On the Differences Between MIS/CIS/CS Degrees?

Dark Ninja asks: "I find that after having a professional IT job (C++ programmer/DBA) for four+ years, not having a degree is a hindrance to finding a job. So with this in mind, I'm planning on attending college soon, but I want to know the difference between an Management Information System, Computer Information System, and Computer Science degrees? Better yet, which ones do you suggest (ie. to allow advancement, which allows for what jobs, etc)?"

Comments

Re:CS good. MIS/CIS bad.

[nomadic]

MIS/CIS also tends to place an emphasis on business/management. Learn to be a Pointy Haired Boss who can't tell the difference between an Etch-A-Sketch and a laptop! "Shake it to reboot."

And who works shorter hours and makes a lot more money than most CS code monkeys.

Forgot to ask Dark Ninja's GENDER

[wagadog]

If DN is a gal, it's not going to matter WHAT degree she gets, how many degrees, or how many years of professional programming experience she has prior during or after getting the degrees.

As the most qualified applicant, HR will force her on the team she'd best contribute to, and then be lucky to even get computer accounts.

Her Ph.D. and 25 years of programming experience will qualify her to write user-level documentation for systems written by men 20 years her junior.

Oh, unless her degree's in ENGLISH and she's sleeping with somebody -- then she can be manager in charge of some lightweight nonsense like marketing.

The One True Degree

[Greyfox]

I did one year at Purdue in their CPT program (CS was full) and it was about as useless as tits on a bull. I wanted to be writing compilers in C and they were teaching us BASIC and COBOL. Admittedly, this was in the '80s.

Our office newbie has an IT degree from a local state school and they taught him Visual Basic and COBOL. This was recently enough that it should be criminal.

If you want a piece of paper and don't really care much for the field, a hiring manager won't know the difference between the (hard) CS degree and the easier CS/IT/MIS degree. They'll figure it's got "Computer" in it so you should be qualified to do anything. So it really is a wash from a job perspective. If you really want to learn about computers, though, CS is where you want to go.