What to Do About College?

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

the only thing compUsa experience is going to be good for is working retail the rest of your life.

studying computer science... you should be picturing yourself creating the products the college dropouts are selling at compusa.

college can be some of the most productive time of your life. do research, start a pet project. you have more free time now than you will once you are working 9-5.

if you see getting an education as wasting your time, you probably dont belong in school in the first place.

based on your interests, sounds like you should be doing EE or some type of computer engineering discipline instead of CS.

I've seen most people say this, and it makes sense the more I look into it. Working retail is probably only good for the money. There's not really opportunity to raise as far as positions go (what I'll be working at is a temporary Oct-Jan job), and in the end even if I did get a higher position I wouldn't be doing what I like the most, and it wouldn't have to do a whole lot with what I'm currently studying. I'll just do it for the money, and because I've never worked for a corporation before (only other people I know personally).

Like I said before, I like coding as a hobby, but not as a 40-52 hours a week job. I definitely need to be productive now because what I do now is pretty much the base for what my future will be. That's also why I'm deciding to change university and my major. There I'll get to learn something I'll like more and have more opportunity for a good job when I finish my major because they have internships. The university I'm currently at is much better in other areas; the one I'm looking at is better for CS, EE, and CE.

This is good advice. For example if you are interested in VLSI you can work as an AE for Synopsys or Cadence and your job will be working with various companies and engineers are their problems with your tools. You travel and work with a variety of people.

I like this idea. I like to interact with people, but at the same time it doesn't need to be all the time. As long as I'm not stuck eight to twelve hours a day in a cubicle I'm fine. It can be a combination of both.

EEs need to know calculus. To do the hardware stuff that pays a lot, you need to know Fourier and how to solve 2nd order questions. If you think they pay you the big bucks to just layout a PCB, you are wrong.

That said, even hardware people have to code. EEs are now being pushed to DSP and micro controller stuff. That is mostly coding now. There is really a small market for just hardware and they want you know the the software as well. Trust me on this. I am an EE and I had your attitude when I graduated. I am jobless now because I went into controls in the process industry and hated it. To get a strictly hardware job, you need be at the top of your class or from a masters from MIT.

If you love interacting with people, you should think about going into consulting. It's the business side of engineering, but you have to deal with a lot of BS as well.

Pretty much everyone I've asked has said you definitely need to understand and have good mathematical reasoning, especially with Calculus. I liked Pre-calculus, so we'll see.

As far as coding I'm open to it. Like I've said, though, it can't be something I'm doing in a cube all day. If it's a combination of both hardware and software and I at least get to interact with people sometimes I'll be fine. I don't love or need to be constantly interacting with people, but I think it's still necessary to do sometimes so you don't get too stressed and your social skills don't go to hell. All I'd hate is to be stuck, like I said in the OP, working full shifts in a cubicle coding away while talking to almost no one. I like hardware more, so it still has to be an important part.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Calculus is really easy. In fact.. if you're going to College, you've taken the basics of calculus in high school algebra.

Diff-Eq and Discrete Structures... now those are bitch subjects.

What I'm being told is that Calculus with an Engineering approach is harder than in other majors and my godfather, who is an Electronics Engineer, said in each class they started with 30 or so students and only 10 or so passed because it was too much for them. We'll see, but since he's taken it personally and I trust him a lot I doubt he's exaggerating. You really need to have good mathematical reasoning for it.

Make sure you check out the CE program you are thinking of going into. Some are little more than CS with a couple basic EE classes and others are EE with a couple basic CS classes and depending on what you hope to get from it the program at a particular college might not suit you. Also because CE bridges essentially two majors it frequently has even less room for elective courses (meaning if it is CS plus a little EE there is little room to take more EE classes if you want). This isn't a universal truth but check it out before you commit.

Also if you have any intuition with math Calculus is very easy. If you find math befuddling though calculus will seem like black magic. You can do it but it will require effort.

I'm currently looking into it. Next week I'll go to the campus for more info and to see their facilities, but for now what I know is from what my godfather has told me. There's really only two universities here that are very good for what I want to do, and one of them is in Mayaguez. That's on the other side of the country and even though this is a small place it'd be a two-three hour drive depending on traffic. Admissions are a lot harder, too, and I'd lose more than half my credit-hours. The benefit it has is that credit-hours are MUCH, much cheaper. But since university isn't that expensive here, and the one I'm looking at is actually ~$5 less per credit-hour compared to my current one and they'd accept all my credit-hours I shouldn't have problems. It's also close to the uni I'm currently at, and I have easy transportation by the way of train. :thumbsup:

As far as programs go, like I said earlier both their CS and CE programs are better than where I'm currently at, so that's not much of a worry. I still need to see exactly what classes you get with their CE program. For that I'll go to the campus early next week.

