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Questioning my interests
Earthenrock
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Lately I've been having to study an obnoxious amount of time to get Calculus, and I'm still getting mediocre grades. Being in a community college, my class size is small, so the opportunity to ask questions is always there but I never do, which I think is some of my problem.
I want a degree in Computer Science yet it seems that I'm gonna have to work my ass off. before someone says "suck it up." I have a few questions I hope someone can answer or put some input to.
I'm working for my AA and plan to transfer hopefully in a year to a state college. what strikes me as confusing is I seem to be a natural not at math and science, but at English and humanities type courses. I took a "filler" course which was Renaissance to present day and I barely looked at the book and got an A.
Same with English Literature, and so forth.
on the other side of the spectrum is programming, my major and other hobbies I'm interested in, but when I think about sitting down and doing these, I don't really feel like it. I have to sometimes force myself to sit down and study it.
So to wrap it up, I'm interested in some things that aren't coming that naturally to me, if not at all. I like computers and I like mathematics, but I'm not feeling motivated to do a lot of it. On the other hand I can write an A+ paper in 2 nights and 3 days of research, before anyone in the class has even thought of their subject.
How can I tell if I'm going in the right direction? I really don't want to change my major, As none of those subjects really catches my interest, I just seem to be good at them.
I want a degree in Computer Science yet it seems that I'm gonna have to work my ass off. before someone says "suck it up." I have a few questions I hope someone can answer or put some input to.
I'm working for my AA and plan to transfer hopefully in a year to a state college. what strikes me as confusing is I seem to be a natural not at math and science, but at English and humanities type courses. I took a "filler" course which was Renaissance to present day and I barely looked at the book and got an A.
Same with English Literature, and so forth.
on the other side of the spectrum is programming, my major and other hobbies I'm interested in, but when I think about sitting down and doing these, I don't really feel like it. I have to sometimes force myself to sit down and study it.
So to wrap it up, I'm interested in some things that aren't coming that naturally to me, if not at all. I like computers and I like mathematics, but I'm not feeling motivated to do a lot of it. On the other hand I can write an A+ paper in 2 nights and 3 days of research, before anyone in the class has even thought of their subject.
How can I tell if I'm going in the right direction? I really don't want to change my major, As none of those subjects really catches my interest, I just seem to be good at them.
Earthenrock on
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Try to get a few people in class to join you in the library. I'm sure some are more than willing to get more practice in and to help you out.
Also, just because it's hard for you doesn't mean it's the right way. I feel that if you get through all the hard classes, it'll be much more rewarding for you. But that's just me. Try to not let the Calculus grades get you down. I got by with C's in all my Calculus classes and I'd like to think I'm fairly smart.
I dunno how old you are, but if you're under 21 i would say you're gonna question your choices for the next few years to come. You'll see friends in certain fields that you swear have it better. The grass is always greener ya know.
For math classes, the biggest things that helped me was making sure you understood the material before leaving (ie asking questions) and doing the homework. If you do the homework assignment but don't feel you're quite grasping it still, do more problems. Homework sucks, but for math it's through that repetition that it starts to make sense and become second nature. The point I stopped doing homework was the point I started failing math classes (homework wasn't for a grade).
Don't think of humanities being easy as it being "your calling." Those early gen ed humanities courses are a fucking joke. Until you sit down and write 20 page papers on the subjects you're studying, that are actually insightful and not retreaded ground, you don't really know what those majors are like.
You need to understand that writing computer code is not a glamorous task, it is boring as hell, and let me tell you this, at some point you will feel that you are just wasting your time doing exactly that, writing code.
When I was young, I wanted to learn to create computer programs, I was motivated, but after several months learning the syntax and spending hours, days, I started to regret things.
I really admire that you want a degree in computer science, and I also envy you. The best way to find out if you like something is actually doing it, feeling it, playing with it, and sometimes experimenting.
Seeing things from the distance could look cool and exciting, doing it on the other hand can be completely different.
If you have sufficient talent for it, it's worth educating yourself to make it a viable career, since most people do need to earn a living, and even if you don't, doing a job you're good at is vital to make you a real human being. Now, if you don't have any noticeable talent, then it's all relative... assuming you've tried everything, just do whatever you're best at.
