of the software. These people are the ones who get hired by the company through their employer to come tell the company what to do with their business.
The reason it isn't a two year degree is because you actually take courses, just like any other actual degree program. It's a full business program, not a CS program, which is why it's a part of the college of business at universities, not the college of computer science.
Think before you speak, know something about what's involved in a degree program and what you do with that degree post-graduation before you talk.
Re:Think about that.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, a college degree can open up alot more opportunities than you will have just with your 5 years experience. It's direct proof that you completed a certain course of study with at least a C in most cases, and shows that you are capable of devoting yourself to something worthwhile. IMHO it means alot more than being able to hold a job for 5 years, whose title may or may not have much bearing on what you did.
If an employer sees 'Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from XYZ University' they know certain things that you should know, and they shouldn't have to worry about you not knowing them.
The best possible way to go is a college degree coupled with some sort of experience or research involvement.
flexibility (Score:2, Insightful)
with a CS degree you can create all the software the helpline people have to deal with for years after you;ve moved on to a new,more interesting project.
Re:Perception... (Score:3, Insightful)
I received a CompSci degree from a small technical college. The CompSci program, as a part of the engineering school, had a lot of math and statistics courses as well as the programming and systems design. The computer degree from the business school had loads more business classes (no surprise) and had more applied courses in the languages used in business systems of the time.
In my career I've been fortunate enough to stay in interesting technical work- lots of programming with artificial intelligence, computer vision, and 3D graphics. The math and statistics that I had in my degree, and that I wouldn't have had in a business MIS degree, have let me pursue this work.
Similarly, for the applications I'm working on currently that are more in the researchy areas, potential employees are more attractive when they have an engineering degree.
You can pick up (at least a reasonable starting skill in) a programming language from books and self study. I have yet to run across a 'Image Processing For Dummies' book....
ObOnTheOtherHand: the last contractor we used who had Oracle experience was non-degreed, had an impressive hourly rate, and whizzed through some Oracle application issues that I had struggled with, so I'm under no illusions that a strong technical degree is required for everything.
So, what work do you want to do in the long term, and what skills will you get out of each degree? And if the CS program is 'harder', is it worth it to you?
Re:Perception... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now of course there are fields where the type of degree matters much, but programming and IT aren't two of them. For example, I work as a Network Admin. The people I work in my room (there are 8 of us) have degrees in MIS, music education, CS, MCB (biology), electrical engineering, and one person has no degree.
You are right to get a degree, but get one that interests you and don't worry too much about what it's in. Having it is enough.
Re:Computer Engineering (Score:3, Insightful)
1) MIS was a business degree with basic programming. The programming
2) CIS was a little more technical, but clearly the emphasis was on higher level programming (VB, macro stuff, COBOL) than on the nuts and bolts of computers.
3) CS had a heavy emphasis on software engineering, but there was significant coursework on how mechanized computation is implemented, ie processor design was taught as well as programming languages.
4) Computer Engineering was sort of a cross between Electrical Engineering and CS.
At my school, there was significant overlap between CompE and CS, to the point that we took many of the same core classes with regards to hardware. Near the end of the programs, final projects differed in implementation (CompE's had to build a simple computer via wire wrap and programmable arrays, CS majors had to write in software a SPARC similuator that would run compiled SPARC code).
For the record, I was graduated with a CS degree, went somewhere else for grad school, and found the the definition of CS is different depending on the department. My undergraduate work is much closer to what my grad advisors considered CompE work, where they spent much more time with the abstraction of computation away from the actual mechanisms -- predicate calculus rather than processor design. I initially hated it.
I found (after some time spent actually adminning (sp?) and programming for a living) that both phases of education have served me extremely well. The ability to abstract pieces of a large problem into discrete parts has been the best skill in my toolbox with regards to programming, while actually understanding the implmentation of processors and compilers has given me a leg up in terms of debugging both my code and vendor supplied software.
