[alexchamberlain]

Not the author, but personally, I chose Maths as I felt it gave me a broader basis to approach my career. I am now happily employed as a Software Engineer. I do find I've missed out on some things (TDD indoctrination, for example), but I've gained in others.

[pmr_]

There are only very few universities that will actually give you a proper indoctrination in most modern software engineering practices. Usually you get a bit of horrible object orientation, a few stern words about coding standards, and the lovely advice to "always test your code". If you take a Compilers course chances are the words "static analysis" will be used a lot.

I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but they are hard to find and universities aren't entirely to blame for it. Some parts of software engineering move fast and there is a justified fear to teach students things that will be useless by the time they graduate. So the focus is more on laying a solid ground-work.