May

16

Computer Science Was A Dead End For Me

May 16, 2008 |

This is a guest post by Corvida who blogs regularly on Social Media, Web 2.0, and the Social Web at SheGeeks.net.
   

Stacey Higginbotham recently post on GigaOM about Women Troubles In Technology in response to a NYT article about the loss of women in the science and technology fields once they hit over 30. Well NYT, I dropped out of Computer Science at 19 and not because of the "macho culture" that the NYT perpetrates in their article. I dropped out for entirely different reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with how many males were in my class. In fact, the sex ratio wasn’t all that bad. There were numerous young ladies not only in my class, but within the entire Computer Science department. Even the staff in the department had a balanced ratio. However, that doesn’t have a thing to do with dropping out of Computer Science.

Math

Quite frankly, I don’t like this subject. It’s why you won’t see too many posts about statistics on SheGeeks. Numbers over 1,000 start to confuse me. Add in the complicated jargon of math and you’ll completely lose me. Math is confusing for me. I excel in reading and writing (like you can’t tell). I like subjects that aren’t restrictive and Math is one of the most limiting subjects I’ve ever had to take. It gives me a migraine and personally, I don’t think it should be so damn serious. It’s just numbers for crying out loud! Regardless, I need more room for thinking, analyzing, and concluding. Math doesn’t allow that type of flexibility and if you’re taking CS, expect to take 2-3 math classes all four years of college. Uh, I don’t think so.

Professors and Teaching Reqs.

The school I previously attended always had foreign teachers for the hardest subjects for American students: Math and English. No offense to foreigners, but for a subject that I’ve always struggled to understand, I don’t want the added pressure of trying to decode professors with heavy accents. Unfortunately for me, it seemed like I always picked a math teacher with a strong accent. I unintentionally developed a knack for it my freshman and sophomore years of college.

Not only were the accents thick, but most math teachers want you to learn math the hard way and there way. Most won’t help students out and provide shortcuts to problems. Don’t even think of using a shortcut that you may have found on your own. I did this once and had to see the head of the math department just for the teacher to re-grade my test. I was warned not to use any shortcuts or knowledge that I learned outside of class and to stick to what the teacher taught. This is actually pretty common, especially in the math department. It’s their way or the high way. Uh, I don’t think so.

Dead End Future

Another problem that was the final straw during the beginning of my junior year was that CS was a dead end. I found the field itself to be too limiting. You’re either programming or doing IT. End of discussion. Where the hell is that supposed to take me? I couldn’t imagine having to travel around the world just to program something. Since when have you heard a programmer talk about the latest place that there job took them. I hadn’t. I still haven’t. While IT may have been less limiting, I still couldn’t see much coming out of it. I wanted to be able to freely move between other areas. I wanted to explore the field, but the problem was that there were no other areas that I knew of. In the end, CS just seemed like a dead end job. I want a career. So, uh I don’t think so.

No Passion

The CS program at my school catered mainly to programming. I’ve never had a passion for programming. In fact, I didn’t have any type of programming experience. I just knew how to design web sites and work a computer like the pro. My speciality? The internet! I could do anything on the internet. If I didn’t know how to do it, I knew where to find out. The Java classes were boring to me. I only liked them because I could tinker with something. However, my heart wasn’t into building what I was tinkering with it, at least not when it came to programming. Eventually, I accepted that to continue in CS, I needed to have a passion for what I was being taught.

Where Am I Now?

Well, I’m transferring schools for one. I took this semester off (Jan - May) to work on SheGeeks as a project until I figured out what I wanted to do. Then, I became an internet rockstar. I found my passion in the social web with an emphasis in social media. The school I’m attempting to transfer to has a Mass Media department, which isn’t classified under science and technology, but does delve into another side of tech. The curriculum is exciting and the department staff are great (at least over the phone). I’ve found my passion. I’ve found my program and, hopefully, I’ve found my school. In the end, CS was no fun for me and it had absolutely nothing to do with the guys in my class that weren’t the least bit "macho".


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