(…sorry for the pun.)
Right now I’m not sure what I want to do with my major(s) at CSU. I came here knowing my three big interests: Music, Computers, and Spanish. I’m pursuing all three in some way or another, and possibly will be getting degrees in two of them (I don’t want to be a music major).
Right now I’m a Business Administration major with a concentration in Computer Information Systems. I will graduate with a diploma that has no mention of computers. The program consists of 34 credits of general business courses, including many that I don’t care one bit about: Business Law, Managerial Accounting, and Supply Chain Management, to name a few. The business college is a completely different world when compared to the rest of campus: everyone acts as if they’re in a simulation, preparing for the “real world”. It’s not uncommon to see people wearing suits or at least dressing in business casual to go to class. I kind of like it- I’ve been making up my own home businesses since about second grade or so- but at the same time, it just seems so fake. I don’t want to be some guy in a suit who masks communication with his customers in formal reports and letters.
The CIS concentration is 27 credits. That means 34 credits of classes that I essentially don’t care about, and 27 of classes that I’m strongly interested in. I don’t like having more classes that I don’t like.
I wrestled with myself a while back over whether or not I should just be a straight-up Computer Science major. It’s 60 credits of programming. It’s also lots of theory and math and things that I’m generally not good at. But it’s also probably better preparation for what I’m interested in; most of the interesting jobs and internships I’ve looked at want CS majors. Unfortunately, CS prepares you for a job that can easily be done in India, and it’s really showing these days. Essentially, CS teaches you how to sit in a box all day and program. That’s the appeal of the business major- I learn the programming, and I learn skills that make me hard to replace- skills that can’t be outsourced.
Enter the Applied Computing Technology major. It’s about 35 credits of Computer Science, plus 12 credits of business and 12 credits of classes in any computing department on campus (CS, CIS, Electrical Computer Engineering, more…) It looks appealing. But one of my bosses at work is a CS major, and he says that employers don’t like the ACT major. Meh. I like it.
If I do switch my major to ACT, it won’t be until next year. Part of that is because the business college is really hard to get into, so I should stay until I’m sure that I want to bail. Another part is that I haven’t gotten into any of the programming in the CIS major yet (BD210 is still quizzing me on easy hardware stuff… I have one tomorrow on CDs and DVDs. Ugh.) so I don’t know if 27 is not enough, or if it’s too oriented on business applications.
But probably the biggest reason is that business majors get free copies of Windows and Office, and I don’t want to give that up until after Windows Vista comes out 😀