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On June 23 2010 06:31 RisingTide wrote:
You've got to ask yourself: What are you good at, what do you like and what do you want to be good at? You mention CS, but do you know what that entails? Go to your uni's website and find a course list for their CS degree and see if you see yourself doing well in them. CS is funny like that, I know a lot of really smart people who get a glazed look and start to drool when trying to do 'computer stuff', and likewise people I wouldn't have guessed would be good at anything take to it like a natural.
I guess what I'm saying is, don't just pick something because it seems like a good idea. Actually try to determine if it IS a good idea before you waste another year of your life (This is coming from experience).
yea thats kinda the point of the blog
if CS is really math-y then I could definitely handle that, match being my strong suit
i just dont wanna do anything involving science. T_T
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CS IS really mathy.
really mathy.
Do you want to be a comedian or a computer scientist?
Do some cost / benefit stuff and then grind like a mother fuck. To succeed takes work, no matter what.
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On June 23 2010 06:46 ella_guru wrote:
CS IS really mathy.
really mathy.
Do you want to be a comedian or a computer scientist?
one is solid as long as i do my work and can get me money in 4 years and will be foundationally solid
the other is not
unless you get lucky, comedy is and should be a hobby
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Dang I'm sorry to hear that Morrell... I'm just wondering but, what kind of a gpa did you need to transfer into May's business school? Cuz for me, I just needed a 2.5 on my overall gpa and my cbk gpa to get transferred into Industrial Engineering department. I'm surprised the 2 A's and the 3 B's didn't help boost your 3 C's but I'm guessing you need a really high gpa. Were you trying to get into finance? or marketing? or accounting??
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well from what I understand by having a lot of CS majors for friends at my school, CS is just programming. programming involves a lot of math and a lot of abstractness. i really fucking hate programming but I have to learn it for my major (game design). Does your school offer CS? what about strictly game-related majors (assuming you still want to do it)?
if you want to be a programmer, it will be better to just stick to CS since that degree with be just as good (as far as degrees go) in the game industry but is also applicable to other industries. but I think the most important part of getting a job in the game industry is just experience. having a good portfolio i think is far and away the most important part.
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Programming is logic (i.e. discrete math), I actually dunno why they tack on all the high level math classes. (in general college, in engineering program it's kinda obvious) What exactly is it you want to do? You don't really go into specifics on what you like. CS major is either writing code all day/looking at code all day/optimizing or testing code all day or solving issues all day. Server issues, system issues whatever. That usually develops to either writing more code all day/looking at more code all day/making sure the people that work for you test code correctly add day or becoming a sys admin or network admin and manage more issues all day. On the other hand if you want to play models, create stages for games or something, that's not CS. I mean, yes someone has to write the code underneath everything, but there are art degrees for video game design and stuff.
If you like design more than writing code/making sure computers/networks don't blow up, I'd take a look at other degrees not CS. Look in the art school or general school for design degrees since I think a lot of those jobs require you to have a portfolio coming out of college, not as sure though.
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Sorry to hear that Mays rejected you and I know how big a pain in the ass it is to transfer credits over from another school. Do you still plan on staying in A&M or are you planning to go elsewhere? If you are interested in staying and want to possibly look into the Comp Sci/Engineering department, I have a few friends that are juniors/seniors that would be willing to help you if you have any questions. Hopefully everything will work out for you and you can remain at Texas A&M 
Gig'em!
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Im sure everyone has explained that CS isnt what you really think it is. Its a total pain in the ahole, a lot of work but only possible to go through is if you self-study and have interest. Its a lot of Math and hardass Physics, you are better off taking CNT or something.
edit: Im a 1st year CS Major, its hilariously easy at first but it gets difficult fast when you dont get used to programming and figure out the terms. I actually took off 1 semester to take the minor courses such as the few very liberal arts classes and electives that count. Now all I have left is many math courses and a couple of physics classes, I'll regret it later since I enjoy this 50/50 as of right now.
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I don't have any advice but does anyone know any active places or message boards to talk about education and career-related stuff?
I'm mainly looking for long-term advice about career-related matters. Many of the places I've searched for aren't that active and are relatively superficial in terms of depth. It would be nice to have a place where you can get the experience and advice from professionals in their careers.
Thanks.
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I can't begin to say how much I appreciate the help, you guys are totally awesome, ill go into more detail when I'm back home
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Why is CS a pain in the ass? I know a bunch of classmates who enjoy it. I like how you don't have to memorize that much - everything comes out of the logical necessity of the architecture, or from "it's easiest to do it this way."
CS as much a "math thing" as is structural engineering: you're crunching numbers using math, maybe, but you're doing something with it.
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As somebody earlier in the thread wrote, don't go into CS unless you have an INSANE ability for math, Engineering is just as good if not better as a career path towards programming, but beware the fact that you need to have a specialization or two in your programming knowledge, no sense having generalist capabilities in multiple languages if you can't grasp two or three completely. I have a business degree now, but no job, so you're in a better position of having the chance to change your degree. ROFL
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Next best thing from a business school degree is economics. There is a specific reason you want to get a busineess school degree. There are many companies that only hire bschool canidates due to their professional demeanour and formal business training.
However, if you just take economics and recruit hardcore with companies, then a business degree isnt nessesary. I met alot of fellow interns and fulltime hires that werent in business programs.
Start looking for internships and polish up interviewing skills. Get that resume polished as well. Good luck man.