I like pre-calculus, but if what I was told is true then Calculus can be a PITA.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Hey OP,

Who is funding your tuition? I'm guessing your parents are helping quite a bit, no? Anyways, I'm just trying to say that attending college without having to worry about financials and being able to devote 100% of your efforts to academics is a GREAT PRIVILEGE! Do not squander or ruin this chance because you don't like a few classes. Find something you like and get back to the work at hand.

I worked 30 hours/week during the middle of the semester while also taking on loans to study chemistry/premed. Hell! I worked 80 hours/week at the beginning of each semester for overtime and would even work football and basketball games for extra cash. I was even dismissed for lack of academic performance early on due to work load, returned with a vengeance and ROCKED each and every classes while continuing to work. When I heard fellow undergrads complaining about having study, it boiled my blood because studying was a luxury to me. DON'T QUIT, find something else that you enjoy and hop to it.

Thanks a lot. Fortunately, education is cheaper here and the FSA covers most of it. What it doesn't cover my father helps me with. He does help me financially, but otherwise he's an asshole (haven't seen him in six months, actually) so I'll be paying whatever it can't cover by myself so I don't have to depend on him. Having money from a part-time job plus some overtime definitely helps.

I haven't failed any classes, but History was quite unbearable as we heard the same crap we were taught two times at school. I think I'll definitely change university even if I don't change major, though I'll probably do that as well. The only bad thing I can think about right now is that CS is 132 credits while CE is 172 credits, which is kind of a lot. I'd get classes by trimesters instead of semesters, too, which I would guess is a bit harder not just in terms of studying but also financially. In any case, it'd definitely be better than the university I'm currently at because it has internships and specializes more on science and technology, while where I'm at specializes more on medicine and communications.

Here is an idea, Software Quality Assurance aka Software Testing. Sounds like you don't want to be a code monkey the rest of your life, but enjoy it to some degree. Software Test Engineers are ultimately responsible for the quality of the end product.

As for how your coding skills would come into play for a tester, the majority of it will be writing automation wrappers for test tools, simple web front ends so upper management can make those pretty graphs, reports, and pie charts they so love. Knowing some coding helps interface with the Dev's who wrote the code you are testing and filing more complete bug reports against the code owner.

When I started out at Microsoft in testing, I knew zero coding basically. After seeing the opportunities that exist for testing that have some coding knowledge convinced me to dig in. Plus, there was no shortage of uber sharp devs at MSFT to help, lots of great people there.

Obviously there is way more to it than that but have you considered Software Testing? I did so at Microsoft for over 10 years. The only reason I am still not there is due to an injury on the job.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

It'd still be great to know how I can get into software testing.

 

[hofan41]

Your assumption that coding involves sitting in a cube by yourself all day is completely wrong. I've been a software engineer for 5 years now and I would say 60% of the work you do will not involve coding at all, but rather working with your teammates and creative discussions involving the design/implementation of algorithms.

 

[Farmer]

There is often a belief that engineering subjects are harder than other subjects. That's total bullshit. Put me in a civ or lit class at a big time university and I will shit my pants I kid you not.

I am a recent grad. In college I had two majors. One in engineering, the other in science. Here's the difference between engineering and other quantitative majors: at the undergraduate level in engineering, they often times assume your only interest is in applying the math or the physics to solving "engineering analysis" or "system-level" problems. In other words, the fundamentals are not that important, just learn how to crunch the numbers. You will not be shown the motivation behind the Fourier or Laplace transform; you will not be given a reason for why the ideal gas law is valid. You will be expected to remember the properties of the transform that allow you to plug and chug differential equations. You will be asked to remember how to apply the ideal gas law in solving some system level thermodynamics problem.

That's fine, enough certainly to get you some job in industry, but it is often times not sufficient for you to truly "understand" anything. This may leave you wanting (in which case you should probably get a Ph.D.) or you could be totally satisfied by it (in which case you should go into industry).

People say college is about discovering what you want to do. From my experience, it's really more about finding out that what you thought you wanted to do, isn't actually very interesting at all. If you dislike engineering courses, then try some science courses, you might find your calling. I went into college set on engineering. I came out realizing I actually like science, not engineering, but I wasn't "brave" enough to change my course. People say "it's never too late to change." That's true, but the later you change the harder it gets.

It also has a lot to do with how you think of your peers and teachers. If you are in an environment where you feel like all of your peers and teachers are less informed than you are, you need to go somewhere else. Place yourself in an environment where it seems everyone else is smarter than you, and then you will realize that you don't know jack and have a lot to learn. That's pretty much true for anything. I feel like, if you're young (under 40), and you feel bored, it's time to start doing something else.

