| At my uni (Oregon State) we had MIS (Management Information Systems), which covered a wide range of these topics. I switched to this from CS my junior year because I felt it wasn't preparing me for the professional world, and I was right- to a degree. My CS curriculum had some Software Engineering classes (I believe they were actually called Software Engineering I and II) where we did requirements gathering, estimation, etc- it felt like all of SEII was requirements gathering and documentation. Besides those though, it was very theoretical, and since I was already working in the field while going to school I realized that the theories would be helpful, but not nearly as helpful as being able to plan, document, and manage tasks in the context of a project. If CS is producing developers, MIS is definitely producing technical analysts. It was extremely light on any development (there were a few classes where people had to write code and it was like every other student was being asked to build a rocket to go to Mars). But it did a great job of teaching how to identify problems and apply technology based solutions to them. Not just fixing things by making code, organizational level solutions. Armed with MIS and a minor CS (and one class short of a math minor) I hit the ground running and was quickly leading projects, then dev teams. Six years in I was a Director and was also leading a skunkworks Innovation Lab where I got to keep my hands dirty. The absolute fundamental difference is that I got the hard core tech depth from so much time in CS (and actually using the tech in practice) but I got the study I needed for it's useful application in a business environment. Selling to leadership, planning, source control processes, etc. Most developers show up with the mindset of a craftsman toiling away in their shop, wanting only to emerge with their beautiful creation when it's ready. Pragmatism and being able to accept trade offs because of time/money/whatever will always make developers stand out. |