Carnegie Mellon: CS vs SE

[Velocity_Distance]

I am looking at both the Computer Science masters program and the software engineering program. I have 5-6 years of development experience

Software Engineering

Pros: 

- I want to be a professional developer and work towards software architect

- Professionally focused program

- work on real life problems

Cons: 

- I don't want to take classes on Agile and other methodologies because I have taken several trainings on it and use it everyday. 

- It sounds like a lot of team work, which doesn't bother me but I would like to do individual work as well

- I don't have a computer science undergrad so I want to take some algorithms, data structure, and ML courses, which I am not sure how possible that is

- The application will be a little more work cause its different from other programs I'm applying to

 

Computer Science

Pros:

- I will get to take algorithms, data structure, and ML courses

- Lots of individual work

- more flexible course structure (I think)

Cons:

- More theoretical, isn't focused on making me a professional developer or architect

- I might get buried with the course work because I don't have pure Computer science background

 

If anyone has thoughts or insights into the programs I would love to hear them

[Teaching Faculty Wannabe]

@Velocity_Distance I don't know a single thing about any of these programs, so I am sorry if what I am going to say isn't all the helpful at all. However, I believe there are two things you need to think about:

1. Do you want to specialize in software engineering or do you want to broaden your knowledge by getting a degree in computer science? It seems like you will be relearning a lot things you already know in SE, but you might be learning it more in-depth or from a new perspective or something of that sort. CS might allow you to learn new programing skills. Even though CS might teach you theoretical ideas that might not be entirely important to your career goals, it will challenge you intellectually and you can gain a new perspective that you could potentially apply to your career in the future.

2. How important is individual work to you? It seems like it may be important to you, so CS might give you the chance to be a bit more independent, which I feel like is sometimes hard to do in industry and sometimes even in academia. However, SE might give you more experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment, which is a very important skill/experience to have for the workforce. You may already a lot of this experience from your development experience, though.

I am sorry I can't provide more than this, but I hope this helps you think more about what you want out of your master programs. Good luck!