Computer Science v.s. Information Science (IS Track)
Computer Science at Cornell University is somewhat ill-defined, but the department page notes:
Computer Science majors take core courses in algorithms, data structures, logic, programming languages, scientific computing, systems, and theory. The program for Computer Science majors is broad and rigorous, but it is structured in a way that supports in-depth study of outside areas.
Information Science has a better description:
Information Science (IS) is an interdisciplinary field that studies the design and use of information systems in a social context. The field studies the creation, representation, organization, application, and analysis of information in digital form.
Both programs have a basis in computers, so you might imagine Information Science to be an extension of Computer Science where undergraduates, having completed the same core of courses, focus their studies in Information Systems. Unfortunately, this is not true, and Information Science at Cornell is simply the easier alternative to Computer Science. CS and IS:IS undergraduates should be able to consider each other peers, but the poorly-structured IS program makes this impossible by watering down rather than supplementing the CS curriculum.
Disclaimer: I am biased. I am a CS major. I graduated.
Core Competencies
An undergraduate in Computer Science is required to take a bevy of courses:
- A 4-course calculus sequence, learning calculus, multivariate calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra (MATH 121, 122, 221, and 222)
- A course in statistics or higher math (ENGRD 270 or MATH 300+)
- A 3-course sequence of introductory programming (CS 100, 211, and 212)
- A 7-course CS core in Discrete mathematics, datastructures, functional programming, hardware design, operating systems, numerical computation, theory of computing, and analysis of algorithms (CS 280, 312, 314, 414, 421, 381, 482)
An undergraduate in Information Science is required to take a smaller selection of courses:
- A 3-course mathematics sequence, learning introductory calculus, discrete mathematics, and linear algebra (MATH 121, 221, INFO 295)
- A course in statistics (ENGRD 270 or others)
- A 2-course series in psychology (INFO 214, 245)
- A 2-course series in web-design (INFO 130, 230)
- A single programming course (CS 211)
- A 2-course series in econ and computer culture
After this, CS majors are required to take 2 400+ level courses and a 2-course 400+ level project couple, another 6 credits in courses technical in nature, and and three 300+ courses in another field of study. IS majors are required to take 4 courses in one area of IS study and 3 courses in their secondary area. So, after the core of each program, the requirements are quite similar, except that the CS major is less restrictive in allowing you choose your outside area of study. For me, mine was English, but for an IS major they must pick from a list of three areas.
The IS Fundamentals Lack
You’ll note that the IS major is missing a few things in their core present in the CS core. First, CS has 15 courses in its core; IS only contains 11. Here’s a breakdown by competency:
- Mathematics: CS majors take Calculus II and multivariate calculus and differential equations (MATH 122, 222).
- Computation: While CS and IS majors both take their flavours of discrete math, CS majors also take a course in numerical computation (CS 421).
- Datastructures and Algorithms: CS majors take courses in data structures and the analysis of algorithms (CS 312, 482).
- Theory of Computing: CS majors take CS 381, the theory of computing.
- Low-level Computing: CS majors take CS 314 and 414, a pair of courses that teach you to build a processor from gates and write an operating system.
The IS Information Systems track does not offer any of these courses which every CS major takes. Thus, the two programs are not at parity.
Update: Here is an interesting article called six degrees of computer science which tries to explain how CS relates to other fields of engineering.
| This entry was posted on Saturday, March 31st, 2007 at 6:20 pm and is tagged with differential equations and linear algebra, computer science majors, logic programming languages, computer science cs, multivariate calculus, course calculus, cs curriculum, cs core, cornell university, course cs, discrete mathematics, computation theory, introductory programming, cs 100, track computer, organization application, programming hardware, numerical computation, analysis of algorithms, course sequence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback. |
37 Responses to “Computer Science v.s. Information Science (IS Track)”
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The reason information science teaches different tools is because it’s a different field which works on different problems. The point of IS isn’t to teach you the theory of algorithms and software engineering, but rather to teach how the dynamics of online social systems.
To quote Howard Rheingold, “The ‘killer app’ of tomorrow won’t be software or hardware devices, but the social practices they make possible. The most far-reaching changes will come from the kinds of relationships, enterprises, communities, and markets that this future infrastructure will make possible.”
