A Guide For All CS-Related Majors At UCI: CS, CE, SWE, INF, CSE, DS, GDIM, BIM

25 March 2024

Every spring a new batch of Anteaters gets admitted, and every spring the same question shows up: which of UCI’s CS majors should I pick? There are eight of them and the acronyms don’t help much.

All eight are undergraduate majors ending in a B.S., spread across three schools. ICS owns most of them, while Engineering and Business each run a joint major with ICS.

One warning: every school sets its own rules for switching in, and those rules change. Use this post to work out what you want, then go ask a counselor in that school whether you can actually get there.

Computer Science

The main ICS program, and the most theoretical of the bunch. You’ll cover the things a computer scientist is expected to know: databases, networking, data structures, and algorithms. Mostly Python, C++, and Java.

It also opens the widest door. Frontend, backend, full stack, web, mobile, and SRE, which is what I ended up doing.

Best for: almost any software role, and anyone who isn’t sure yet.

Computer Engineering

CE lives in the Engineering school and sits much closer to the metal. Computer organization, compilers, assembly, memory management, and the boundary where hardware and software meet. Expect to write a lot of C. Since it’s an Engineering degree, you also pick up the math, physics, and chemistry requirements.

Best for: hardware companies like AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA, where firmware and hardware roles want people who know what’s happening underneath.

Software Engineering

ICS launched this one in fall 2019, and it’s far more hands-on than CS. Lower division looks almost identical, but upper division swaps in courses like web development and interaction design, plus a senior design project where you build something real with a team. It’s the closest thing to an actual job you’ll do in school. You get the usual languages plus frontend stacks: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the frameworks around them.

Best for: people who know they want to build applications and have zero interest in hardware.

Informatics

Roughly three quarters software engineering, one quarter social science, psychology, and cognitive science. It’s the lightest workload of the group, which still means a lot of work. Informatics treats CS as a tool for something else you care about: law, social work, mental health, design.

Best for: the part of software that humans actually touch. Product management, UI/UX, and interaction design.

Computer Science and Engineering

CSE is a joint ICS and Engineering major, essentially half CS and half CE. It has a reputation as one of the hardest majors on campus, and it earns that reputation. You take:

• the math and physics that CE requires
• the upper-division theory that CS requires
• senior design on top of both

Most people I know who started in CSE moved to CS within a year.

Best for: people who want CS outcomes with hardware still on the table.

Data Science

This one is about data from end to end: collecting it, analyzing it, and working out what it means. The department likes to say you learn to tell a story with data. Expect a lot of math and statistics with CS courses mixed in.

One caveat worth knowing early: if you specifically want to be a machine learning engineer, plan on grad school. A bachelor’s usually isn’t enough for those roles.

Best for: data scientists, data analysts, and data engineers.

Game Design and Interactive Media

GDIM is for making games. It grew out of the old Computer Game Science major and covers both sides: programming as well as art and story, ending with a senior project where your team ships a game. You’ll write mostly C#, since that’s what a lot of engines use.

As far as I know, USC is the only other school in California with a comparable program, so this is an unusual thing for UCI to have. I’m not a gamer myself, but GDIM people impress me. Blizzard is also right here in Irvine, pulling students out of this major every year.

Best for: anyone set on the game industry.

Business Information Management

Jointly run by Merage and ICS. The name gives it away: roughly half business administration and half informatics. It’s a popular second major, which is how I ended up with it alongside CS. It’s also a decent landing spot if you wanted Business Administration and couldn’t get in, since it comes with priority enrollment for some Merage classes.

Best for: project management, product management, and business analyst work.

The short version

If you’re less sure about the field itself than about which major to pick, I also wrote about whether the CS degree is still worth it after graduating into this market.

This is one student’s view, written in my fourth year. Requirements shift, programs get added, and your counselor is the one who actually knows. Use it to narrow things down, then go confirm the details.