Is an electrical engineering degree a lot better than a computer science degree?

Nick's answer is pretty good. You should pick something you like and that comes naturally to you. Having said that, I think there is some truth to your Father's statement, because from what I've seen, much of the CS curriculum focuses too much on "the language of the day" and not enough on how to structure a problem, break it down, simplify it, etc. What there is in formal structures tends to be theoretical overkill that results in code that is too heavily layered.

Teaching how to develop elegant algorithms seems to have dropped out of the picture entirely, which is a shame. Computer languages will come and go, but good structural-programming knowledge will last forever. Besides, you can't get through an EE degree without learning programming, but you can get through a CS degree knowing absolutely nothing about hardware.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.