[hvs]

You can change degrees fairly easily but, depending on the requirements for your new degree, you may have to fulfill a number of additional requirements. For example, if you are going to a large public university and are in their engineering program studying for an electrical engineering degree, you can switch over to computer science with very little difficulty. However, if you are in the liberal arts college studying philosophy and want to switch to computer science in the engineering college, you will often have certain minimum requirements to be accepted into the college (much like if you had applied from outside).

Overall, though, US universities and colleges are very flexible compared to other countries. Probably why they are so popular with foreign students. :)

[pjscott]

Another data point here: my first year of studying electrical engineering was almost exactly the same as the freshman year of someone studying any engineering field, and it's common for people to switch majors after one or two semesters. If it's a switch from one branch of engineering to another, it's pretty much effortless.

I hear that things are similar in other majors: if you're switching from one major to another that's fairly close to it (e.g. from molecular biology to botany) it'll be pretty easy. Longer jumps are more difficult, especially if you're going into a major with long prerequisite chains, like mathematics.

[hvs]

That's kind of the point I was trying to make in the initial post. The first one to two years in engineering schools tend to be very similar across majors. Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics are all required. After about your sophomore year, you will be adding quite a bit of time to your college career if you decide to switch.

[jarek]

If switching from EE to CS is very easy, one or both are being taught wrong.

[nhamann]

It is my understanding that at top schools like MIT at Berkeley, EE and CS are actually combined into a single undergraduate degree.

e.g. "The Berkeley EECS major, offered through the College of Engineering (COE), combines fundamentals of computer science and electrical engineering in one major."

[jarek]

The fact that they are combined to form a third program underlines the point.

[francoisdevlin]

Remind me where CS came from again?

[adamzochowski]

This is the old debate of whether CS should stand for Computer Science ( chips / signals / digital electronics ) or Computing Science ( algorithms / language design ).

[jarek]

Mathematics?

[georgecmu]

Philosophy.