Is computer science a meme or not? It's starting to feel like one more and more by the fucking day. Everytime I go to class I think to myself God, I could learn all this shit on my own this is such a waste of time. Plus I'm starting to realize that I have far more fun/enjoyment when I program and learn on my own. Anything I do for a grade I find myself getting incredibly frustrated and annoyed, especially if I can't get the code to work. Is this only going to get worse if I get a job? This isn't even going into all the talk I hear of the job market being shit for CS grads, outside of Shitfornia.
Should I just save myself the time now and switch majors? Would computer engineering be a better option, job wise? I figure this way I can at the least fall back to software engineering if I decide to do that instead.
>Computer Science is not about programming What's it about?
>In b4 lel mathz
Mason Ward
Same applies to pretty much any field. If you're interested you can find good sources to learn anything these days.
CS is just partixularly easy to do for yourself because what you need for "experimenting" is cheaply available.
That said, I guess many self taught programmers feel good about themselves when their code works in some way. But in fact when you study CS at a university, programming will be a course or two, and the better part is some fields of mathematics, algorithms and how to rate them and rhen specialization, e.g. image manipulation (no, you won't use photoshop or any other picture manipulation program here, it's about the math behind this), AI, or software architecture.
Christopher Taylor
OP here, forgot to mention that if I were to switch to CE instead I would have the option of doing CO-OP, whereas doing CS doesn't have that
Colton Reyes
>What's it about? Programming is engineering. Computer science is a science, or rather math. It's about information, computation, algorithms, logic, formal languages, but more than anything it's about theory. There is little overlap between the two. You don't go to computer science to learn programming, you should do it yourself after classes. You go to CS for theory, math and all the good stuff.
What is a co-op?
Lincoln Nguyen
get a day job flipping burgers or something and learn everything you need at home, dump everything you write on github, this is your portfolio
companies don't give a shit about your degree, if they do they're not worth the hassle don't let the spooky list of requirements (except like, drivers license lel) scare you off when applying for a job - get to the point where you're able to prove yourself and you're golden, this is tricky if you're socially inept.
i've never had an issue finding a job, i've freelanced as web dev, i've worked with game development professionally, as a welder in the paper industry and as a fucking car mechanic; if you really want a job you'll get it, you just need to present yourself properly, that's all there is to it
Brandon Campbell
>What is a co-op? That's where you work for a full semester for pay and college credits. I don't know how that works though.
Sebastian Robinson
Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with what you're saying. But if we're being honest here, the vast majority of people doing CS aren't going to be doing any of that stuff once they finish college. Computer science is basically treated as job training these days.
Brody Hill
>companies don't give a shit about your degree If that's true why do they all ask for one with experience?
Thomas Reed
I telecommute from my home in PA 4/5 days a week, make 80k+ a year, and I don't have a degree. I'm mid 30s though; would have been better off if I had one
Nicholas Walker
to agree with the posters above CS isn't only about programming and about theory, just as electrical engineering isn't only about electronics and soldering. Programming is a generic term for anything related to setting up procedures, which could be anything - games, controllers, servers, friggin excel. You can hardly call javascript web API programming "CS". It's such a soft science it's more like law at this point.
Chase Bennett
Why don't you get a quick degree online just to have it?
Carson Johnson
shut up faggot and man up fuckin cuck, I bet you're a burgerman sitting on his white ass collecting debt computer science here in India is much harder you fuckin pleb even after being in country's one of the best uni (shit country, shit unis) WE HAVE FUCKIN ZERO KNOWLEDGEABLE PAJEET PROFESSORS not a single class, I repeat, in my 3.5 years, not a single fuckin class has ever been helpful. It's about doing it all yourself and answering the exams copied from top tier western unis. Imagine understanding prime conjectures and rabib's prime shits for implementing a simple RSA... all on your fuckin own. it's an all DIY degree.