There are basically two variables that are important to the success of a community:
1) The people there.
2) The way they interact.
The people are pretty much fixed in the short term, but we can change the way they interact by altering the systemic forces of the system.
IS people are the ones who understand how to apply sociology and psychology and educational theory and anthropology to designing online communities. Then CS people are ultimately the ones who turn it into code. The only reason IS people take programming at all is so that they know how to talk with the CS people.
I don’t buy that. IS people are supposed to be a certain type of CS people, a refinement. IS people are CS people who understand online communities, human computer interaction, and other topics, and have the ability to build these soft-concepts into real computer systems. That is the clear goal of the IS:IS major and track.
The other tracks, I agree, are much as you say.
Information Science is NOT a subfield of Computer Science. Info Sci people work on things like user centered design/research (not necessarily software related), project management, and law (particularly copyright).
Information Science is actually broader than Computer Science, which is why it requires courses such as Econ and History. The history courses are there for the same reason that we study the history of any field – to learn from and expand on what has been done previously. In computer science, this tends to be built into the courses, which doesn’t make Computer Science better – just structured differently. The economics courses are there because they contribute to understanding of social behavior. Also, lots of Info Sci people go into finance (managing large scale information systems for financial companies), so a basic understanding of econ is good. To be honest, I’m not defending these requirements well because they weren’t my favorites.
You also put down the web programming and psychology aspects of Information Science. Keep in mind that the hot topic for information scientists is the Internet and social behavior huge networks, so web programming is essential. Many Info Sci people make careers out of web programming. As for psychology, having psych classes gives students experience analyzing human cognition and its relationship to information systems. 245 focuses on social computing, which is a huge Info Sci area. One of the psych courses in the IS course list is Modeling Perception and Cognition, which involves programming neural networks. Cool stuff.
For a broader look at Info Sci curriculum, check out this image:
http://www.infosci.cornell.edu/images/InfSciCircles.jpg
Note that Computer Science is just one little section.
As a side note, I have found that (in general) IS people are cleaner and less socially dysfunctional than CS people, and they are a lot more interesting to work with because they come from so many different kinds of subfields. I don’t particularly want to be a code monkey for my whole life, and IS gives me a huge breadth of knowledge so I can build a career that is more than just programming.
IS is not a refined version of computer science, if anything it’s broader. To make any other claim demonstrates a complete ignorance of the field.
On a second note, as an engineer I hear the computer science vs. computer science engineering debate quite a bit, and they bring up several similar points. The computer science curriculum in A & S is generally considered less stringent, less technical and easier. Despite all that it doesn’t make A&S com sci students less able than cs engineers. The programs develop different skills in different ways, and there is an even greater departure in program focus when comparing CS and IS.
I think you should also take a look at ISST (IS in engineering) I’ll think you’ll find that because they fill the engineering core requirements the program offers parity with A&S CS in terms of difficulty.
In regard to your method of argument, I’m not sure what you’re proving by pointing out all the courses that CS people take but IS people don’t. They’re DIFFERENT programs thus DIFFERENT courses. Every moment I’m NOT learning how to develop an operating system, I’m learning an equally valuable skill that will lead to a better product in its own right.
In conclusion, I’d like to shine some light on the main differences I’ve noticed between CS and IS people.
IS people can:
-talk to people without making them feel uncomfortable.
-wear different shirts each day of the week
-have ***
-shower with regularity
-oh and code
CS people can:
-code
-code
-code
-code
If you want to argue that CS people are better coders than IS, I will readily concede that point. However some of us don’t want to code in a cubicle all day and are able to pursue other options with IS.
So, a few things here. First, IS is quite broad, and includes three tracks, two of which are almost pure social science. The other track, Information Systems, is what I’m complaining about, because it should be a specialty of CS, not a watered down version.
To the remark about Arts v.s. Engineering CS, at Cornell University they’re actually the same curriculum, so I have no complaints there. The colleges require different courses outside of CS, but that’s not a big difference if I take physics and you take history.
