Hardware or Software Major?

fa1uzure asks: "Recently, there have been many articles on Slashdot about the lack of people enrolling in IT courses in post-secondary, as well as the need for more people in these areas. Being a Computer Science student, this is great news for me, meaning I may be in demand in the future. But CS at WLU is essentially a software-only course, as it is in many other universities around the world. In most of these articles, it generally says that the IT industry is loosing the new graduates, but it does not specify which area of IT is most at risk. As I move into my second year, I would like to know, are hardware people going to be far more in demand than the software people, or would software still be a better choice than a hardware-centred degree? I could easily transfer to a hardware oriented program but would like to know in which direction the future is moving before I make any choices."

Comments

Change majors or double major

[cdrudge]

there have been many articles on Slashdot about the lack of people enrolling in IT courses in post-secondary, as well as the need for more people in these areas. Being a Computer Science student, this is great news for me, meaning I may be in demand in the future.

Hahaha. That's funny. Demand for more people in these areas. In case you haven't heard the news, your future job is being outsourced to India. The dotcom bubble popped a few years back. IT is still in need, but not in the same way that it was once. What companies are looking for is people who know how to use a computer, not necessarily people who know computer.

Seriouly, do yourself and your career a favor. Double major in another field, such as business, marketing, etc. It will probably pay off more then a degree in CS. I know I wish I would have had someone tell me that before I graduated a few years ago. Unless that is you want to stay in the academic or research field.

A Different Guise.

[FalconZero]

Maybe its because my degree was software engineering, but it seems to me that the level of skill you develop in IT/Software during software focused degree, if transferred to IT/Hardware comes under the guise of a different degree : electronics. (or microelectronics or control systems etc...).

I think its important to differentiate between :

• Saying IT/Hardware and meaning 'Hey, I can buy components and build a computer'
  (which IMO) is something you can easily do without a degree - How many 'PC World' backroom employees do you think have one?

• Saying IT/Hardware and meaning 'electronics/pcb design/embedded systems', which like I've already pointed out is more 'electronics' than CS.
  

<Before someone states the obvious /> Yes, I know there are crossover areas, like emedded systems/robitics, but he did say CS from an X persepcive, not X with CS in mind.