Christian Bailey
why flip burgers become a night guard or some other job where you just sit and do nothing all day then you can bring a laptop if theres no computer and learn without wasting time
Adrian James
>Anything I do for a grade I find myself getting incredibly frustrated and annoyed, especially if I can't get the code to work. If you plan to have a job in the field, that's how it's going to be most of the time. Instead of quitting, just accept that class work isn't supposed to be fun and take up programming as a hobby as well, and look for connections at your uni while you're at it. If it helps, I really hated my CS classes a year or so ago but I've somehow come to like them as practice for making me a better programmer overall.
Asher Taylor
Well, they are doing it wrong. And they are responsible for shitty reputation of CS students. What people want to learn in CS can be studied on your own much more efficiently. But companies requiring CS degree make everything even worse. Fortunately my University had CS which is very theoretical and math heavy. I had to endure all these code monkeys whining about algebra etc but at I least I got what I wanted.
Bentley Morgan
Split the computer science portion, which is largely the technical details and coming to understand how computers function from the lowest levels of machine language through operating systems, networks, databases, computability and complexity as well as algorithms.
The software engineering, planning and estimates stuff is the more important stuff. Most of your job as a dev at anything other than a mega corp will be planning code, understanding user requirements, figuring out how to construct these software to be user friendly, idiot proofing your software, quality testing etc.
The actual coding and debugging is a relatively small part of working for even a medium sized company.
Kevin Nelson
>CS Nigger you're only in there for the degree at the end
Carson Hill
If you mean "American CS" (a misnomer for software engineering, a misnomer for code monkeying), then yes, it's absolute a meme. If you mean actual CS (recognizable by the central place of classes like theoretical computer science, stochastic modeling, graphs, quantum computing, linear and non-linear optimization, etc.), then no, it's not a meme. It's a legitimate field of applied mathematics and leads to really cool possibilities in academia. It even has solid options in industry, but the former is what industry wants most of.
Connor Diaz
You get money
Hunter Barnes
"real" computer science is a fucking meme and hasnt been relevant in half a century
Blake Garcia
ML is real CS and it's very relevant.
Juan Peterson
Computer science IS maths. It has nothing really to do with computers or the scientific method. Don't use the scientific method to check the math. And could technically become a computer science professor without touching a computer (although more difficult). It is a math degree.
Angel Bennett
Depends on the domain. Bioinformatics is entirely a science. Quantum computing is entirely an area of maths.
Nathaniel Brooks
True, but bioinformatics is a form of bioengineering. It is biology with computing added, it is not computer science.
Fun fact, much of what a computer science degree covers predated computers. Watch the SICP lectures.
Cooper Hill
Not sure about that. Bioinformaticians develop bespoke algorithms to model biological phenomenon based on hypothetical behaviors or try to find behavior patterns in existing data and model that. Since datastructures and algorithms are clearly CS concepts and bloom filters, jellyfish and de bruijn graphs are example central technologies, two of which were developed specifically for biology, I think it's fair to say it's CS.
Michael Bell
Gate keeping bs written by some faggots in HR who read about signaling theory in their underwater basket weaving classes. That's it.
Jordan Ramirez
where and how?
Joshua Cook
It's a meme for two reasons: 1. (USA specific) oversaturated field, easier money in other tech fields. In EU there is often shortage of coders so it's much easier to get a job. 2. At least in EU, most jobs dont require such math/algorithm heavy knowledge. You are literally better off by going to some technical uni/polytechnic with industry connections and studying software engineering.
Zachary Harris
CS without coop is useless. Go wherever coop is at. Where is this btw?
Dominic Ortiz
You might not be sure about it, but due to the dunning kruger effect I am certain about my position.
Josiah Bailey
That's an exception
Jayden Johnson
Sure, but you get to create these exceptions if you're serious about the field. ML is very old, it's only recently been relevant for a variety of reasons, mostly increased computational power. What other ancient tech could be in that situation and need a small push in the theoretical domain to be up to speed and open new avenues for computing or modeling?
