I request help for my future :)

[XchilangopwnX]

Hello community. I've confronted a troublesome matter in my junior year of high school and would like to obtain some advice from the Spacetime Studios community. I have begun to look into what future major I would like to pursue. My choice of career is game programmer and later, hopefullly, a game producer. Now my problem is whether I should pursue a Computer Science major or a Software Engineer major. I came upon a comparison but I am still doubtful which major will provide me with a better education for my future career. Any advice on which is better? Which provide a more in depth learning experience for programming? Any further information that would be helpful. I would really love if if the game devs would share their opinions as well. :)

[mackjack]

Computer science is more abstract and theoretical. You take classes in topics such as algorithms, complexity analysis, computer languages, OS and compiler design, networking, some hardware stuff, etc.

Software engineering is more practical and hands-on. It has some aspects of computer science, but it's mostly about teaching you to write/test/maintain/release software using good practices.

If your goal is to become a programmer, I'd say that software engineering is probably more suitable -- although some of the theoretical topics from computer science are also very interesting and useful.

Also, "game programming" is actually very specialized these days. Do you want to work on graphics engine, AI, scripting, tools, etc.? You'll want to have some idea as to which aspects of game programming you want do and pick your elective courses accordingly -- although you won't have to worry about this for another 2 ~ 3 years.

If you haven't done much programming, I'd suggest that you take some C/C++/Java (or whatever language that's in vogue these days) at your community college and see if you actually enjoy writing code. Your love of video games doesn't necessarily mean that you'll enjoy writing software...

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

[XchilangopwnX]

That was a great explanation as to which focues on what. Thank you. The kind of programming I guess would do with the coding. I'm not a real fan of art so I really don't want a graphics career. I say I'll specialize in the AI department.