My advice to anyone starting out is to learn how to abstract and then get as technical as you can. The basics of computers are not going to change drastically for a good deal of time (no one is seriously considering a move away from Von Nuemann machines in their business plan), so if you know how computers work, the details of a programming language or an OS are just variations on a theme you already know. No matter what happens, it still just comes down to instructions on the code stack.
and we laugh... (Score:5, Insightful)
don't buy into the CS / MIS us vs them crap, but rather look for a more generalized answer:
lots of MIS programs will vary. mine allowed us 8 hours (2 semesters of 4 hour classes) of C++ and VC++ MFC programming. I added in some OO programming which taught language agnostic principles. plus there was another 8 hours worth of DB stuff - SPs, tables, schemas, etc. on top of all that, we had several "capstone" classes which matched full semester group projects with business area focus. we had several companies bring in real world business issues which we then solved using our class knowledge (and the companies got a free consulting solution if they decided to use our work!)
i took Cal I and B-Cal - no more, no less. the CIS people i know from my university took Cal I-III and often some other elective mathematical classes.
the real questions is what will you envision yourself working on in 5 years? if you plan on doing business level programming, then the MIS degree is going to give you the requiste background in accounting, finance, and economics to survive. i found employeers were chomping at the bit b/c i had these skills - of course, i interviewed with (and work for) Fortune 300 companies.
we have some CS people at my company - these guys are wicked smart and several of them have military or NASA backgrounds. they do the low level, to the metal programming that our apps need. these guys are not building our accounting modules. that's not their strength. they might be able to - it's just not what they are working on.
with either degree you are not just purchasing a job - you are showing your employeer an ability to learn. my father graduated one of the top engineering schools in 1969. he did chemical engineering for about 3 years and then did all business management stuff for the next 27. his company hired him b/c his degree showed he could think and learn. both a CS and MIS degree from a well respected university will get you this.
good luck and have fun! i miss my college profs about once a month!
My Experience (Score:2, Insightful)
I majored in CIS and minored in CS. The reason? When I started at college I knew I wanted to do something with computers but I didn't really know what and the CIS department gave a much broader sampling than the CS department did. At my school the *only* thing they taught in the CS program was programming, math, programming and programming while the CIS dept. taught programming, math, DBs, web, system analysis, netowkring plus a slew of business classes (including accounting, finance, law, management). I decided to stick with the CIS major since I really liked professors and enjoyed the various classes but I made the decision to pickup the CS minor to help bolster my programming skills since that was the career path I decided to take, at least for a few years.
Employer Perspective:
As someone who has been on both sides of the table during job interviews I can honestly say that it really doesn't make much difference which degree you have. You'll of course run into the occasional CS snob who won't hire a CIS graduate and vice a versa with a CIS snob not hiring a CS graduate (of course, some employers also look down on graduate from certain schools as well). Employers see your diploma as a symbol that you have, for the lack of a better word, the sticktoitness, to work/figth your way through your studies and graduate. What's going to seperate you is the way you sell yourself and your references and past work experience.
Also, keep in mind do what you enjoy.
Re:The Correct Answer (Score:3, Insightful)
This is highly dependent on the school. At many schools, CE is actually the degree for people who want to program, while CS is more for people who want to do research into computers - very heavy on math. After all, programming is simply implementing something, and specific implementations of concepts is almost the definition of engineering. Science, on the other hand, is typically concerned with research and coming up with new concepts (or refining old concepts), so computer science would then be more along the lines of coming up with a new sorting algorithm rather than implementing an existing one.
Re:CS is the geek's degree (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm majoring in Physics at Brandeis, but then again I'm not your standard undergrad, I'm 28, I took 7 years off from school to work, but when I lost my job last fall I decided to go back and fisish.
Re:The Correct Answer (Score:5, Insightful)
CS can range from being a coder-mill to a real theory-based science program.
CE can range from being almost exclusively EE applied to computers to being coding + some hardware.
CSE (computer science engineering) and EE/CS tend to with some reliability balance hardware and software.
SE (software engineering) focuses on the application of computer science to building software.
Most day-to-day programmers that I've worked with aren't spending a lot of time designing algorithms or thinking out big-O problems. Instead, they spend most of their time working with a team of programmers trying not to step on one another.
I'd say most programmers would actually benefit from a Software Engineering background, then a CS background, then a CSE, then a CE background. As for MIS, CIS, I'd advise getting one of the above degrees and having your employer send you for an MBA with a computing focus.
When shopping for schools, ask about all the programs they offer and have them compare them. CS at one school may be nearly identical to CE at another.
