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by dpdp_ 5165 days ago
Change majors, do a second major, etc. "Assuming I know the relevant programming languages and have some experience" is a big assumption. Computer Science (or any science major) is very hard to pick up part time. For your first job you will be competing with CS grads. I bet it will be an eye opening experience for you since CS grads do get an unfair advantage in the industry. The chances are you will have to take a much less lucrative position and will be playing catch up for many years. Ask yourself - why go that route?

If you decided to do programming - do programming. Consider yourself lucky to have it figured out while you are still in school.
1 comments
polemic 5165 days ago
> "...since CS grads do get an unfair advantage in the industry"

Really?

Considering that the IT industry is wide open to people without CS degrees, it is exactly the other way around. Engineering, Medical or Law students don't have an "unfair advantage" to their respective profession - they've simply met the minimum requirement. Meanwhile, a CS major has given up several years to maybe have a better shot of getting an interview, never mind a job.

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dpdp_ 5165 days ago
I am just telling you the truth.

IT industry != Software Engineering industry. Event IT will favor Business, InfoSys, Accounting grads way above any other science disciplines.

In Software Engineering, fresh CS grads get a pretty unfair advantage. Do a Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon interview and find out.

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polemic 5165 days ago
You didn't actually rebut anything I said... and you haven't explained what you mean by "unfair advantage".

And 99.999% of software engineering jobs are not at Google/Facebook/...

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dpdp_ 5165 days ago
Unfair advantage means:

1. Interview questions for fresh grads are very CS oriented. For example, I have seen candidates immediately dismissed for not being able to estimate algorithm complexity. Same for memory requirements. Same for variants of knapsack problem. Same for not being able to get to alternative approaches. Good luck getting those questions right without spending 4 years doing CS.

2. Internship. CS grads get 2-3 very solid internships on their resume. This comes up during the evaluation as a big factor.

3. The "he is not a CS major" comment popping up during the reviews unintentionally.

4. Cultural fit (very true for other industries as well). People hire people like themselves. CS grads have a lot more in common with other CS grads.

Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon/Apple/LinkedIn/etc are at the top of the food chain. If you want to be the best, you have to compete with the best.

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