What is the focus of computer science?

[chilibean]

I am planning on going to college to major in computer science and was interested to know what to expect. Regardless of the programming language, do you develop real life applications or do you concentrate on annoying projects that focus on a concept that may never be used?

As an example of what I mean:
Real life- raytracer, side-scrolling game, internet database program, custom programming language

Non-Real life- program to calculate the 10 millionth digit of pie (although interesting), program to calculate the area of some complex 3D shape

In summary, is the concentration in getting ready for real life situations or just all the possibilites and theory behind everything?

PS: I know video games involve complex calculations, but at least there is a fun result at the end of hard work.

Thanks for any input,

chilibean

[jim mcnamara]

I used to run a CIS program.

CIS gets into business-oriented programming, networks, database theory, OOP theory, and most of the programming projects are with databases and more modern technology. Get ready to learn Accounting

CS programs are often just the reverse. I hired some guys just out of school once - all they could write was PASCAL, some SQL, and Amiga Assembler. This was in 1993. This is because CS programs are much more math-oriented, algorithmically based programs. Lately, they've figured out that

(more practical skills) = (better job placement) = &
(more students) = (tenure & money for them)= True

Get ready to learn Analysis (Calculus), numeric methods, etc.

[chilibean]

Is it true that many recent computer science graduates cannot do real-life stuff? It seems like it would take much longer than 4 years to become 'experienced'.