My brother keeps bothering me to choose IT

My preferred course is Computer Science but he keeps on telling mom that I should choose IT instead and they have been telling me that since last year, I told them that they are the same except they are slightly different (I guess). Are they really the same? I told my brother that it doesn't matter which Computer course I take as long as I am capable of doing something that an IT can do as a future-ComSci person.

And also, does it matter that I am very horrible with C++ and other C language? because of depression I barely take notes to our Com teacher which made me end up regretting it because I had only learned a few from him. Should I be worried about this or they're just going to teach it again in college?

 

There's a big overlap between CS and IT, but generally CS handles the technical part of computers (i.e., hardware and operating systems) whereas IT covers the study of the use of computers to solve certain problems. Like I said, there's a big overlap and it might differ for your country.

 

I don't know but I think CS does that, my brother even told me that CS studies theory of how something works and that's what you said for IT but he had told me that I could find a job easier with IT but I told him it's just a title. I don't know but he seems to be the one making decision, I want to go after the course that I am happy with and it's CS.

 

Then go for CS. You shouldn't listen to your brother and study whatever you want to do. It shouldn't be hard to find a job as a CS graduate and as far as I know the salary is often better.

 

Okay, thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

 

I'd say Cs is a great path. Awesome salaries, clean easy and sometimes backbreaking work ( 8 hours a day at the pc) if you can handle it, just looking at the code and write and think for those 8 hours a day/5 times a week then thats your path.

As for C and C++ if you wan't to become a software dev, then i'd suggest you to listen as much as possible and if you suck at the moment at it, that's not really an issue, but you can only learn programming only by programming, better start sooner than later, for example as software dev you need quite alot of experience, well atleast companies that i worked to expected it from me...

 

Hell no. Don't take IT. CS all the way. I have some experience in both fields. I went to a vocational high school where I studied IT for 4 years and got A+ Network+ certified, but now I'm in college as a senior studying CS.

IT is pretty much fixing, setting up computers, and network administration. IT is ok, but you have to keep learning new software and get a bunch of certifications. Good jobs in IT are hard to get. If you have good managerial skills it will be a lot easier.

CS on the other hand is more challenging, but a lot more rewarding. There's tons of jobs for CS. I read an article recently, that said software develppers are the #2 most needed job behind physician assistant. Go to any job offer website and you'll see tons of CS jobs with great pay.

With CS you have to know how to code and have a good math background. But the field doesn't change as much as IT does. With IT you have to learn the ins and outs of every new OS and piece of hardware, but on the other hand for example if you learned C when it came out in the 70s you could probably have a job to this day with just knowing C, maybe C++ and C#, but learning them wouldn't be a big deal if you knew C well.

Stay with your C++ class. Coding is frustrating to learn (I hated my first class), but once you get the hang of it and are able to start building meaningful applications it becomes more enjoyable.

 

Okay thank you guys, I'll forward this thread to my brother so he'll know what he's talking about. Haha.

 

I doubt it is easier to find a job with IT. I am still in 2nd year classes at university and have recently been contracted a $2500 iPhone/Android app job. That should tell you that the demand for us is there if they need to rely on a 2nd year to get the job done In the past 2 months I have had over 6 companies contact me asking to sit down and have coffee and discuss potential developing for them. I am far from the best programmer out there so don't get discouraged if you are struggling in a class. I've taken a class 3 times over just to perfect it lol.

 

Sounds great and rewarding for all the time you put into it. ^_^ I'm in my first CS year now, not really experienced yet but looking forward to learn a lot more. ^_^

 

^ kmjt, what kind of apps are you writing?

 

The contracted one is just a provincial park sighting app for the specific park. Like if the user spots a certain type of snake, they would use the app to report it. Then they could see on the map of the park hot spots for each species because they can see on the map each location they reported a sighting. There is more functionality than that but yeah thats the basic concept.

 

From your perspective, is that pretty hard to do or not too much but also challenging?

 

No program is hard if you actually dedicate yourself and take it seriously. There are programs where you can kind of slack off and get through them. Computer science isn't one of them. You can't really take lessons off because each lesson usually leads into the next. You have to have the desire to thoroughly understand a concept inside and out. If you don't actually enjoy programming you will probably find it hard because you won't want to go the extra step.

 

As far as I understand it they both have a lot of similarities and same gen eds in either field, so for the most part you will have to take a lot of the same classes whether you go into IT or CS for example an intro to tech class, to get the basics down, or even electives that will still go towards your degree but aren't completely 100% only in your field.

I'm currently finishing my second year of IT, it's really simple stuff if you halfway understand today's tech, cabling, and crap like that. And I have at least 3 different internship offers available right now for over the summer, so either way you go you will find a job, and apply skills from both sides.

Just do what you want, and actually try in College. Don't let someone else tell you what you will do for the rest of your life, but also don't completely ignore them because of it. Make an informed decision and if you don't like it after the first year or 2 change your degree and all of your available classes will be credited towards it. Don't get caught up in all the drugs and parties, although they are fun don't make it the norm and push education to the back. Huge mistake a lot of my classmates have made, myself included but not as bad as most.

 

Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate them and I also learned something from them.