Possible Jobs in the field of programming?

This may not be the correct place for this however, I will take my chances and ask anyway.

I'm currently still in high school and am looking toward the future, I am currently looking at Computer Science or a Computer Engineering, My question is what possible jobs could I get in the field of programming with either of these (not just in game development, but overall) and are these even useful or do I need something else?

 

I myself have a bachelor's in computer science and found the degree program itself adequate but not great. However, from a purely jobs perspective the diploma is important to have so yes I'd say it's useful to get a degree. From the actual teach you how to become a good programmer they help teach you some basics but leave a lot to be desired. Each person is unique but I've learned much more by simply doing projects (either personal or for an employer) than I ever did in school. Something about having a tangible goal that is much larger than writing a sorting algorithm or other small projects you see in school has always made much more of a difference in understanding for myself. Larger projects usually involve many disciplines at once that need to come together in a combination that is acceptable to the user and leads to a much deeper learning. You also learn to make trade offs (i.e. for game programming you have AI, rendering, input, physics, etc, etc). Not to say this is all school has to offer as there are usually fairly interesting technical clubs you can join if you want to (recommended) but if judged on just the curriculum itself I'd probably judge the teaching in the university as a C-/D+. Even within programming I found they spent way too much time on programming languages/algorithms and way too little on techniques for organizing and managing data. Data can be anything from a file format (i.e. .obj organizes you 3d model data, xml/json schemas, tips for good database organization, etc). Everyone's experience is different but I found mine lacking (definitely didn't attend a top university just an average one). I'm sure a few schools do a great job.

As far as what type of jobs there really is a wide selection of jobs. Web programming, embedded systems, Games, insurance, banking, etc., .etc. Nowadays, computers and by extension programming is just about everywhere. Even physical activities that have nothing to do with computers usually at least use computers for marketing and have a website (and even if just a small one time contract usually employed a programmer for a bit). I will say though that even within the the field, job types (what you do day to day) changes all the time. There are many fields (website design comes to mind) where programmers are essentially putting other programmers out of work by automating or simplifying the process so it no longer takes as many programmers to do the job or none at all. There will always be those frontiers (though these change all the time) where non prepackaged software exists though. There usually you will find a decent amount of programmers trying to write software to solve a problem. They eventually put themselves out of a job to move on to the next programming frontier in a cyclical fashion. Not to mention the technology of the day changes fast so you will be entering a field where constant learning will be with you for the rest of your life (for me that's a good thing but is important to be aware of).

As far as CS vs. CE the quote below is the best I could find for a quick search. At my former university they overlapped a lot but in general below is accurate. If you like solving abstract problems at a more general level in software CS is a better fit. If you like devices (i.e robots, microwaves, etc.) and software tied to specific implementations (devices or specific protocols) CE is a better fit.

 

Thanks for the information, my goal is to get into game development (of course, these are the unity forums XD) however if that doesn't work out I would like to be able to fall back on developing software.
While it would be nice to learn from schooling I would just go for the degree, I took VisualBasic and Java last year but didn't really learn much as I knew most of it already and what I had the potential to learn from it the teacher skipped over causing me to just learn it over the summer.
From the info you provided it looks like CS is the way for me, Can someone provide me specific job titles used so I can look up salary statistics (From what I found with just searching "programmer" I got results from 50k to 80k)? My father wants me to be able to show him the possible salaries and prove that it is a viable option

 

There are a couple general titles you'll see when job hunting. Obviously there are more specific titles in certain fields.

-Programmer
-Software Developer
-Software Engineer
-Application Developer

In general the range you posted for starting salaries in the seems about right. It's a bit dated now (10 years ago) but my starting salary as a web developer at a large company out of college was 50k. On average, I believe it's a bit higher now but that's location and economy dependent.

 

Thanks for the info again, As I said based on the first bit of info I will probably go for CS, But is there a better option? Is there one that is more focused on programming or is CS about it?