Coding does tend to be boring, but most people who enjoy it get enough enjoyment from the progress, if not from working on the problems themselves.
I actually did enjoy working on the problems, but I was a slow learner, (I wasted at least a decade with amateur crap in variants of BASIC that taught me nothing of value. only the intro level college courses really started going anywhere, and then I lost interest)
and I was VERY easily discouraged by lack of progress. (the learning curve and unlimited options were actually probably the worst problem for someone like me who has problems with decisions. No interest in learning whatever library function it was that Windows used for graphics, if I wasn't sure it was something I was actually going to end up using. God, did I hate libraries.)
by the time I got into it, I started thinking I wasn't really interested in the results. Too convoluted. The results you get are themselves tools for further purposes, rather than ends in themselves. It didn't mesh with my ideologies. or maybe I just made excuses.
In the end, I completed my degree and went into IT, but on the administrative and support side. Yes, I could write code (past tense!!!) pretty well. And no, I couldn't imagine sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day doing exactly that. But there's tons of other opportunities out there in the IT field. Don't think for a minute that because your degree is in programming, that you have to go out and be a programmer!!!
On another hand, your average college student changes their major 2 or 3 times before settling on the right one for them. I went in thinking I was going to study Environmental Engineering, then Chemistry, then Behavioral Science. Then I took my first comp sci class and knew. Comp sci might be the right fit for you, and it might not. Don't beat yourself up because you're considering changing your mind. If your interests and strengths lie in a different direction than you initially thought, congratulations! You're in good company!
This.
On the flipside, getting a CS degree can open up opportunities that aren't either of those things. I got my CS degree from a pretty good school, and wanna know what I don't do at all? Program. There's IT work, administration, testing, and a myriad of other fields that involve computer science without actually writing code. I've always felt CS is a way of thinking, a way to approach a problem.
It is very helpful to know at least what the code do and how to make it better. If after sometime you don't want to sacrify time doing this, there are other fields you can devote your efforts as others have mentioned in this thread.
Take a step back from the school work and ask yourself if you enjoy programming. Not the deadlines, confusing projects you get, lack of documentation for what you're trying to do, etc., just the process in general of thinking through a problem, coming up with a possible solution, and then implementing little by little and seeing if it works.
Comp sci is about far more than just programming, but you'll have to do a lot of programming for your classes with less and less direction as you make your way through. You may not enjoy the particular type of programming you have to do at any given time, but being able to step away from the latest bad grade and confirm that you still enjoy what you're doing on some level is going to be vital. I questioned my choice of major many, many times during my studies due to lackluster performance and this is what really kept me going.
There will be progress though. It's a great feeling when you're looking through a technical white paper about some subject and even if you don't understand many of the details since you never actually studied that part of computer science, you still understand what's going on. Or when you see a code example from a language you've never seen before but can still follow what it's probably trying to do on a basic level. Being able to pick up stuff like this because the major trains you to think in a certain way is very handy.
Understand that comp sci is considered one of the hardest majors out there. I did not know this going in, but should have seen this coming when a friend attending Caltech told me that comp sci was the second most respected major at the school back when I was still in high school. I went to a state school that has a respected CS program . . . and a 90% attrition rate for the major. About 400 students declare comp sci as their major each year or semester and only about 40 of those finish as one. So if you do switch majors, you'll be in good company.
If you do stick with it, then doors open up. I may not have known how tough this stuff was initially, but others do. During my 5 year high school reunion, I was kind of bummed that the rest of my old friends were all finished with undergrad (we were all in an advanced program) but despite the fact that I was behind, our class Valedictorian was impressed that I was making my way through the major when she found out. The field simply breaks smart men and women with even entry level classes able to reduce many to tears. No employers I've talked to care that I took twice as long as most people do to finish undergrad (I shifted to part time student towards the end when it was just a few classes holding me back and I didn't want to pay for filler classes), not that I've had to talk to many since the first that decided to interview me extended a job offer. There's still quite a good deal of demand out there and not enough supply (see that 90% attrition rate).
So don't let the math troubles get you down. But do think about this thoroughly. It's a rewarding field of study, but it will kick you in the balls repeatedly until you reach the finish line.
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