TESC BBA CIS or Computer Science? Which is better for employers

[dcan]

I see what you mean dcan about discrete math but I did try to study discrete math and the set arithmetic was fine it was the darn proofs that I had trouble with.

I worry about the difficulty too. Guess I'll find out when I eventually take the course.

I just randomly stumbled across an example of what I'm talking about from set theory: Bijection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Basically, if you've ever mapped incoming URL parameters (set X) into fields in a SQL query (set Y), it looks to me like you're doing set bijection.

[JDM]

I interview people almost every week and I can tell you that I value a CS degree much more than a CIS degree. I think that's going to be true pretty much across the board. Plus, if you're planning to get a masters in CS, all the hard undergrad courses in CS are going to be prereqs for your grad program. If you have to take the courses anyway, you might as well get the more highly regarded degree.

[Chebasaz]

I disagree with the across the board comment, but maybe we're just in different parts of the industry.

I am curious though. Are you saying that you've made resume selections based solely on a person having a CS degree over a CIS (or something similar)?

[ryoder]

I have definitely used url parameters for prepared statement values but of course the security person in me cautions against doing so directly. I always use a front end framework with conversion and validation such as JSF to validate untrusted user input and prepare a bean for processing by our service and business logic layers. These layers are then injected with a DAO layer which handles the DB access. Our DAO layer of choice is iBatis SQL mapper which allows us to maintain our queries and ORM mappings in a nice clean XML file. We also use spring to wire everything up and spring annotations for transaction management.

JSF XHTML Page->Conversion/Validation->Backing Bean->Service Layer->DAO->iBatis->JDBC->Oracle

I have a lot of respect for someone with a CS degree but we look at the degree last and sometimes not at all when we select a candidate.
I can tell by talking to a developer and asking specific questions based on what they have on their resume if they can walk the walk.

[Chebasaz]

I have a lot of respect for someone with a CS degree but we look at the degree last and sometimes not at all when we select a candidate.
I can tell by talking to a developer and asking specific questions based on what they have on their resume if they can walk the walk.

Indeed. That's one of the reasons I love this industry so much - it's still based on merit rather than anything else. Want to be sought after in IT? Be better at "X" than anyone else. A candidate could have a degree in 15th-century French poetry and as long as they knew what they needed to, blew away the interview and were a good fit for the team... they're hired.

Of course the largest obstacle is getting past the recruiters and HR to get that interview. That's where degrees come in handy (though in IT, certifications usually accomplish the same). That's also what made me curious about the statement above.

[dcan]

I have definitely used url parameters for prepared statement values but of course the security person in me cautions against doing so directly.

Exactly -- it's the process of the one-to-one mapping itself that is the implementation of the set bijection function. At least to my layman's eyes anyway.

[JDM]

Of course the largest obstacle is getting past the recruiters and HR to get that interview. That's where degrees come in handy (though in IT, certifications usually accomplish the same). That's also what made me curious about the statement above.

My comments apply to new grads without a long resume (maybe an internship, but little to no professional experience). By the time I see them, they've already been selected by a recruiter, made it past a phone screen and invited in for an all day series of interviews. At my company, at least, it's pretty uncommon for a developer without experience to get that far without a CS degree. We're looking for people who are passionate about technology, and in general CS shows more passion than CIS.

It's certainly true that the longer you're in the industry, the less your degree matters. For full disclosure, I don't have a degree and I'm past the point in my career where it makes any difference. There's no doubt, though, that it would have been easier to get to this point if I'd started with a CS degree from a well-known school.