When I went to school at the University of Michigan 15 years ago, the difference was this: computer science was purely software and theory, with upper-level courses being compiler construction, operating systems design, and computation theory. Computer engineering on the other hand emphasized hardware, in particular digital design, small computer design, and interfacing to external devices.
As for your main question, make the choice based on what you like. I was already a pretty decent programmer when I applied to college, and I wanted to learn about how computers worked, so I went the engineering route. If you just like programming and don't ever want to build or design computers, then go the pure CS route.
BTW, companies in the U.S. are currently hiring people regardless of degree if they have suitable experience/abilities in web programming.
The thing the printing press, radio, television, the bull-horn have in common is one-way (broadcast) communication. These allow some central authority to diseminate information to a larger audience, but the audience can't respond or critique except in miniature (letters to the editor, etc.).
With the internet, on the other hand, every individual has the equivalent of a broadcast transmitter. Effectively, everybody is linked (if they choose to be) to everyone else. Our new broadcast communication ability bypasses geographic boundaries.
Therefore, I think that the internet does represent a revolutionary (rather than evolutionary) change in how people inter-relate, and thus how society functions.
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When I went to school at the University of Michigan 15 years ago, the difference was this: computer science was purely software and theory, with upper-level courses being compiler construction, operating systems design, and computation theory. Computer engineering on the other hand emphasized hardware, in particular digital design, small computer design, and interfacing to external devices. As for your main question, make the choice based on what you like. I was already a pretty decent programmer when I applied to college, and I wanted to learn about how computers worked, so I went the engineering route. If you just like programming and don't ever want to build or design computers, then go the pure CS route. BTW, companies in the U.S. are currently hiring people regardless of degree if they have suitable experience/abilities in web programming.
The thing the printing press, radio, television, the bull-horn have in common is one-way (broadcast) communication. These allow some central authority to diseminate information to a larger audience, but the audience can't respond or critique except in miniature (letters to the editor, etc.). With the internet, on the other hand, every individual has the equivalent of a broadcast transmitter. Effectively, everybody is linked (if they choose to be) to everyone else. Our new broadcast communication ability bypasses geographic boundaries. Therefore, I think that the internet does represent a revolutionary (rather than evolutionary) change in how people inter-relate, and thus how society functions.