As companies clamor for people with programming skills, it’s no surprise that computer science has become a popular major at many universities. But coding isn’t the only skill you develop when you study CS, and a computer science degree doesn’t necessarily mean you need to become a software engineer—though that path is well-travelled for a reason.
In my years as a career counselor working with CS students, one of the neatest things I got to see was all the different career paths students took with their computer science degrees. So regardless of whether you want to be programming all day or not, there is an incredible variety of great career options for you.
Top Skills Computer Science Majors Bring to the Job Market
Employers across the board aren’t looking for just programming skills—even when they’re hiring for programming jobs. Computer science degree majors bring many useful skills to the job market. Here are some of the main ones:
- Programming: This one is fairly self-explanatory. It’s pretty tough to graduate with a CS degree without taking some kind of coding 101 class. Even if you’re not an expert at, say, C++, it’s likely you’ll at least know some Python or another language and, hopefully, can pass a technical interview.
- Problem-solving: You may not realize it, but when you’re coding, you are constantly problem-solving. (Read: Looking up possible solutions to try on Github or Stack Overflow. Brainstorming, strategizing, and trying different options. Repeating until the code works.) In programming, there’s not usually one right answer, so the process of getting your code to work can involve getting pretty creative to solve the problem—a skill that you can apply to pretty much any job regardless of function or industry.
- Teamwork: Just as you can’t get out of taking some sort of programming class as a CS major, you’re also not likely to be able to avoid participating in a group project at some point during your studies. Beyond working together on problem sets, you’ll likely take many classes that have major group projects in lieu of a final exam. So you’ll learn how to share the work with each team member based on their strengths and weaknesses to get the project all done. Few companies are truly run by a lone genius, so this will be a big plus in your professional life.
- Project management: Aside from learning how to work with others, these group projects also give you some great project and time management skills. Getting some experience figuring out the scope of a project and setting appropriate milestones will serve you well when you’re in your first job, no matter the role.
- Communication: The beauty of finding clear comments in old confusing code is an experience many programmers have waxed poetic about. OK, that might be a stretch, but the practice of commenting on your code clearly and thoroughly can be a lifesaver for the next person working on it—especially if that person is future you—and improves your communication skills. You’ve also honed your communication skills through your group projects. I have a hard time thinking of even a single job where strong communication skills aren’t a huge plus.
So you major in CS and get all these great skills. Now what? Here are nine jobs that may be of interest along with average salary for each job—for all experience levels—according to the compensation resource PayScale (note that PayScale’s database is updated nightly; the numbers below reflect the latest information as of April 2022).
