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A very common question people ask is “What’s the difference between computer science and information technology?”. These differences fall into professional and curricular categories.

At the curricular level, information technology differs from computer science in many respects. First, there is a stronger emphasis on programming in computer science than in information technology. Information technologists certainly build software applications, and programming is certainly a critical skill in IT, but the style of programming in Information Technology differs from that in Computer Science. The typical IT project involves gluing together available components in high-level environments and providing an accessible interface to the functionality of those components provided. The typical computer science application involves writing large programs from scratch using traditional programming languages and focusing on software architecture, data structures, and algorithm development issues. Computer science also requires significantly more math and science than information technology, mainly because extending the underlying technology requires a more thorough mathematical foundation than applying that technology.

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At the professional level, the computer scientist tends to view computing from the computer’s viewpoint. The computer scientist tends to build and extend the underlying technology, while the information technologist tends to apply available technology to solve real-world problems for people. The computer scientist tends to be motivated by the computer itself, by how it works under the hood, while the information technologist is motivated by using the computer as a tool to solve problems for people. Another way of describing the difference is that the information technologist identifies a need for technology, which the computer scientist then creates, and which the information technologist finally helps people to use effectively.

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