Every time you’re not learning how to develop an operating system, you’re … learning how to build a crappy web page … not taking advanced math … sitting idly doing nothing? Some of the courses IS adds in place of the CS courses they drop are useful, but only the psychology, with a case perhaps for econ. The other three courses seem trivial, and then there’s that bit about the CS core including vastly more coursework than the IS core…
CS people are required to be able to do a wide number of things. We have to take advanced, focused, study in another non-technical area. We can design, we can do analysis, we can build things, we can code, we can do pretty much anything. To say that IS people or CS people are socially inept is an invalid mode of argument. To say that IS:IS graduates are ill-prepared for their work is fair.
Elliott, you seem to be shockingly underinformed as to what Information Science really is; this is (sadly) typical of a CS student.
IS is a related but quite separate field to CS, and you’ll find that with a closer inspection of the website listed above by Caitlin. Even the information track has different albeit overlapping goals to those of CS. Your comparison is akin to saying spanish is a weaker major than italian because it does not more heavily incorporate italian classes into the curriculum…
Even your comparisons of the core requirements is shaky… for example, you point out that CS requires CS 100, 211, and 212 while IS requires only 211. You seem to forget that 100 is a pre-requisite for 211 and therefore equally needed (or ignored) by CS and IS grads.
While I might aggre with you that a stricter coding core might be nice, the vast majority of IS grads will not be coding for a living and that would therefore be restrictive. Your point about the web classes 130-230 is well taken, but let’s remember these are introductory courses, akin to 100 and 211 is the CS track. A better, although more difficult, comparison would be in comparing INFO 330, 430/431, and 530 to higher level ‘pure’ CS courses. Playing around with linked lists and hash maps in 211 is no more complicated and rather less useful than learning sql, php, xhtml, css, and a little javascript and xml. And while plenty of IS students come out of 230 unable to do much more than the basics, let’s not forget the myriad of CS students who write little or no code even in 211 b/c their partners do the work for them…
Your disregard for psychology, history, and economics (psychology has little to do with computing”), while insulting to those who study primarily those fields (like HCI or even just pure econ(!) etc), serves mostly to highlight that CS grads are limited in their understanding of broader issues and naive in the relative values they place on coding and the rest of life’s activities…
Beyond my continued frustration at the short-sightedness of CS students at Cornell and in general (those who think the ability to code a little bit and do some basic linear algebra is the be all and end all of intellectual pursuits), I am rather disappointed that you have not properly researched your topics before writing, and in your lack of understanding that IS != CS in goals and overarching themes.
Having said that, you’re provoking a nice discussion here so on that front well done!
I would also much appreciate it if you used your considerable coding skills to remove spam from this posts’ comments’ rss feed… I don’t feel that hardcore galleries add much to the conversation
Thanks!
Elliot, forgive my claim that all cs majors are socially inept. That claim is admittedly as well-founded as “IS majors sit around idly all day” or “learn to build crappy websites.”
The point of my post earlier (which was perhaps overshadowed by my social skills evaluation) was that your CS vs IS article makes the assumption that every moment an IS major isn’t taking a CS class they’re twiddling they’re thumbs and puzzling over HTML. The people that I know in IS do quite a bit more than website design and I think if you took a closer look at what IS majors ARE taking as opposed to what they AREN’T you’d find that.
I would ask you to go to the Cornell Career Services and inquire about the companies who hire IS majors and how long the grads stay at those companies. I’m not sure what kind of empirical evidence you’re using to qualify “IS:IS graduates are ill-prepared for their work,” but I feel like there is a fair body of data indicating the contrary.
CCS is in 103 Barnes Hall. Enjoy the walk
“Some of the courses IS adds in place of the CS courses they drop are useful…”
Haha Ok first of all Elliot, you just don’t get it. IS isn’t CS, it doesn’t take a cs curriculum and drop one course here, add another one there. They’re two different paths, with different steps along the way, (and here’s the big one) that go to different destinations. Yeah they have some course work and focus in common, but if you start your analysis with the notion that IS is a bastardization of CS then you can’t help but come to the conclusion you’ve reached.
I really have no incentive to argue with you because I’ve read you’re posts before and it seems that once you’ve reached a conclusion you stay there no matter what.
I’m writing to the incoming Cornellians who are perhaps interested in Information Science, and there is one point I’d like to stress to them. Information Science is not a subfield of Computer Science, it is also not website design. Information Science brings together elements of Human Computer Interaction, Psychology, and Computer Science to evaluate and change the ever-changing electronic landscape that we live in. It is used in product development, creation, and evaluation. Its principles are used extensively in research, and it does not always involve coding.
