Computer Science vs. Software Engineering: Which Major Is Best For You?

Don’t stress, it will all make sense

Hey everyone! My name is YK, and I’m currently running CS Dojo, a programming education YouTube channel with 200,000+ subscribers. I was also formerly a software developer at Google.

Two of the most common questions my audience asks me are:

“What’s the difference between computer science and software engineering majors?”

And:

“If I want to become a software engineer, should I choose computer science or software engineering?”

In this article, I’ll answer these questions and give you my own quick analysis on these two majors.

A Quick Overview of These Two Majors

• Computer Science is the study of how computers work, mostly from a theoretical and mathematical perspective.
• You should choose computer science if you like math, logic, or if you want to get into a specialized field in CS such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, security, or graphics.
• Software engineering is the study of how…