Personally, I think all the programs are cool...
Perceptions and Degrees (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm a professor of CS. Here's how I see the following degrees.
So there you have it. In terms of difficulty, I think the CE is toughest, followed by CS, then MIS and SE, then IT and CIS. In terms of perception, I think CS and CE are perceived with the most respect, then MIS and SE, then IT and CIS. Strange how perception follows from difficulty. :-) If you want to program, get CS. If you want to do the business side, get MIS. If you want to build hardware, get CE. CS has by far the most job options. If you don't know what you want to do, and you can hack it, CS is the right route.
Re:The Correct Answer (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been the man and that's not what the man says. What the man says is "I've got 200 resumes. I've got two days to whittle it down to 5 for first interviews. I need some way to filter these..."
If the man has a degree and saw its value, the degree may become a filter. If the man worked for three years in QA/testing, that may become the filter, etc.
Not having a degree proves nothing except that you don't have a degree. Sort of like not having a high school diploma. BTW, if you were the man, and you hired someone, and the turned out to be completely worthless and you had to fire them, and they didn't have a high school diploma, would you really want to have to explain that to your boss? Same goes for a degre...they're useful to have. If you have one
HA! don't be fooled (Score:1, Insightful)
Higher education is not about learning how to do somthing, it's about becoming teachable, and learning how to adapt and overcome challenge.
Employers do not simply look at WHAT you know, or how your grades are. Character and experience play a MUCH larger role in determining if you are worth hiring. If you want to gain the job of your dreams, you have to sell yourself well enough to get the job (and the pay) that you desire.
My advice: find somthing that you enjoy to do, and learn to do it well on your own. Don't expect to become a good programmer or a good 'IS-geek' by education alone. If you really want to find happiness in a carreer, you need to take your 'people skills' seriously. Anyone can study long and hard enough to get good grades or certifiactions - but if your a total 'assmunch', then it won't matter how good you are at your job - you'll be fired as soon as the management can find reason to.
Don't worry about the courses you take in college to help guide your carreer. Study the subjects you enjoy, and don't be so narrow-minded as to not persue other interests outside computer sciences. There's nothing more valuable or as fulfilling as having a diverse education.
Re:The Correct Answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:CS is the geek's degree (Score:4, Insightful)
Having run through the university mill for several years (and survived), and being on the hiring end of the fence, I can say that a Bachelors in anything is pretty much useless in terms of proving ability to do anything useful. Compared to graduate school, undergrad is really a joke. Sitting in a lecture hall "absorbing" information is not the best way to learn. My advisor told me that in grad school you have to teach yourself. This unfortunately was true more often than not. What they don't tell you, though, is that the undergraduate funds pay for the graduate programs, which the professors use as slave (unpaid) labor by which they work their grants. Make no mistake: College is a business.
...but I digress...
When I sift through resumes, I don't even look at the person's education or even certifications. The only thing that I care about is whether the person can do the job to the quality level I want. This is proved in the interview. Experience level -- what gets me to look at you at all -- is determined by previous jobs, but I don't give a lot of weight, because most people inflate anyway.
In my interviews, people are expected to be articulate, solve real problems and demonstrate their coding ability. If they can't do that, then I could care less where they went to school. One last tidbit: the company I currently work for cares a great deal about degrees. It is a very old company, so they don't understand computers but they know they need them; their attitude is that they won't hire someone who doesn't have a degree, even though they're perfectly happy having degree-less contractors do all the work. Go figure.
What do you want to do? (Score:3, Insightful)
Generally, the MIS people work in (or sometime are) the IS/IT departments of a company -- they're the people who keep the computers running, and develop the software used to keep the business running, often by starting with a known package and tweaking it to meet the company's needs. These folks are responsible for things like the payroll systems, purchasing, employee tracking and so on.
On the other hand, the CS people are generally on the product development side -- they're the ones writing the control systems for the satellites, writing the DSP code for en/de-coding MP3 files, designing missile control systems, writing compilers or designing operating systems. THere's a big research side to CS.
There's certainly some cross-over and the two sides are not exclusive -- you'll often find a bunch of old physics guys doing the CS-type work, for example.
My experience has been that the CS side pays better in industry.
