Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 278 posts

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

#121

Post by mch82 »

zekehernandez wrote: post #3

You should know why you want a degree in CS. Because if it's solely to get a job in software development, know that it's one of the longest and most expensive ways to reach that goal, especially since you've been coding for such a long time. There are many other reasons one would want to go to college, and if they apply to you, feel free to disregard this comment. But to reiterate, if your only goal is to be a softwa…

My masters degree took me 1 year to get and let me skip 3 years ahead in salary. It also gave me access to more senior level roles working along side senior level and executive level managers.

You’ll also want to do other things in your life besides work. You’ll find a college degree can impact how you’re perceived in many aspects of your life.

A college degree is like a save point in a video game. Once you achieve it, no one can ever take it from you.

It is, of course, possible to waste the time you’re in college or make bad financial decisions. However, that’s a separate issue. You’ll get out of it what you put into it.

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

#122

Post by fish45 »

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…

Man, to be honest I was looking forward to not having to take humanities classes now. I have my first advisor meeting for scheduling classes in a few days, so I'll be sure to find something with lots of writing. Thanks for the advice.

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

#123

Post by mch82 »

theduder99 wrote: post #60

don't go straight through college fast as possible. take some internships along the way. If I see a resume that only includes class based projects, it is an immediate skiperino.

If you’re lucky enough to not work during college, then internships are far more valuable and will likely challenge you to do much cooler things. Intern lots of places & try out different work environments and even locations.

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

#124

Post by paulcole »

liquidise wrote: post #68
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…

I strongly second both of these points will provide some more color: > 1. Don't assume your CS classes will always be easy. Easy or quick . Some of my worst college experiences involved putting off CS work that, while still easy, had sneaky edge-cases that took many hours to cover. