Comments on: Computer Science Was A Dead End For Me

By: Job Lima

Job Lima — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:47:43 +0000

I love Computer Science and I wouldn’t do anything else than that.

Computer Science involves math and creativity.
It’s simple as that, you can’t like something you don’t understand but of course the faculty and how you are presented this knowledge can influence you and make you hate Computer science.

But please don’t make assumptions that CS is programming or IT, its a new field and there are great opportunities out there for those who work hard enough for them.

Too bad computer Science was a dead end for you, but remember
nothing good comes easy in life.
Good luck.

By: Deeznuts

Deeznuts — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:29:29 +0000

ROFL. This chick reminds me of the Barbie doll that goes 'Math is hard!' when you squeeze it. Thank the gods she didn't finish with CS — she'd probably be the one who writes the navigation code that makes the plane I'm on crash into a mountain.

By: Syd Barrett

Syd Barrett — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:25:09 +0000

You observed that CS is either programming or IT: no offence, but what did you *expect* to do with a CS degree?

By: rick

rick — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:15:26 +0000

You know, I'm currently in the same boat. The CS curriculum at my school involves A TON of programming. I HATE programming. The kind of things I'm really interested deal with networking and computational media. I actually have a job right now at school that involves working mostly with network security. I wish that I could only study network security and not programming, but I guess I have to make some sacrifices somewhere. Programming will help a bit but I think I can do just fine, if not even better without it. I've thought about possibly transferring to another school that caters to my interests better but the prospect of of leaving my current job which I love, and abandoning an Ivy League education, are both things that I am having a really tough time grappling with. Any thoughts or suggestions?

By: Nirosha

Nirosha — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:16:45 +0000

I wonder why everyone is so critical of the writer. It was fun reading the article. A very good writer indeed! I might not agree w/ her on a couple points, but I'm in awe of her writing skills nevertheless!

By: Danny

Danny — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:25:23 +0000

lol i thought i was the only one noticed that

By: lulz

lulz — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:30:42 +0000

This is the most ignorant article I have come across in a while. Excelling in reading and writing, yet basic mixups between “there” and “their”?

And it'd be difficult to go into CS without knowing that there is a large chunk of mathematical content. Why did you go in, anyway? Geeky girl who thus assumes she should be doing CS? I read “internet superstar” yet I think “youtube camwhore”.

By: JanKarlsbjerg

JanKarlsbjerg — Mon, 19 May 2008 22:32:27 +0000

The content of this post shows many misunderstandings and some factual errors besides the general whining, but the comments so far seem to have missed the post's title. For me, the title redeems the post: Computer science clearly was a dead end for this person.

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:55:01 +0000

You should pat yourself on the back. You've saved yourself from a lifetime of uncertainty and wage competition with goat herders in inpoverished third world countries. You're right , computer science is about programming no matter what anyone tries to tell you and programming is the first occupation to be outsourced and offshored. Trust me, programmers who spend a lot of time traveling are rare. My advice to all college students is: Don't be the person who gets offshored, be the manager type that offshores everyone else (I bet their math skills suck too). Then you can complain because, “We just can't find enough programmers”.

By: Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt — Sun, 18 May 2008 00:38:29 +0000

Don't let these people beat you up. They are insensitive and harsh. I dropped out of CS for sort of similar, but different reasons. In my case, the way CS was being taught bored me. I wanted to make lots of cash and get out of my parent's and grandparent's cycle of debt. I wanted to jump out there and just code things to make money. Unfortunately, however, I didn't want to learn much math beyond Trig, and didn't care for how Math was taught (just like you), and knew I could do well enough on my own in writing software without their help. So, since I knew I was a whiz at software and didn't need their help, I moved on to English Literature and Creative Writing, which fascinated me, and would provide to me a stepping stone into a law degree, which I thought would pay me a lot of cash. So, off I went and I stumbled poorly at first. I finally became a straight A student in my new major and graduated with both a BS and a BA, but they said I could only take one or the other. I took the BA and went off to work and pay down my college debt while I strategized about getting into law school. Unfortunately, work changed me, and I lost my appetite for law school and wanted to go back into computers. So off I went into tech support, then network engineer, then sysop, then DBA, and then finally into web development. I managed to work my way up to a salary of $150K during the dot com boom a few years ago, but after the layoff and a reboot at a new company, I now make $75K, which is sort of okay. Not bad for someone who never completed his CS degree. And now, if I could only go back and teach CS classes -- I would blow the doors off the other professors.

To me, they teach CS completely wrong. I hear too many stories of kids learning how to do web development on a Windows 95 workstation running Personal Web Server! Give me a break!

Oh, and Java _IS_ boring. Try PHP -- that's fun, and I use it on Linux. And if you're not a Linux fan yet, try ubuntu.com -- it'll make you into a convert.

By: TobyD

TobyD — Sat, 17 May 2008 20:34:44 +0000

Math “education” is the ultimate form of brainwashing. It's not for everybody.

By: ugly geek

ugly geek — Sat, 17 May 2008 18:24:25 +0000

You better be hot, because brains are clearly lacking.

By: code_block

code_block — Sat, 17 May 2008 15:48:30 +0000

I won't dive into math issues, because your thinking is so alien to me. Whereas you find math restricting I find it liberating. But I've always liked math, ever since entering primary school.

>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.

Ah, this is very simplistic observation. I guess you either don't know many programmers or only know the so called code-monkeys. Let me tell you : of all my high school classmates I travel the most (professionally). There are all those conferences, deployments to foreign customers, consultations with off-shore branches of company, etc. Each and everyone of them offer a possibility to take a day or two (or more, if possible) to experience the world.

So, I have been to all continents except Africa, many times took with me also my girlfriend and all in all I have to say that being a senior programmer is a great job and entering CS course was one of the best decisions in in my life.

By: Michael Mrozek

Michael Mrozek — Sat, 17 May 2008 15:45:51 +0000

James Justin Harrell said pretty much exactly what I was thinking when I read this. The author is stunningly annoying, and has no grasp of what being a CS involves. Somebody who hates math because “numbers over 1,000 start to confuse me” has had no math classes, or paid no attention in them. I've heard mathematicians complain before that people tend to think mathematics is dealing with really really big numbers, like how people think computer science deals with typing really fast (I've had people ask me if I learned to type fast in my CS courses on more than one occasion). I really didn't think people actually believed this about math until reading this post though. Lots of mathematicians I know are terrible with basic math, they just don't care enough to be good at it, there's no need to be, math is a problem solving exercise. If you hated math you'll probably hate CS, because they're the same sort of problem solving work. Apparently the math and CS programs at your school were terribly oppressive, so maybe they're partially to blame for this, but statements about how you hate programming but you're a whiz at “the internet! I could do anything on the internet” are just silly, I find wut's analogy about biology and dog walking excellent. This article purported to be about women in technology, but this was about one woman who hated everything about math and computer science and wants to write stuff (which she excels at, if you couldn't tell) and travel.

By: Paul Johnson

Paul Johnson — Sat, 17 May 2008 15:17:56 +0000

Can I ask what prompted you to select CS in the first place? I understand that its not for everyone, but there must have been something that looked good from the outside. Can you tell us what it was?

It looks like your expectations were not fulfilled. Maybe CS programs need to make the content clearer to prospective students.

Also, maths teaching is abysmal. I saw a post a long time ago by someone who taught maths through discovery rather than by copying theorems on the blackboard, and it was a great success. Most maths teachers just don't work like that.