Computer Science

[EnCircle]

Any computer science majors out there? I'm in my first year of university and having a tough time deciding my major. So far I'm leaning towards computer science, considering it's my favorite course right now and I am doing the best in it.

I'd love to hear from experienced programmers and what they think!

[Disconsented]

You don't need to be a programmer or software engineer to take computer science.
You can apply it to:
Robotics,
Ecology (it basically started ecology),
Physics,
Chemistry,
Maths,
Biology,
and more!

[DXnobodyX]

It would be a far less waste of time for ppl doing medical physics to do computer science then statistics.

[Ryu Kei Shou Kawazu]

DXnobodyX

It would be a far less waste of time for ppl doing medical physics to do computer science then statistics.

Computer science sounds better..
Its two words long lol

[Morberticus]

EnCircle

Any computer science majors out there? I'm in my first year of university and having a tough time deciding my major. So far I'm leaning towards computer science, considering it's my favorite course right now and I am doing the best in it.

I'd love to hear from experienced programmers and what they think!

You can't go wrong with computer science. Job security can be a bit of an issue if your only aspiration is to be a code monkey, but with a little aptitude in software engineering you should be fine. From my limited experience (I'm not strictly a computer science major), Java, C#,C,C++, and Python are the major languages I have come into contact with. They seem to be at the heart of the many Jobs, with extensions like .NET, or web-based languages like CSS or PHP also being prominent.

As for the actual science of computer science, I couldn't tell you what that's like. A friend did a PhD in complexity theory but I don't know much else.

Whatever you do, steer clear of Fortran.

[EnCircle]

Morberticus

EnCircle

Any computer science majors out there? I'm in my first year of university and having a tough time deciding my major. So far I'm leaning towards computer science, considering it's my favorite course right now and I am doing the best in it.

I'd love to hear from experienced programmers and what they think!

You can't go wrong with computer science. Job security can be a bit of an issue if your only aspiration is to be a code monkey, but with a little aptitude in software engineering you should be fine. From my limited experience (I'm not strictly a computer science major), Java, C#,C,C++, and Python are the major languages I have come into contact with. They seem to be at the heart of the many Jobs, with extensions like .NET, or web-based languages like CSS or PHP also being prominent.

As for the actual science of computer science, I couldn't tell you what that's like. A friend did a PhD in complexity theory but I don't know much else.

Whatever you do, steer clear of Fortran.

What is Fortran? This is my first year and I'm just learning Java and I've heard that C++ is similar and I plan on learning that next.

[Morberticus]

EnCircle

Morberticus

EnCircle

Any computer science majors out there? I'm in my first year of university and having a tough time deciding my major. So far I'm leaning towards computer science, considering it's my favorite course right now and I am doing the best in it.

I'd love to hear from experienced programmers and what they think!

You can't go wrong with computer science. Job security can be a bit of an issue if your only aspiration is to be a code monkey, but with a little aptitude in software engineering you should be fine. From my limited experience (I'm not strictly a computer science major), Java, C#,C,C++, and Python are the major languages I have come into contact with. They seem to be at the heart of the many Jobs, with extensions like .NET, or web-based languages like CSS or PHP also being prominent.

As for the actual science of computer science, I couldn't tell you what that's like. A friend did a PhD in complexity theory but I don't know much else.

Whatever you do, steer clear of Fortran.

What is Fortran? This is my first year and I'm just learning Java and I've heard that C++ is similar and I plan on learning that next.

Fortran is an old language, primarily used by scientists or people who need heavy number crunching done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran

C++ does share a lot of similarities. You also might want to check out C#

http://www.25hoursaday.com/CsharpVsJava.html

[Je Nique vos Merdiers]

Ugh, I wish people would stop advocating C#. Mono sucks, Windows sucks.

[Morberticus]

Je Nique vos Merdiers

Ugh, I wish people would stop advocating C#. Mono sucks, Windows sucks.

C# is much more pleasant than Java, and has a huge scope. Mono is, in many ways, impractical, but C# is amazing.

[Je Nique vos Merdiers]

Morberticus

Je Nique vos Merdiers

Ugh, I wish people would stop advocating C#. Mono sucks, Windows sucks.

C# is much more pleasant than Java, and has a huge scope. Mono is, in many ways, impractical, but C# is amazing.

I'm not advocating Java, just "not C#".

[kutsuchi]

Just make sure you at the very least like programming. even though it's not all there is to the major, it's a huge part and if you don't like programming than you wont like the major. I see a lot of cs majors drop out and take IT because they find they don't like programming.

[EnCircle]

kutsuchi

Just make sure you at the very least like programming. even though it's not all there is to the major, it's a huge part and if you don't like programming than you wont like the major. I see a lot of cs majors drop out and take IT because they find they don't like programming.

Thanks! It's only been my first year, but so far I do like it. It does get rather frustrating when a bug comes up in the code and debugging seems near impossible, but I like a challenge and there's nothing like the feeling of fixing your code and getting it to work!

[Haibane13]

I'm working towards a computer engineering degree. Coding is fun... I don't have a degree, but I've been working for almost 2 years as a coder. I did my own programming in middle, high-school on a Ti 486.

[Minel Te]

I was a CS major, but got swallowed up by all the math and science required for the degree. I don't mind these things, but I did realize I didn't want to have my life virtually consist of them for the next few years. Now I'm a Linguistics major with a CS minor.

Programming can be fun.