Diff between science, engineering, and management (Score:4, Insightful)
Having attended three different academic institutions over the past 24 years, and receiving both graduate and undergraduate degrees in electrical and computer engineering and computer science, I can say some things about what I've observed. One way schools can be divided is by the emphasis they place on research vs. teaching. A computer science degree from a research oriented school will tend to focus more on the science part of CS, such as theory, operating systems, compilers, etc. because they are interested in generating more graduate students to do research. A CS degree from a teaching oriented school will tend to focus more on applied subjects like programming, databases, software design, etc. because they are mostly turning out people who will immediately be looking for outside jobs. Degrees from either kind of school are fine for getting a job afterwards, since many of the same core subjects will be taught virtually everywhere and many employers won't really know the difference. However, if you plan on applying to graduate schools later for a more advanced degree, they will know which category your school fits in.
One way to divide programs within schools is by which college or major division runs the program. Some schools have CS programs originating from an engineering college or division, while others tie them into an arts and science college or division. At some schools, the CS programs have had their roots in the math department. Programs with engineering roots will generally require the student to spend more time fulfilling engineering-specific requirements such as calculus, circuit theory, physics, etc. This often doesn't leave much time for other electives. Programs with roots in arts and science will have their own sets of required courses, which may allow time for taking more business oriented electives along the way.
Computer engineering (CompE) degrees are often a hybrid program between a traditional CS program and an electrical engineering (EE) program. Whether you get more or less software vs. hardware in these programs depends a lot on which department has the most influence at a particular school. Sometimes the program is run as a joint one between two different departments, and their quality depends a lot on the amount of cooperation that exists between them. Be careful to check with other people who have gone through a particular CompE program to see if they believe the program was successful or not in bridging the two disciplines and what approach was taken.
The general rule to take from all of this is that there are no general rules differentiating the kinds of programs at different schools for CS and CompE programs. Each school is different, and you need to investigate each one thoroughly to see if going there will meet your needs.
Natural Pruning (Score:1, Insightful)
The way I see it (Score:3, Insightful)
There are two benefits to going to school for a degree:
- You meet people who might be able to help you find employment, you get this more in a college with a "name". The private colleges with biggest names are MIT, Stanford and CMU. The public ones are University of Michigan and UC Berkeley.
- Completing a Bachelor's degree proves to any employer that you are willing to put up with four years of bullshit to achieve a goal, a Masters means even more. This is very important to prove to the business world, because they expect you to wade through more bullshit, this is why they call it work.
From my point of view, none of the academic computing programs teach enough job skills to be able to say "ok, anyone with a BS in Computer Science can do this job", so it really doesn't matter what the degree is in. A B.S. holds more weight with me than a B.A., since a B.S. from a College Board accredited school means that you can do math and put together a lab manual, both of which show skills that are useful (but not essential) in a typical IT job (yes, I know lab manuals are not standard in computing, I'm talking about the skill of being able to write down what you are doing, which is important).Beyond that, Physics is as good as Computer Science, Philosophy as good as Scuplture. Don't skimp on learning computing skills, and experience on real computer projects, that's essential, just not the name on the degree.
The bottom line for me, a degree means the person has a small edge over the competition, everyone has to prove to me that they can learn, but college grads don't have to prove as much that they can put up with crap, the degree says so. The edge is a small one, at least in my book.
Now, I know that there are plenty of jobs that won't even give you an interview unless you have letters after your name. If they are more interested in your degree status than what skills you can offer a company, that's their loss, are you sure it's a company you want to work for anyway? If you really do want to work for such a company, find out what degree they prefer (call them up and ask them), and go for that one. While you are in school, make sure you seek an internship with your desired employer as well, you cannot beat knowing your potential employer when it comes to finding a job.
An employer's point of view (Score:3, Insightful)
The gang is primarily MIS grads with a couple of CS folks thrown in. The finding so far is that the MIS folks are satisfactory coders (with a strong preference for 4GL tools.. PowerBuilder, Lotus Notes, VB..) and, depending on training, pretty good at PL/SQL. All get good pay and have decent prospects for the future (as coders, or in the client service side of things).
I have come to rely on the CS types to establish policies, procedures, and guidelines as well as bearing the responsibility for designing all of the software.
