Actually I have a degree in English and make my living as a Perl programmer (at the moment at least). I fully agree with Ovid's comments. I've found that both the smattering of Lit-Crit I endured in what is the modern English degree, and the smattering of Computer Science I had before I realized that I couldn't cope with teh amount of pure-mathmatics that it required, have improved my skills drastically at both writing and programming. More importantly it has increased my ability to recognize both, and since 90% of learning is recognizing brilliance and it's application this is the best benefit. Then again having met both English majors who attempt to write, and CS majors who attempt to program, your milage may vary.