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From: windley@ted.cs.uidaho.edu (Phillip J. Windley)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: CS and CompE (was Re: most respected chinese SCIENTISTs)
Message-ID: 
Date: 16 May 91 16:07:50 GMT
References: <1991May12.224331.20754@lynx.CS.ORST.EDU>
	<1991May14.190239.1330@cs.yale.edu> <13371@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
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Organization: University of Idaho CS Dept.
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In-Reply-To: stlin@stevelin.Eng.Sun.COM's message of 15 May 91 20:35:34 GMT
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In article <13371@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> stlin@stevelin.Eng.Sun.COM (Steven Lin) writes:

   The difference is obvious: Computer engineering major students have to
   meet the requirement of hardware design courses (of course software
   courses too). On the other hand, the CS students do not have the
   requirement to take hardware design courses. This does not mean that a
   CS major has no capability to take hardware courses and later becomes a
   hardware designer. And a CE major can be a software designer if he
   wishes to do so. The difference tells that CS is oriented to software
   and CE is oriented on hardware, and the faculty and equipment will be
   significant different in schools for these two fields.

We are grappling with this issue right now.  Political pressure in the
state has made the VP for Academic Affairs decide that there should be a
CompE degree offered here.  The problem is that the new degree program will
get its resources from existing departments (read CS and EE).  There are
insufficient resources to accredit all three programs so this has led to
long meetings with faculty examining what CompE is.

I'm not sure that we ever reached a concensus about what CompE is.  I don't
think, as Mr. Lin does that the difference is an emphasis on hardware vs
software.  One could well imagine a CS degree with two different kinds of
emphasis.  I rather think that it is an attempt by industry to get
something for nothing.  They want someone with the specialization one would
would normally get in an MS degree for the price of someone with a BS.

The biggest problem in my mind is that no one (faculty) I know feels
comfortable recommending that a student major in CompE.  The problem is
that there just aren't that many jobs advertised for CompE majors.  Thus,
everytime a CompE grad goes to an inteerview they have to start by
convincing the interviewer that they really do have the background to do
the job.  Interestingly enough, the company that put so much pressure on us
to offer a CompE degree didn't even list CompE in the degrees they were
interested in interviewing this year.

--phil--

--
Phil Windley                          |  windley@cs.uidaho.edu
Assistant Professor		      |  windley@cheetah.cs.uidaho.edu
Department of Computer Science        |
University of Idaho                   |  Phone: 208.885.6501  
Moscow, ID 83843                      |  Fax:   208.885.6645