YMMV with different MIS programs but around here they simply don't have the formal training in software engineering, formal methodologies, algorithm analysis, etc. Basically, left to their own devices, they don't build very good software. (if you think back to the days of 7 levels of correctness, we're talking level 3 here)
So... in this software shop (remember, accounting firm):
CS - get the design work, tend to supervise the MIS grads. Good job security, but limited advancement opportunities unless the number of products grows. Better pay.
MIS - get grunt work, poor job security if they limit themselves to only code work (evil phrases like "dime a dozen" come to mind). Less pay. Generally better opportunities to progress in the "business" side of things.
---
Oh yeah, BSCS (not BACS) means 20+ hours of math.
I Have Both (Score:2, Insightful)
I got a BScH in computing and information science. This includes programming, but it's more than that. Algorithms, data structures, computational complexity, formal languages, formal logic, graphics, numerics, compilers, operating systems, parallel computing, databases, all those things.
There are also software engineering degrees. They should cover more applied things like project planning, testing, estimating, requirements, etc. Just do a keyword search for "SWEBOK" to see what (should) constitute software engineering.
Of course, there are no "real" definitions. It depends on what the institution's program is like.
Personally, I think a dedicated student can really appreciate the CS degree, and fill out the rest of SE through a dedicated post-degree self-study program. There are enough good books out there (e.g. Rapid Development, Managing the Requirements Process, Software Project Management) that this is possible.
I've heard it said that CS grads don't appreciate the final details of real applied software engineering, and aren't taught it. But really, even though it isn't the focus of their education, the good ones pick it up. My experience working with CS and engineering-with-computing-option engineers (some designated) is that it is usually the latter (not the former) who are more hack and slash coders. They often didn't seem to appreciate the complexity of what they were building, maybe because it wasn't wood or steel. I hear that engineers are more responsible with their programs and all that, but really I don't see it.
A degree is a jobtitle, coursetitle is experience (Score:1, Insightful)
The degree itself is like a past job you weren't fired from; it shows you can perform at that level. The subject is like the experience you got while at that job, potentially useful and relevant to a future employer but not essential.
Therefore, get a degree subject that you think you can cope with three/four years sitting in boring rooms listening to turgid waffle by some of the worst instructors out there
Make sure it's one you think you'll remember enough about for three years after graduation to answer questions. For a short while, it will be your most recent experience and therefore an interview topic.
My experience with CS/CE/CIS/MIS (Score:2, Insightful)
In college I majored in EE with a concentration in Computer Engineering. Although I knew I wanted a career doing computer science/programming, I decided NOT to major in straight CS. I had been programming since a fairly young age, and so by the end of high school, I considered myself to be a fairly knowledgable programmer (whether or not that was true is a subject for debate, but it is hard to convince an 18 year old the error of his ways!). I figured that by majoring in EE/CE I would be broadening my horizons because the main focus of this major is computer hardware design. I figured that learning the hardware of a computer system would best compliment the knowledge I already.
During my undergraduate program, I ended up taking the usual array of engineering core courses, EE courses, and the like. I also took a number of CS courses as technical electives. Although the lower level CS courses (intro and sophomore level courses) were somewhat of a waste, the ones I took beyond that were very helpful. In the end, I realized that there WAS a lot about programming that I needed to learn, and I ended up completing a Masters in CS after my BSEE.
Getting back to the original question, personally I thought that doing the BSEE and MSCS was the best choice FOR ME. Because my interests lie in programming and technical things, this course of study was definitely the way to go. Also, although I like to think that I could be a good technical manager, the fact is that I really don't have any interest in being one.
As far as the other degrees go (MIS, CIS), I don't have personally experience with these. From what I can gather, the MIS degree is focused a lot more on technical project management and business-related computer applications. The content is a lot less technical than what you'd find in a CS degree. I'm not saying that that's bad or anything; it's just different. In general, the feeling that I get is that because the MIS degree is less "hardcore", it is easier. For a pure technical position, a CS degree is probably a better preparation. For a project management type position, a MIS degree is probably a better preparation.
However, let me just say that in my opinion it is a LOT easier to take a CS person and turn them into a manager than it is to take an MIS person and turn them into a technical contributor. You can teach management skills on the job through experience and mentoring, but it is much harder to teach technical skills on the job unless the individual already has a good technical foundation.