The field is very up and coming at Cornell and has drawn the attention and monetary resources (to the tune of 25 million dollars) from Bill Gates for the construction of a new building to house the program. Despite Elliot’s claims Information Science is a fantastic way to spend your undergraduate years at Cornell.
Elliot’s views are typical CS. “We are better than you, we work harder than you, and we are smarter than you.” This is why I spent 90% of my time with IS people while pursuing my Masters in CS at Cornell. CS students are stuck up, ignorant, and unpleasant to be around. It was a constant battle with them. They always criticize your courses and workload. Some Indian students even criticized my language! They insulted me many times claiming that “English is inefficient.” Come on.
Sorry Elliot. You’re not special.
The main reason for the volume of indignant IS responses is because (unfortunately) this kind of post is only one example of the widespread ignorance about the field of Information Science. Last year, a group of us founded the Information Science Students Association (ISSA) to educate students and companies about what Information Science is. It is such a new field and major that most people have the same trouble distinguishing it from Computer Science as you had. This confusion arises from the fact that both CS and IS (along with Computational Biology) fall under the umbrella of Computing and Information Sciences. You seem to be confusing CS with CIS.
The entire purpose for the creation of the field of Information Science (instead of just creating an Information Systems track within Computer Science) was to bring together an interdisciplinary major, of which Computer Science is just a small part. IS students who want to be programmers can get as much programming experience as they want (for instance, I am currently taking Operating Systems). Others may focus on non-programming aspects of IS, which are just as important.
Your post undermines everything that we do.
…but I, too, would like to apologize for attacking the social competency and hygiene of computer science majors. I know at least a couple well-adjusted ones.
You seem to missing the point, which is quite simple. The IS:IS track (at least according to the infosci website) is supposed to “draw from Computer Science and Operations Research.” According to Wikipedia, which who knows if it’s fair, IS is “often, though not exclusively, studied as a branch of computer science.” The IS:IS track is certainly this; the other two tracks are not.
Information Science is by no means a new field, since it is almost as old as computer science itself. However, it’s often a field pursued by those with a strong background in CS who choose IS as their focus. Without that background, I fear the IS:IS program isn’t sufficiently strong in CS. IS:IS majors directly compete with CS majors; IS majors don’t just study Information Systems, they build them, which is what CS majors do. Therefore, we should have the same base of talents. I might be better at compilers, you might be better at writing a search engine, but we should both we well-versed in the theory and roots of compsci.
I agree that you can tailor a major to be anything you want. ^o^ I never took CS381, for example, by special exemption, because I wanted to take Chinese instead. And, you usually end up a better rounded graduate for it.
Claiming CS majors are smarter than IS majors because CS is harder to learn is like claiming football players are better athletes than runners because football is harder to learn.
CS and IS are two sets of tools. How smart you are is a function of what you can do with those tools, not how hard the tools were to learn. If CS really is harder to learn than IS, then all it means is that the minimum intelligence required is slightly higher.
You could just as easily claim that theoretical physicists are smarter than marketers because theoretical physics is harder to learn than marketing. And the claim would be just as wrong.
Elliot, I don’t see how IS:IS is failing to “draw from Computer Science….”
The fact that they take any CS at all would seem to imply that it “draws” from computer science. CS 100, CS 211, CS/INFO 130, and CS/INFO 230 are taken by all IS:IS. They are also likely to take an additional four CS courses which could include: CS/INFO 330, CS/INFO430, CS/INFO 431, CS/INFO 530, CS 419, 432, 465, 472, 478, 501, and 578.
IS and CS don’t need the same 15 class core requirement for IS to “draw” from CS. You’re demand that IS:IS take “CS 314 and 414, a pair of courses that teach you to build a processor from gates and write an operating system,” seems impractical as it is such a vast departure from what most IS:IS aim to do.
If you were to read on in that wikipedia article you quoted from earlier you might have noticed that under the description of Information Systems (the second IS in IS:IS) it reads:
“The technology used for implementing information systems by no means has to be computer technology. ”
And in fact many IS:IS work on broader problems than those relating with computer technology.
