Need advice!

[vgf]

Hey, I'm a high school senior and I'm currently exploring colleges and majors and careers etc. And I'm thinking that I want to go into computer programming or a related field, but I'm curious what the best major to go into is.. computer science vs computer engineering vs computer software engineering vs about a million other different majors in the same vein. If anyone has any advice or personal experience I'd be glad to hear it. Also what are the best colleges for this type of thing? I have pretty high test scores and grades, so that's not really a problem (haha not to sound vain)

 

[Nugget]

In my opinion, far more important than which major you pursue is what you do in your spare time while you're in school. I suggest finding a few open source projects which interest you and contributing code and energy towards those projects. It's always a huge plus for me when I'm interviewing someone to see that they're active in the open source community, or in the support community surrounding a piece of software or technology. It's that sort of well-rounded experience that's going to make the biggest difference on your resume when you graduate, and not the specifics of your degree.

Every software project has a huge and growing list of bugs, problems, or feature requests which will probably never be resolved. Find one that matches your skills, fix the problem or add the feature, and submit it to the project. Even someone with no programming skills at all can do this -- clean up the documentation! You'll develop relationships with talented people, build useful skills, you'll be fleshing out your resume, and you'll be helping people who use the software.

(full disclosure: I'm a college dropout and have no degree and this certainly skews my perspective on the subject. My comments come from the perspective of someone who is responsible for interviewing developers and making hiring decisions.)

 

[jng]

If you have high test scores and grades, you'll be fine pretty much no matter where you go. And which is the better major really depends on the school. Pick the better program.

Which school? That really depends on more than just what field's your interested in. Big schools? Small ones? Suburban? Cities? Go to your local school guidance counselor or college career counselor and talk to them. They'll probably be more helpful than people here. Why? Because they probably know you better.

It's not about what school is the best, but rather which school fits you best.