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Hi everyone,
my background:
I'm a 28 year old dude who dropped out of high school and worked as a mason and later as a baker, before going back to school and studying, more out of passion than for any career aspiration, history in Heidelberg, Germany.
That was a lot of fun, but I realised that after getting a degree, I would want to go into STEM, because I started to discover maths.
For the past year, I have worked a temp job for a German software company whilst studying structural / civil engineering remotely at a university. I enjoyed the maths part, and I'm really optimistic about sitting exams this July, but I'm honestly thinking of switching again.
The company has now offered me a full time position, and while it's not a developer job, it's still 'computer-adjacent' enough to make a CS degree a big asset in moving forward in the field.
So to see if programming is something I'd be interested in, I've tackled some courses on different MOOCs and discovered that programming is rather fun, but I haven't gotten far enough to hit the frustrating bits yet, so obviously my scope is rather narrow.
I wanted to get into mechanical engineering because I had the dream of getting into alternative energies. I firmly believe that climate change is the biggest threat humanity faces today (well, on par with nuclear weapons), so I think making contributions in that field would be really satisfying personally. I like tinkering, and I like using my hands, but talking to actual mechanical engineers, it sounds like they mostly hang out in front of computers and don't actually do any tinkering.
The big objection I keep hearing about CS is that programmers nowadays are working really hard on making themselves obsolete, by building AI that can replace themselves.
The other big objection is that there's hundred of millions of Indians who can just do the same job remotely for half the money. I can see this first hand, since a lot of the programmers who work on the program I support work in Bangalore.
This is kind of my final straw. As you can see, my CV is all over the place. I haven't stuck to much in my life, I'm reaching an age at which I nobody will make excuse my inconsistency with use anymore, so I have to make this count, really sink my teeth into it.
I'd love to hear from you if you have any relevant experience to share.
Tell me what your work looks like, what your field looks like, what you do at uni, how much math you get to do in your job, if you get to be out and about. What you like, what you hate. If you're European, all the better, employment options for Comp. Sci. here are probably significantly worse than in the US, because obviously almost all of the big players are in the US.
Thank you for any and all replies!
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Yea if you're fairly epic you can make a career of resisting climate change. This rarely worked for me in practice, and so I'd probably suggest CS.
Honestly I don't know how many Indians speak perfect English, and most of my friends with related degrees are performing really well at their age bracket. I'd assume neither field is going anywhere barring some kind of major Enter the Matrix level revolution; I enjoy programming stuff for SC2 in my spare time so that might bias my CS advice.
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You should take Computer Science III. Then nobody will ever be able to mess with you.
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I have a CS degree and I think its too abstract. It's very close to something like a pure math degree. Most of the stuff you learn you rarely get the chance to make something that works, apart from programming, which imo does not need a CS degree, just curiosity and passion. There are many good programmers that have electronics, mech or other degrees.
On the other side like mech or electronics engineering, you learn the real stuff. The things you learn are about real, actual working things, not just abstract equations on paper. So unless you are theoretical scientist you have more effective tools at the hand to make something that has an impact.
Plus, when you need some knowledge in CS, it is easy to learn by yourself. Just grabbing a decent book and going through it gives you decent understanding on the subject, since subjects are pretty self isolated (you don't need to know something else to understand another). Mech or electronics, not so much. If I needed to design a circuit I would have to go through so much other stuff.
My advice is, don't judge the degrees by themselves. Look at the course program and see what are given. Learn what each course is about. Don't make a CS vs mech comparison but look at the courses individually. That will give you better understanding of what they really are.
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find the exact job/business that you want. take the time to research and learn about it. drill down into it.. and dig. interview real people doing this work. watch them in action. can u see urself feeling fulfilled doing the work?
whatever that exact job is.. take the most difficult degree program that gets you there while continuing to give you options should you decide ur job goal sucks balls. stay in the top 10% of ur class.
go into a co-op school that offers alternating terms of academic and real world work so you can get into it right away. research schools and find hte best co-op program you can. get into the real work world so u can do more research about your job choice.f
don't worry about all these giant macro forces you bring up in your post. micro baby. micro. sure, automated code generators have replaced almost all the assembly language programmers from 1975. so what. there is always something new to code and the entire industry mushrooms in every direction imaginable.
but again, don't worry about big macro. its time to micro.
![[image loading]](http://bbsimg.ngfiles.com/15/20773000/ngbbs4b79988a2d0b9.jpg)
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On June 21 2016 06:56 DickMcFanny wrote:
The big objection I keep hearing about CS is that programmers nowadays are working really hard on making themselves obsolete, by building AI that can replace themselves.
The other big objection is that there's hundred of millions of Indians who can just do the same job remotely for half the money. I can see this first hand, since a lot of the programmers who work on the program I support work in Bangalore.
For me, that is the point, to make life easier. If an AI could do just 30% of my job, that would be sweet, cause there is more then enough to pick from the backlog. And about the Indians who does the same job for half the price? My colleague is Indian, and what he tells me make us both laugh. Basically they work 12-15 hours a day (12+ if you have no wife), but they don't do much. They come to work, only to talk about breakfast, then go to breakfast, then some of them smoke, then they talk about what's for lunch, cause its like 3+ places at work they can eat at, and which cafeteria serves what this day. In midst of this, network problem, so they wait around for that to be fixed. This shit just go on all day. At 18:00 boss sees you can't deliver, so you better not go home till its fixed, panic and dread. Doesn't work to just launch workload remote. Much better to have them in your own office with your own work culture.
