#ComputerScience #ContinuousLearning #Programming #ScientificField
🤔 Don’t Forget the ‘Science’ Part of ‘Computer Science’ 🧪
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of information you need to know in the field of computer science? 🤯 It’s okay, we’ve all been there! But remember, computer science is a scientific field and it’s all about continuous learning and growth. Here are some things to keep in mind:
– No class or course will teach you everything, and that’s okay. 📚
– Don’t get discouraged by the pace at which technology evolves. Embrace it as an opportunity to learn and grow. 🚀
– Treat programming more like working in an R&D lab rather than clerical work. It’s a challenging and rewarding field. 💻
– Keep learning and pushing yourself, who knows, you might be the one to make the next big breakthrough. 🔬
Remember: It’s all about the journey of learning and discovery. Keep at it, and you’ll see your skills and knowledge grow over time. 🌟 What are some strategies you use to keep up with the ever-changing world of computer science? Let’s share our tips and tricks to help each other out! 🤓
Employers expect. For cookies and a few dollars.
So true! Programming is a scientific field that requires continuous learning and experimentation.
Also: how well your university teaches you programming is entirely up to you. For example, for a course I had a few years back myself you could choose between a few languages to do the assignment. One was Jave, which my partner and I had already used plenty before, so we decided to do use C# and NodeJS. With barely any experience in either. I would not have built up any skill in either if we didn’t take the hard part. Don’t make your assignment just to satisfy the requirements. You will not learn as much and your grades probably won’t be as good as they could be either. Explore and have fun.
R&D everyday baby. Break things to build it back up. Every codebase sucks and nothing is perfect or even complete.
So besides the math and problem solving skills, you have to be resilient, willing to try everything and be open minded.
In your opinion in the last 50 years what are the antibiotic level breakthroughs of compsci?
But I don’t want to consider the overall complexity and the viability on a Turing machine for every little thing I build. :O
I’m seeing this as a newbie and honestly, I know what I’m getting into. I haven’t officially started my computer science degree yet because I’m in the middle of switching programs, but even though I dislike math, I understand the scientific principle of it. Even the classes I looked over in the catalog for my university’s bachelor’s in computer science clearly explain what their classes entail (I’m currently learning to code through freeCodeCamp during my free time and plan to continue even after class starts).
I’m probably wrong, but I think some people quickly switch to this field thinking it’s going to be easy or that you don’t need to know how to program. I bring that last part up because there was a position in the cybersecurity field where someone claimed you don’t need to know how to code according to Google… which doesn’t exactly make sense to me, and I didn’t look fully into that because it sounded bogus to me.
My whole point is, even as a novice programmer such as myself— this is not easy, unless you understand right off the bat that programming languages and concepts change over time like anything else and nothing is stagnant. I honestly find programming fun to do, even when it’s hard because this challenges me a hell of a lot more than the business degree I was originally trying to pursue.
Slightly relevant to this, I was taught Theory of Computation by one of the most senior professors in my college. He started the first lecture by saying this course is what puts the ‘Science’ in Computer Science & Engineering.
Absolutely loved the subject, easily one of my favourite course in college.
But then you see the ‘science’ majority of professors are doing is ham fisting different ML ideas into a shitty research paper to make a better research profile
Also don’t forget: Computer Science is a scientific field, programming a technical field / a craft.
You absolutely can do one without the other, but they just go so well together, it’s basically a waste to completely ignore one.
You don’t have to go deep: a very basic understanding of computer science theory will go a long way with helping you become a better programmer, and a very basic ability to program and script will also help you become a better computer scientist.
I have a master in Computer Sciences and I could not agree more. My program was closer to applied maths really, the practical stuffs were to do at home. Knowledge of data structures, memory management, calculability, how distributed systems work, having to implement stuff in the Minix kernel, statistics, all the things related to programming language design, compiler, graph theory, concurrency, electronics, security, those are all complex engineering or scientific topics. I also had to read countless scientific papers. This is the program with the lowest level of students that actually finish the program. From 120 in 1st year, we were 15 at the end…
I already knew C++, PHP, SQL, etc when I started studying, which helped. But the rest is not something you learn naturally !
I’d also like to add that in addition to just programming, having a grasp of mathematical concepts is vital to your success in CS. I have historically been bad at math, and an average programmer at best. When doing Leetcode problems, I noticed that I often lacked the intuition on how to best approach a problem. Now that I’m taking some math classes on the side, I can feel my intuition getting sharper in programming.
I think a lot of people who complain about not being prepared or that a CS degree teaches “useless” stuff are missing this.
Yes you don’t necessarily need to know the science of computing to program, but a CS degree is not exclusively about programming. If someone really only wants to know how to program without the science behind the process a Bootcamp or associates degree in software engineering/development is perfectly fine, but I think too many people equate computer science to just programming.
Yeah people also need to learn that Computer Science as a degree is not: “Programming, the Degree”.
It’s a science degree just like biology, physics, and chemistry. The purpose of the degree isn’t to make you a software engineer, it’s to make you a computer scientist. The knowledge learned can be applied to software engineering, and may give you a leg up, but it’s not the purpose of the degree.
I really wish companies understood this as well and didn’t require every single programming job to have one, since I would argue 90% of the jobs out there don’t require it.