Obviously, the earlier you decide on what you want to do, the more prepared you will be when you actually set out to do it. For instance, if you want to go to medical school or want to get into a good graduate program, you can't just "think about it" until junior year. Such a path is so competitive that by that time you will have no chance.

The most important point: don't limit yourself to paths that other people consider "good." I.e., people may sneer at you for becoming a salesman at a retail store, but maybe that's the thing that you are good at and will make a profound difference. No one knows, so its good to explore. In college, there were pretty much two extremely popular career tracks: major in CS, go work for software giants in California, or major in CS/physics/math/econ, go work on Wall Street. People will look at you funny if you tell them you are not doing one of those two things, since that's the thing they really want and it may be shocking to them to realize that not everyone wants it. But they aren't you so what do they know.

The majority of people in this world view an education as a means to an end. I.e., sit through classes for four years so that you can get a job that pays well. I think that's a perfectly fine approach to college. However, at least from my experience, you will not do well in college unless you enjoy at least some of what you are learning purely from intellectual curiosity, so it's very important to find something you like.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Your assumption that coding involves sitting in a cube by yourself all day is completely wrong. I've been a software engineer for 5 years now and I would say 60% of the work you do will not involve coding at all, but rather working with your teammates and creative discussions involving the design/implementation of algorithms.

Some other people have told me that now that I've started to do more research, but things like circuits and architectures and how they work I still find a lot more interesting than making programs, though I do enjoy programming as a hobby.

There is often a belief that engineering subjects are harder than other subjects. That's total bullshit. Put me in a civ or lit class at a big time university and I will shit my pants I kid you not.

I am a recent grad. In college I had two majors. One in engineering, the other in science. Here's the difference between engineering and other quantitative majors: at the undergraduate level in engineering, they often times assume your only interest is in applying the math or the physics to solving "engineering analysis" or "system-level" problems. In other words, the fundamentals are not that important, just learn how to crunch the numbers. You will not be shown the motivation behind the Fourier or Laplace transform; you will not be given a reason for why the ideal gas law is valid. You will be expected to remember the properties of the transform that allow you to plug and chug differential equations. You will be asked to remember how to apply the ideal gas law in solving some system level thermodynamics problem.

That's fine, enough certainly to get you some job in industry, but it is often times not sufficient for you to truly "understand" anything. This may leave you wanting (in which case you should probably get a Ph.D.) or you could be totally satisfied by it (in which case you should go into industry).

People say college is about discovering what you want to do. From my experience, it's really more about finding out that what you thought you wanted to do, isn't actually very interesting at all. If you dislike engineering courses, then try some science courses, you might find your calling. I went into college set on engineering. I came out realizing I actually like science, not engineering, but I wasn't "brave" enough to change my course. People say "it's never too late to change." That's true, but the later you change the harder it gets.

It also has a lot to do with how you think of your peers and teachers. If you are in an environment where you feel like all of your peers and teachers are less informed than you are, you need to go somewhere else. Place yourself in an environment where it seems everyone else is smarter than you, and then you will realize that you don't know jack and have a lot to learn. That's pretty much true for anything. I feel like, if you're young (under 40), and you feel bored, it's time to start doing something else.

Obviously, the earlier you decide on what you want to do, the more prepared you will be when you actually set out to do it. For instance, if you want to go to medical school or want to get into a good graduate program, you can't just "think about it" until junior year. Such a path is so competitive that by that time you will have no chance.

The most important point: don't limit yourself to paths that other people consider "good." I.e., people may sneer at you for becoming a salesman at a retail store, but maybe that's the thing that you are good at and will make a profound difference. No one knows, so its good to explore. In college, there were pretty much two extremely popular career tracks: major in CS, go work for software giants in California, or major in CS/physics/math/econ, go work on Wall Street. People will look at you funny if you tell them you are not doing one of those two things, since that's the thing they really want and it may be shocking to them to realize that not everyone wants it. But they aren't you so what do they know.

The majority of people in this world view an education as a means to an end. I.e., sit through classes for four years so that you can get a job that pays well. I think that's a perfectly fine approach to college. However, at least from my experience, you will not do well in college unless you enjoy at least some of what you are learning purely from intellectual curiosity, so it's very important to find something you like.

Thanks a lot. What you said is very true and encouraging.

My current uni isn't really recognized for technology and has only one CS class professor, which is kind of disappointing if you look at the fact it has 15,000 students. I think this change has to happen, and since I wasn't so sure from the get-go I played it safe and took general courses only. Fortunately, all of those should be accepted there and I can focus more on maths so I can then focus on engineering and programming languages/coding. I'm doing this as it seems to be one of the things I like the most, but the prospect of how much it'll pay in a job in the future, as well as how many career opportunities it has, is obviously something to take into account.

I'm still kinda nervous as to how everything will turn out.