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Uh.
Do they do things differently here in Canada?
I'm a CS major in my 4a term at UWaterloo (from what I understand, a good computer science school) and it's chill as fuck for the most part. No high level math required (at least not for what I'm doing - though I can see how some of the stuff would be useful, I'm just not built for it and we don't have to take those classes).
I had to take Calc I + II, Linear Algebra, Discrete (?) Algebra (TBH I have no idea what algebras I took, but its the first 2). They were hard as fuck but that's because I took advanced sections, and basically didn't do any homework and partied (1st year troubles lol). Got 50's on my calc II and alg II. These are first year courses. Then for my degree (Bachelor of CS) I don't have to take any more calc/alg.
But then it's been mostly straightforward. Not much math other than a intro to combinatorics/graph theory course which was a great course and IMO pretty easy (but other apparently the business students all do bad in it), and very useful. I had to take a logic course for computer science but it wasn't really "math" math, it was CS math. You have to take 2 stats courses in second year, but I basically learned the first stats course in high school (90% basic probability) and the second one was not that hard either since it's just memorizing distributions and stuff.
The rest have been learning computer science concepts (stuff like net working, distribution, HCI, databases, etc) some of which require alot of programming, some of which are more answer-type, most of which have both. I personally enjoy programming alot. I don't do any high level math or anything. The only thing that comes close to math might be the few algorithms class I've taken, and a numerical computation class (which was optional).
I mean, sure, some courses are hard (it is university), but it's basically 100% applicable, so I don't know what abstract stuff other people learn (maybe AI courses and adv. graph theory? Compiler algorithms - that's still applicable.. That's heavy stuff that I find people do grad studies for so...). The only abstract stuff I can think of that I learn are my algorithms classes (200, 300 and 400 level) and design patterns, both of which are the most useful things I've ever learned probably.
TBH if you've never done any programming try it out on your own - if you like it alot but aren't cut out for high level maths, perhaps think of doing college instead (I think they're called community colleges in US). You might have already come to a conclusion based on what I read, but as another CS major I thought alot of the opinions here just don't jive with what I've done. But then again this is Canada and we're more chill than americans for the most part and UWaterloo's CS department is part of the Math Faculty (which I learn is uncommon), so perhaps we do things differently because of that - I don't know, I can only speculate.
Hopefully this is helpful, but as I type this I feel more and more like it's not. =/ I've gone too far to stop now though.
So the solution to your problem is to move to Canada and come to UW (we offer business minors for CS majors as well)
jk (I read your other posts so I know you don't want to move)
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On June 23 2010 07:53 MaRiNe23 wrote:
what kind of a gpa did you need to transfer into May's business school?
...
Were you trying to get into finance? or marketing? or accounting??
needed a 3.0, which would've been easy sauce if I had my freshman year grades, but with just my 200/300 level classes it was a 2.87 X_X I was gonna do the PPA where you get your major in accounting and masters in finance
On June 23 2010 08:22 holy_war wrote: Do you still plan on staying in A&M or are you planning to go elsewhere?
I'll only stay if you come out of hiding and hang out! But ya I plan on staying here, and I seriously might hit you up sometime for your friends help if it wouldn't be too much trouble. I really like asking questions in person so that would be really awesome.
On June 23 2010 12:57 King K. Rool wrote:
Hopefully this is helpful, but as I type this I feel more and more like it's not. =/ I've gone too far to stop now though.
extremely helpful man, getting the scoop on what your experience was like just adds to the building blocks of my thoughts. ty so much for the post
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TY SO MUCH EVERYBODY
I know the post was vague and I didn't really have a focal point, but that's because this is everything I had in my head, I really didnt have a direction, but all your posts from different areas of experience was exactly what I needed
WHAT I"VE LEARNED
1) Turns out computer science is really mathy, which ends up being great because I really enjoy math and the best part of business that I enjoyed was the math of Accounting, working with numbers to balance accounts and such, and I grasp math really easily (5 on my AP Calc AB Test in HS) so if I pick CS it should fit nicely with my personality
2) Game design is more artsty than Computer Science, and only a few schools offer it, and it seems like you need to know people in the industry to try and wedge your way in
3) Both options require a strong portfolio with great experience, so I need to start working on my resume early, rather than only focusing on grades
This is infinitely more knowledge than I had before, even if its really basic. I'll use this basis when I go see an advisor this week to determine what school to apply for and what classes to take specifically
I. Love. TL.
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i do comp sci it kicks ass. i don't know what some of these ppl are talking about. of course u have to do electives and shit but u prly have all those credits. i had to do calc 1-2 and a discrete math class but really that shits ez. and they discrete math was tied to programming so it was cool.
i'll be a junior next fall semester and i'm basically taking only programming classes now. it owns. programming is so fun u just hack code and u can basically make/do what ever the fuck u want. cs for life!
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Glad you got things worked out.
You don't need quite a portfolio for CS early, but of course having something is better than not, especially if it's something nice and self contained that you can bring with you to interviews for interns and stuff like that.
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If you really want to be a comedian than why not go to a fine arts/ performance acting program? That seems a lot more relevant than just a general business program Definitely don't do CS lol, I guarantee you'd hate it. If you really really want to be in the business program (I can't imagine why you would, but whatever) then just email all the professors asking if you can take their classes, and eventually they'll let you do it.
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EPT