Personally I love what can be done when CS is strongly incorporated with IS. However, I realize that it is not the only form in which IS can exist.
I agree with you that CS is harder than IS but I think that CS is unnecessarily hard. Why is it important that I stay up 5 nights in a row coding? The only thing that teaches you is how to pick the best energy drink.
Anyway, I am not an IS:IS track major, but an IS: HCI/Social Systems major. I think that the HCI/Social Systems major really demonstrates that IS is not a submajor of CS. We study usability and why the internet and computer systems work. Not to mention business and legal aspects of the web. Therefore, not all IS majors are in direct competition with CS majors for jobs. I dont think a CS major would necessarily choose to do e-marketing/consulting or internet advertising or usability research. Likewize, I dont think IS majors necessarily choose to code all their lives.
Cheers.
Whoah Alex, hold your horses. “Claiming CS majors are smarter than IS majors because CS is harder to learn” is not my claim. I’m in fact claiming what you conclude, “CS and IS are two sets of tools” just that “IS:IS is an incomplete tool, lacking the fundamentals it should be acquired from CS.” We’re not talking about people or smartness or any end effect here, just the curriculum.
Your post reeks of CS arrogance, so you should expect some defensive comments from IS people. Keep in mind that you’ve attacked the very foundation of our education. So when Alex says that you seem like you’re claiming that CS majors are smarter, it is because you accuse us of choosing the easy track, as if we couldn’t handle CS.
Also, you seem to be describing IS:IS as its own major, as if it were supposed to be a version of CS. It is only one small part of a major designed to incorporate many disciplines (I feel like I’m repeating myself in each post, and you still don’t get it). IS:IS track consists of 4 courses (if you choose it as a primary track), so it is only a small portion of the major.
Furthermore, most of the courses in IS:IS are upper level CS courses, and the IS students who take them compete with CS students for grades. If we really lack the proper CS foundation, which you keep professing, then we must make up for it somehow. I personally know of several IS students who have rocked courses in Software Engineering and the like, sometimes even helping the weaker CS students keep up.
Your generalizations are unfair, and your insistence that IS qualifications are entirely determined by our curriculum guidelines is unfair. The IS major has far more of a community aspect to it than CS, and I can tell you from personal experience that IS students challenge each other to go above and beyond strict course requirements.
@Jenna (and Elliott),
I am surprised that you might think CS harder than IS. Certainly your average CS student might take a higher level CS course than a given IS grad; so a given CS major takes harder CS courses than a given IS major. Great. CS majors also take harder CS courses than econ majors… And as it has been pointed out above multiple times, even IS:IS is *not* CS, and nor are they assumed or intended to be in ‘direct competition’ with IS majors.
I challenge CS majors to take a selection of IS courses and see how well they do! Certainly I know a bunch of IS types who have not struggled in CS courses
@Phil
Well, I just think CS is harder than IS because I am struggling to get through CS 211 right now. (Really struggling.) haha.
But before anyone uses that against me, I have no intention of doing anything CS-y when I get out of school. Its just a req course for me.
I graduated with an IS:IS major, and in my job I most certainly compete with CS majors. CS majors will win over to get the cut-throat positions like the ones in Bloomberg, but I’m not worried. In IS I studied a larger variety of fields, so I feel better equipped to move to consulting, analyst, or management positions- jobs which will stay in the US while coding gets outsourced/offshored. CS is hard only because of the way they teach it at Cornell, not because some Indian in India can’t learn it.
CS for me was harder in the sense that it wasn’t something I was interested in (as well as the poor quality of the education). Mutexes were fun back in high school. And your major has probably the highest percentage of people who switch out of it (often to majors like Government), so in that sense I stayed on target.
I found IS:IS to consist of three major parts: the core, “cool” courses like CS 431 which I unfortunately will have no use for unless I work for Google, and regular, 400-level CS courses. IS-oriented professors treat their students better, and IS courses generally have better-defined expectations. You can call this “watered down”, but I call this “sane”, “humane”, and “professional”… Also, IS is a major where you have to make choices regarding what you like; CS is more or less a single track.
I do feel IS lacks in theory, but information theory a la Claude Shannon, not compilers/operating systems/functional programming. I felt this when I was doing IS research junior year. Also, I would personally prefer the design/software architecture field over pure programming, but the IS user-centered design courses are pretty weak and don’t define the field.
