I am guessing UNSW is harder since higher cut off but what do i know im still in school...
That's not how uni works. At all.
While they may have good intentions, no one in this thread is studying software engineering or is working in the industry so don't really know what they are talking about. There's some decent general advice, but also some terrible general advice.
Software Engineering is a field where getting good jobs is dependant on your skills (and experience) rather than just your degree. Rather than just parrot information that you can find online or in other threads around here i'll tell you the truth about software engineering at UNSW vs ICT Eng (software) at UTS as a current student of the latter.
First of all UNSW has a larger Engineering faculty and more money. This means the UNSW Software Engineering course is more targeted, UTS on the other hand has a smaller faculty. As a ICT Eng (Software) student at UTS you have the normal engineering core, which unlike UNSW SE includes physics. In addition to that you have the ICT core, where you will be doing a networking subject, a subject on signals and a basic introductory electrical engineering subject. That electrical engineering subject serves as a prereq for some subjects which blur the line between software and electrical engineering. (i.e. some lower level programming, embedded systems, operating systems etc.)
I believe at UNSW majority of the course is tailored solely towards software engineering (with a CS focus). There are obviously benefits of both, but some of the engineering (or ICT) core at UTS is IMO unnecessary and related more to engineering as a whole rather than SE.
UTS is pretty weak on the comp sci theory. For some time now UTS haven't even had a comp sci course, there are some comp sci-y subjects/majors in the Bachelor of Science in IT course but no dedicated course. As a result that decreases the pool of subjects that can be shared, and despite the existence of some more CS style subjects in the IT faculty (now merged with Eng faculty, but not fully integrated) these are at the moment not included in the course. Maybe they eventually will, or maybe it's an intentional decision. But either way it means the average UTS ICT Eng (Software) student might be clueless when it comes to data structures and algorithms for example.
I think that's partially due to the practical approach at UTS. At UNSW they teach you C first, it's an old language but a pivotal one still relevant today - the syntax is also quite common with some of the most popular languages used in software development today. (C++, Java, C# and Objective C) C is primarily a procedural language, and that along with a plethora of design decisions make it not favoured for use in mainstream software development. C is powerful but it's a lot lower level than say Java, meaning you are essentially closer to the machine in C.
After learning C you then move on to higher level languages at UNSW, this is in line with the CS focus at UNSW as a lot of the algorithms and computer science theory is practically redundant in modern languages which have a lot of functionality built in to make life easy for developers. Rather than writing your own sorting algorithm in C, you can just run the OrderBy method in LINQ in C# for example - you could implement the algorithm yourself but majority of the time there is no need to. I would guess that UNSW start with C to make you think like a computer scientist, ironically in the work place this is not much use a lot of the time but would help in job interviews which involve algorithmic questions. However a good software engineer would be interested enough to participate in projects at home, programming competitions etc. which build those skills.
UTS teach Java first and teach it with an Object Oriented perspective, the object oriented paradigm has been the choice of the industry since the 90s essentially. After a couple of subejcts of Java you do some electrical engineering subjects and end up doing some programming in assembly (the very lowest level language) on some hardware put together yourself. After that you move on to the C subjects which have a focus on embedded systems. I haven't looked too much into what comes after all of those subjects, but a lot of project based and I believe it's similar at UNSW.
The UTS engineering practice program offers a wide range of ICT internships, we have the least students but the most positions advertised on the internal job board. But many students take what they can get and don't go looking. As a result a lot of ICT students end up doing more support oriented positions and don't learn much about software development. That might suit them fine, and they may want to get into that in future but I don't think that's what the program was designed for.
So long story short, UNSW is targeted and CS theory oriented while UTS is practice oriented and also provides a general engineering base.
Honestly in my opinion, i'd probably say the UNSW course as a whole might be better. But it depends a lot on the individual and I think students at each uni have to do some catching up or self teaching. UTS coerce you into getting some experience which I think is great but lacks some theory. On the other hand it's possible to graduate at UNSW SEng with hardly any experience - IMO that's not what engineering is about but whatever. In the end the reason i'd say UNSW comes out ahead is that the bad UNSW SEng students will start working and get experience while the bad UTS students may never really learn much of the theory. While the UTS student might be more employable with some experience on their resume, the average UNSW graduate is probably going to be more knowledgable a few years down the track. Either way you shouldn't be aiming to be an average graduate.
All that said, i'm confident I made the right decision with UTS and have never considered transferring. Put simply, the engineering practice program lead me to my current (extended) internship where I am learning more than I ever could at uni. Like I was told when I started, you go to uni to get a job - so if you are at a level where an employer sees value in you why not start early? I also think the more difficult maths subjects at UNSW for example might have made my first year not an enjoyable experience.
Just as a final point, my opinions here are exclusively for soft eng vs ICT Eng (software). The truth is that SE is FAR removed from engineering, and the UTS eng course is slightly more suited to majors like civil and mechanical. The students in the popular, traditional engineering streams don't have core subject issues since the core revolves around them. Either way i'm confident the courses will improve and that most the negative points will eventually be remedied, UTS is a very young university but has big plans and is growing rapidly.
