the school i am currently at only offers the BS in computer science but there is another university in town that overs 2 computer degrees one called computer science and computer information systems. do you think these degrees hold the same amount of wieght when trying to get a programming job. jst wondeirng cause after my year off im thinking about transfering to the other school for the cis degree what do you think?

I, along with inscissor, have majors in Computer Science and minors in Business Computer Information Systems (basically a CIS degree brought to you by the university's business school). Comp Sci definitely holds a lot more weight. CIS is really good if you want to do less science / math theory and more hands-on, I.T. type stuff.

I find CIS guys often work on systems; business systems, systems analysis etc. Comp Sci people usually end up computer engineers. I wouldn't say one holds more weight than the other. It just depends on what your goals are. I am a CIS guy and I don't really have my hands on hardware at all.

I'd have to disagree Computer science and CIS courses are really worlds apart. CIS is more of an I.T. type degree. There is some programming involved, but a lot of it is end-user based and application based - and hands-on computer type stuff. A computer science degree is definitely a lot, lot more work and involves everything from calculus to electrical engineering and digital circuitry to application programming to software engineering to years of chemistry and years of physics, ... it goes on and on. It's definitely a much harder, technical, scientific degree which I could definitely say is equivalent to a math/physics/electrical engineering type degree.

Don't get me wrong, comp sci is much much harder. I graduated CIS and had 1 course that was really hands on computers, the rest where programming, math (calculus, quantitative methods, blah), management, and lots of DB stuff. What I mean is neither degree holds more weight in the professional world. If you want that C++ programmer job at "Advanced InfoTech Systems" (made up company name) then your comp sci degree is a better fit. If you want a systems analyst job, or perhaps a project management position, then CIS is a better fit. There are just as many jobs out there for CIS as for comp sci grads. The comp sci grads tend to be the bigger nerds, they tend to be smarter programmers, and they tend to start at a higher salary for their propsective entry level positions, but the CIS people lean towards the business side and tend to make lots of money (at least the smart ones).

I would be interested in seeing a comparision of lifetime earnings for both degrees.

see thats the thing is i want to be a programmer and currently have a programming job that i got with my AS in computer programming, so say i have 2 or 3 years left of school i will end up out of college with 3 to 4 years of programming experience so really i would be up there or above anyone with a cs degree when it comes time to get a job. cause what i have noticed is most programming jobs are looking for ppl that have a BS they dont really care which degree. cause they always say or equivalent. this is just what i have noticed so i figure since i could care less about all the theories and jst want to get down with programming and stuff like that. i feel i am a pretty good programmer and have will have quite a bit of programming work experience so i wont be leaving college as an entry level job i will be more of a mid level or do you guys think not?

edit: o and i have found all the theory stuff to be really hard and havent been doing so good in the university level and now i will be taken a year off so i thought i would take the time away from school to anaylize what posistion i am in right now. thanks again

well i have offically made up my mind i am goin to change majors and go into the CIS program

Oh wow, influenced by this thread, eh? Good luck in all of your endeavors, whichever major you wish to choose!

I hope you do a little more research than just this thread when making such a big decision. There really wasn't a deep exploration of either degree posted here. Good luck either way.

There are actually a bunch of similar threads comparing Comp Sci to IT/IS in these forums.