As regarding the origins of IS in CS, a large part of IS came from library science. It was about libraries using computers to help them organize information. Also, when I had to explain IS to recruiters, I said that “IS is CS with a human face”- IS doesn’t ignore the people in the equation; it deals with how people interact with technology, not how technology itself works, necessarily.
Nick,
I’m flattered by your analysis of what IS people can do.
I also struggled in CS211, probably because I skipped out of CS100 with AP Computer Science (which was still C++). But I had a great CS211 partner!
@Boris
I’m not sure that “CS with a human face” is the best way to describe IS, nor is it a good way to defend against Elliott’s accusations that the major is an inferior sub-field of Computer Science. I would describe IS, instead as a field that incorporates aspects of Computer Science to study information system design, structure, and social implications.
@Phil
Hey I got my Bachelors in Economics and it’s not as easy as you think. This is coming from someone who got a Masters in CS too.
I did IS:IS but completed the CS core requirements first. What does that make me?
@a.guess. That makes you awesome.
I think Elliot has a valid point and I completely agree with him. I heard a professor in computer science in my university (not Cornell) talking about this as well. He said “Information System major was created to encourage students to stay in computer science without suffering the heavy course load (coding) “. Also in the Software Engineering course, “We will allow IS people to take this course because they can do easy tasks like requirement gathering ect…. ” I was like Whoaa?? (because they can’t think right!! no seriously, this is the truth)
I think the point Elliot is trying to make which is valid even in computer science that students tend to take short-cut in choosing their courses to get their degree; easy prof, and easy courses. In Cornell, I assume you pay 30,000 a year. why are you wasting ur money then? You should really buy Google stock instead.
Besides, tell me one thing that IS people can do that CS people can’t !!!
Ladies and gentlemen, this is college, you won’t learn if you don’t suffer. This is life, get used to it.
@Nader “tell me one thing that IS people can do that CS people can’t”
Well, for one, IS people can read. As you MUST have seen repeatedly in these comments, IS is not a watered-down version of CS. Neither you nor Elliott seem to have come to understand that, despite our very repetitive comments.
I don’t know what university you attend, but at Cornell, IS students take and do very well in the Software Engineering class. Your comments are based entirely on gossip about a completely different program at a different university. I’m not quite sure why you thought they belonged here.
@Elliott @a.guess
So based on your theory, Elliott, why would a.guess have been motivated to be an IS major (when you seem to think it is inferior) if he/she was able to “handle” the core requirements of CS?
My guess is that IS appealed because it is different from CS, and it has so many different applications.
CS is more math-intensive than IS, and math generally has a reputation for being the hardest part to nail down conceptually. (Loads of memorization is also hard, but in a busy-work kind of way, so I’m disregarding that here.)
In fact, this (imho) is really the key benefit of choosing CS rather than IS. CS looks at computing from a systematic, analytical perspective. This is a perspective that happens to be difficult to pick up on your own. I suspect that many of the brightest programmers are self-taught, and most can pick up transient programming languages, frameworks, web technologies, HCI, etc, rather easily. Perhaps psychology and sociology a bit less so, but if I had to choose between having to teach myself psych vs. computational theory, I’d sure as heck take my chances with psych.
Now, I don’t necessarily think every aspect of CS “fundamentals” will be insanely useful in the real world, but learning about functional programming, computational theory, algorithms, operating systems, etc. will widen your views and knowledge, and you will become a better programmer for having been exposed to them.
That said, I DO think that CS fundamentals are directly useful in two ways:
(1) Landing a job. A CS degree gives the impression that you’re hardcore. IS people surely realize this stereotype exists (whether it’s right or wrong).
(2) Startup ideas. Groundbreaking shifts in computing typically come from new hardware capabilities or highly clever software algorithms. A CS education opens up possibilities for the latter. Think public key encryption, MP3, Google, machine vision, speech recognition software, and so on. Sure, the social interactions that happen as a result ARE important, but I’d argue that you’re in a much better position if you can ENABLE those new avenues of interaction yourself, rather than hitch a ride on the them after the fact.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that CS != code monkeys. We’re focused instead of interdisciplinary for a reason: we’re able to push the boundaries of our field.
