It doesn't do anything for me, either, but it is still a relatively popular car. ------------------ Houston Sports Board The Anti-Bud Adams Page
SFR, If you can find what you enjoy doing, you will be ahead of most of the rest of us, and you will probably maximize your happiness and success. Understand that the $$$ don't mean anything if your job sucks - trust me. Perosnally, I enjoy programming and see it as a game. I got 2 degrees in Finance, but took electives that made me the only non-IS, non-CS major in some classes (e.g. COBOL...hey, it was a long time ago). After that, I taught myself Access, VB and SQL (all through my early jobs out of school). I now apply that skill to a specific industry which I find interesting, and do no programming in any other industry since I understand this one. Often, programmers and DBAs must rely on industry 'specialists' to help complete a time-constrained project. Yuk. I enjoy the creative, conceptualization aspect of programming as much as the actual porgramming, so I will never go there.
I guest it all depend on the University, I had to do a lot of coding at UH (University of Houston) for my CS courses. University Blue is right that Computer Science is like a math major (at least it is true at UH). You will need about 6 Math course as pre-requisites for your other computer courses and you need approximately 7 math courses to get a minor degree in Math. That is why most CS majors end up with Math as their minors. A MIS degree does offer you career in the programming field. As far as programming is concern, the main different between MIS and CS is the level of difficulties. You will probably need a CS degree if your work involved complex design and coding like Operating Systems or Compilers (that's where your math skill come in). A MIS degree will serve you well if you work as a programmer writing business application. CS Careers : The initial pay is about the same for both MIS & CS. MIS majors tend to become managers more often than CS majors and Managers usually get pay more than programmers. In regard to long hours, your boss's management skill is the biggest factor. If your project leader does a good job (meaning a reasonable amount of time is allocated for the project and no major changes is allowed in the middle of the development cycle) you will be fine. My own personal experience as a programmer in the business industry is that those long hours at work is a result of my boss' poor management skill. I have yet to work on a project that is more difficult than any of my junior or senior level school projects. DBA (Data Base Administrator) is probably the most stable type of work; DBA skill does not change as much as programming skill (languages). You will most likely start out on tech support, program maintenance or writing reports so try get a good grasp on SQL. ------------------ [This message has been edited by rblh (edited March 12, 2001).]
