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Ask HN: I'm an incoming freshman to college for a CS major, what should I know?

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Re: Ask HN: I'm an incoming freshman to college for a CS major, what should I know?

#181

Post by httpsterio »

andreilys wrote: post #88
curiousllama wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not a waste of time. Learning to think in a non-CS way can be incredibly valuable. Will it make you a better programmer? Maybe not. Will it make you a more effective employee, founder, or person? Yes.

Why do you need to pay tens of thousands of dollars to for a second degree when you can just go to the source material yourself? Project Gutenberg exists, as does Youtube, Khan Academy, and many other free resources.

0 extra here where I live. I actually get paid to study (not enough to actually live full time on that). The only real expense I get is that I need to supply my income either by working or taking a student loan (with an interest rate of approx some ten-twenty dollars a year).

Also, when comparing what one would or wouldn't benefit from, I think money should be removed from the discussion. Obviously, you gotta live when you study and the longer you study, the less you're earning through work = time spent in school is a loss of income But as this is obvious, it's enough to focus on whether a double major is worth your time or not.

Re: Ask HN: I'm an incoming freshman to college for a CS major, what should I know?

#182

Post by npmaile »

adrusi wrote: post #179

You already have skill and hopefully passion in one discipline, use college as an opportunity to explore a different one, and get an edge up on your peers. Don't major in CS, major in something else that you care about for its own sake, even if that doesn't come with an especially marketable degree. You'll probably want to take classes from various disciplines to see what really drives you. You'll want to do somethin…

I absolutely agree. I have a degree in Business Economics and got a job as a software engineer within 6 months of graduation. I started in the tech support help desk of my university, followed by a programming job within the school. I used that job to get a job doing automation for a large corporation and then got a job engineering for said company. No ragrets

Re: Ask HN: I'm an incoming freshman to college for a CS major, what should I know?

#183

Post by discordance »

Retric wrote: post #162
foxtr0t wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the latter will drive you more to banks, economic institutions, insurance, government contractors, exchanges and similar jobs. I worked for a gov't subcontractor (for the USAF) and a bank prior to moving to the bay and working at a FAANG. The opportunities to make 500k+/year don't exist, outside a few private funds that grind you to dust. If you are super well connected and you can start a military contract firm, yo…

FAANGs don’t pay that salary because it’s difficult work, they pay that salary because they have trouble keeping turnover down. It’s much like investment banks where the pay is great and many people really want to leave. It’s up to you how you want to spend your life, but everyone I know is much happier after the left.

You mean once they worked at FAANG, saved up enough FU money and then left?

Yeah, I'm sure they are much happier.

Re: Ask HN: I'm an incoming freshman to college for a CS major, what should I know?

#185

Post by tw000001 »

Focus on (deep) machine learning and load up on math classes.

You will be equipped with a totally unique perspective for solving problems and, if things continue to grow as they are now, a very in demand and lucrative career, if you have the chops for it.

Re: Ask HN: I'm an incoming freshman to college for a CS major, what should I know?

#186

Post by _hardwaregeek »

hatsunearu wrote: post #62
saalweachter wrote: post #25

1. Don't assume your CS classes will always be easy. Having programmed a lot is a big advantage, but you're going to be learning a wide variety of things as a CS major that you may not have had to think about previously, and there is going to be a lot of it which isn't intuitive. Be prepared to study more than you have in the past and don't get cocky; sometimes it isn't until your junior or senior year that you get b…

double majoring is a hilarious waste of time and money. don't do it.

Agreed. Taking non-CS classes? Definitely worth it. Getting the arbitrary extra words on your diploma? Less worth it

Re: Ask HN: I'm an incoming freshman to college for a CS major, what should I know?

#187

Post by plerpin »

Enjoy your college life. Socialize. Revel in the extracurriculars, don't treat them as an obligation to be endured. Join some clubs. Don't just hole up in the lab. Being well-rounded from your college experience will improve your life in many ways, your career being just one aspect.

Re: Ask HN: I'm an incoming freshman to college for a CS major, what should I know?

#188

Post by andrewem »

mshron wrote: post #22

Skill up in the humanities. Pick topics outside of technology that interest you, and learn how to communicate about them. Take as many seminar discussion and writing-heavy classes as you can. From a career perspective, programming skill is relatively easy to come by. Programming AND speaking AND good writing will put you on a better career path. You won't get stuck after a job or two when you know the tools of the tr…

Yes - people who only know technical things can become convinced that (a) only technical things are worth knowing, and (b) that their perfect logic can enable them to come to ideal conclusions about things they know nothing about. (I think some of the latter stems from experiencing years of education where a small number of factors needed to derive a perfect solution, as in a first-year physics problem. When you go to build things though, you discover that you have to understand the situation and its users to design and build what is really needed.)

Re: Ask HN: I'm an incoming freshman to college for a CS major, what should I know?

#189

Post by saalweachter »

_hardwaregeek wrote: post #186
hatsunearu wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

double majoring is a hilarious waste of time and money. don't do it.

Agreed. Taking non-CS classes? Definitely worth it. Getting the arbitrary extra words on your diploma? Less worth it

To be clear, I'm not advocating taking a bunch of random classes to be a well-rounded person, although, sure, why not.

I'm advocating taking enough classes in some other, specific topic that interests you (like, say, linguistics) that you can now apply for jobs where you program using your domain knowledge of this other field, as well as your CS skills.

At most colleges, taking a bunch of classes in a single subject usually results in a major or minor; additionally, the extra lines on your diploma that say you also know a lot about, say, structural engineering will help you when your resume is on the desk of a firm developing CAD software.

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