When he came to Norway, we have like 8 hours top in a day, but we do way more in that time. Sure there are good places in India, but their culture with working so much just creates a shit place to work on. He said, work in India is just a place to pass time. Working too much a day isn't for most people. In Norway, we're discussing 6 hours a day in some fields. I think Sweden has great success with this in some areas.
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Do you specifically want to be a pure developer? Computer Science doesn't necessarily mean you are a pure programmer. I have a computer science degree and I have done a great deal of serious programming. However, I don't bill myself as a programmer. I guess I would call myself a Systems Integrator.
The world of CS changes so rapidly. There are constantly new technologies being made available that companies want to integrate with. Amazon Web Services is a big example. Also any kind of SAML federation services like Ping Federate or other such products. There are tons of others in many different areas, but these are a few that I've focused on lately. I make my career in CS by becoming expert in a specific product and helping a company integrate it for themselves. These jobs only last 2-4 years at a time for me, though, so I am also constantly looking to learn new technologies and build new connections. This is a large part of the fun of the career for me, so if this sort of thing sounds appealing I support going with CS.
One other point I'd like to make regarding a CS degree is that the technology moves so fast that it's hard for any CS program to be totally modern at all times. But even though the technologies used when I got my CS degree have changed so much, I still got a great value out of my CS education. My education gave me a wide exposure to various technologies and aspects of CS that I feel it both got me excited about a wide variety of things and also prepared me to adapt to new technologies as time went on, while also giving me an understanding of the technology that forms the basis for all things CS. The people in my program also had many interests as well, so I got to benefit from the enthusiasm of my fellow students as well.
Also this was in the early 2000s, so we all played Brood War in the CS lab regularly... so it had that going for it too.
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On June 22 2016 03:58 Therapist. wrote:
These jobs only last 2-4 years at a time for me, though, so I am also constantly looking to learn new technologies
This part I would love.
On June 22 2016 03:58 Therapist. wrote:
and build new connections.
This part I would hate.
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Maybe you can look into part-time courses/certification to pick up specific skills like programming or CAD or what have you. If your current company is willing to support you in this and give you more responsibilities in a more "techie" role as you gain those skills, I think that would be great.
I don't do any sort of environmental work nor does my company have any sort of environmental certification (there's some sort of specific ISO standard for environmental safety, but I don't remember what the number is off the top of my head) so I'm not sure what kind of skills would be specific to your goals
On June 21 2016 06:56 DickMcFanny wrote:
I wanted to get into mechanical engineering because I had the dream of getting into alternative energies. I firmly believe that climate change is the biggest threat humanity faces today (well, on par with nuclear weapons), so I think making contributions in that field would be really satisfying personally. I like tinkering, and I like using my hands, but talking to actual mechanical engineers, it sounds like they mostly hang out in front of computers and don't actually do any tinkering.
It probably depends on company and their specific needs. For me, I do a lot of product development so I tinker a lot on the computer, order materials, build/assemble prototypes, troubleshoot issues/deficiencies with the prototype, do testing etc... So there's a lot of hands-on tinkering on top of the computer design. I've also always been in a really small team where basically everyone is expected to pick up the slack and do multiple jobs. My company's culture is more "everyone does a bit of everything" rather than "You're a CAD guy, you're doing CAD all day every day"
I'd love to hear from you if you have any relevant experience to share.
Tell me what your work looks like, what your field looks like, what you do at uni, how much math you get to do in your job, if you get to be out and about. What you like, what you hate. If you're European, all the better, employment options for Comp. Sci. here are probably significantly worse than in the US, because obviously almost all of the big players are in the US.
Thank you for any and all replies!
I've never touched a differential equation in my job. Again, I think this is dependent on company needs. Since I do a lot of hands-on prototyping, I can get away with doing a few basic calculations and doing physical testing for more complex problems. Or if building multiple prototyping is too expensive for a certain project, I might do a simulation (it's called FEA, or for fluids, CFD if you're interested. There's plenty of software out there that do this, and if you're into CS, you can even program your own though that's a big challenge) to get a better understanding of the design's limitations before building a prototype
My experience with university is mixed when it comes to how "useful" it is. I learn a lot of useful skills such as CAD, force/stress calculations, technical writing and all of the skills that come with doing lab experiments. But I also have theoretical subjects that I generally don't touch.
Things like differential equations has not been directly useful at my job, but I'm happy I studied them anyway. I think the less practical theory that I learn is still very useful in learning how to think, learning how to approach a problem, learning how to take a complicated problem and split it up into more manageable bits (a lot of the times this would involve taking a physical concept and abstracting it. Yes, even in real life, abstract concepts can help clarify a problem). So while I don't "use" differential equations, studying them has shaped my approach and thinking to problems. It's more of an indirect help
I probably don't "use" 90% of the stuff I learned in school, but I still feel that studying that 90% "useless" stuff has helped me a lot. Maybe it also helps that I enjoy Math outside of work and a lot of the history fascinates me so the studying never feels like a waste of time
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I really appreciate the thorough reply, Purind!
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EPT
