Due to the way university entrance works in my country, these are essentially my only two decent options. However, I believe both have some significant drawbacks.
Computer Science seems to be becoming quite saturated, both due to AI-driven software and increased competitiveness, with the number of CS students only rising practically everywhere. Even if fears about AI are overblown, it seems very unlikely that a CS degree will be more valuable in the future; in fact, it will probably lose value. Long story short, I'm not confident that 4 years from now the field will be what it is now.
A business degree, on the other hand, in my mind at least, seems to be more stable and predictable. That being said, I'm a little doubtful about whether a non-technical degree is worth pursuing and actually useful, and I'm quite doubtful about spending four years to get one.
I've got a couple of weeks to decide, and I'm really torn between the two, so I'd really appreciate some help.
It’s not even a question whether CS is more valuable than business admin. Not to put too fine a point on it but a CS degree is a much stronger indicator that a candidate has strong mathematical and technical abilities and generally is “smart” and “hard working.”
You can go look at the statistics of entry level salaries between the two if you don’t believe me.
> ...a CS degree...will probably lose value.
I wouldn't bet on that. Computers aren't going anywhere, and just in the past 15 years, we've seen entire industries created around smartphones, cloud computing, streaming, VR, IoT, SaaS, and AI. Pick which wave you want to surf! A technical and/or a business background would be useful here.
> I'm not confident that 4 years from now the field will be what it is now.
That I would bet on.
And by the way, just because you major (or don't major) in something doesn't mean you've locked yourself into (or out of) that activity. When I switched from music performance to computer science, I had the feeling that I had turned my back on my music, that I couldn't now excel in it...which was nonsense! It wasn't until I realized, that just because I don't major in something doesn't mean I still can't do that thing well, was I able to embrace the decision to choose CS.
Best of luck in your decision.
If I were doing it all over again, probably some kind of HVAC Engineer.
Disclaimer: Not qualified to give career advice.
Since you're not in SV and I assume in some other IT dominated locale, you are likely to earn far more in the business world with strong IT skills. Business knowledge and experience opens doors to many industries so you can gravitate to areas that appeal to you. As a software developer your domain specific experience will be far more critical than your knowledge of selection of software tools and frameworks. But jobs for software developers are mostly defined by your technical experience and thus difficult to transition between domains.
Study something that you want to study. Study something that's harder to learn outside of college.
It could be CS. It could be math. It could be economics. It could be history. It could be anything. But let it be a real subject.
Read this btw: https://paulgraham.com/hs.html