I’ll concede that IS is not just a subset of CS, however.
Being a graduating student in both CS and CIS, I am going to say that CS is much harder, focusing on more fundamental concepts such as the design and analysis of algorithms, theory of computation, and much more in-depth classes. The only thing I got out of my CIS classes was how to manage money (which were actually business courses). CIS courses include working with excel, word, etc… This was extremely simple due to my fundamentals learned in CS. The fact of the matter is that as long as you are a well-rounded person who can express themselves well, you will be fine with a CS degree. CIS is very easy as long as you can use the basic programs and know how to work a computer. I have gained alot more from learning CS than CIS. I do believe also that a CS major can easily pick up anything a CIS does, while CIS majors have really no clue when it comes to developing algorithms, computational theory, or programming logic. I know this from gaining a degree in both majors.
Wow, I have been watching the battle over IS and CS toggle back and forth. The interesting thing is they are both two different disciplines and that is the first thing anyone has to remember. Yes, they have similar bases but from that point they diverge because the student is being prepared to take on two different types of tasks.
Where I come from, there isn’t as developed technology sector as that which exists in the US. There is just no need for persons to invest time in developing a new OS or developing a new compiler or reinventing the wheel. But, “organizations” require assistance in maximizing their computer resources. I say organizations because most persons acquaint IS with business, it should really be associated with organizations. Governments use information systems to collect data from different departments to make decisions. To build a system which connects and collects information from so many persons and places requires someone who can integrate and apply different disciplines. The software may need to be in more than one natural language, there systems may need to perform calculations which have their roots in economics, they may need to take into consideration the persons who are interacting with them – handicap persons for example – .
I think that you are not giving IS the credit it deserves because it takes into consideration the human aspect of computers and not just the mathematical aspect of computers. If you want to learn about computers and computations systems then enjoy and study CS. If you want to lean about building systems which connect people whether or not it is using a computer system then learn IS.
IS is not CS and that is just the fundamental point.
You dont take micro,macro and managerial ecomics in CS. You dont take Finanacial, managerial accounting you dont take business law. So could you tell me how a CS major does everything that a CIS major can do?????
According to Dijkstra “Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.”
He meant that computer science is not about computers but about problem solving.
So any grad/post grad/phd in CS, IT, IS, SE or Maths, will be better than other counterparts only if he can solve practical problems.It doesn’t depend on whether you have a degree in CS or IS.
I myself graduated in Engineering in IT and wrote compilers(one of the most complex subject) but many of my batchmates in CS didn’t even dare to get involved into those intricacies.
So it doesn’t depend if you are a CS, IS, IT or EE major as far as you can solve problems and are passionate about programming.
Wow! My head is spinnnig. Let me take you all back to the beginning, if I may. I am trying to figure out if I should take Computer Science or Computer Information Systems. A little background about myself. I currently work for an Investment Management firm. My primary duties are in the financial side of business and my secondary duties are in the technical side of business. I would like to obtain a degree that will enable me to transition to the IT side of business completely. My ultimate goal is to become the IT Director or Manager and cut out the third party IT companies we currenly use. I will need to be proficient in network architecture, database management, programming, software, hardware, etc. Which degree would help me achieve my goals most efficiently?
IS == Business while Computer Science == Engineering. Boss == Computer Science, IS == Worker…
The END
Interesting post. I think it is beneficial for CS major to take some sociology/economic courses as electives just to become more well-rounded people. (For ANY major for that matter.) I have a MS CS/SE, and worked many years and realized that a bit of business/psych/social skills goes a long way in terms of moving up the corporate ladder. In my undergrad days, I also took CIS courses just to survey the computer field.
If I were to do it again, I wold not major in IS/CIS/MIS . Because it is impossible to hold my current job position if I did not take Analysis of Algorithms, Graph Theory, Computer Arch., etc. I am in the semiconductor industry and I have to use those theories everyday. On the other hand, I am rusty at web programming / database, etc, not because I majored in CS, it’s because that wasn’t the career path I took 8 years ago. But I’m sure I could have been good at it if I had headed down that path.
By the way, CS=NERD or not is all relative. You wouldn’t come to the same conclusion if you work with a lot of hardware engineers. SW people are the cool ones here.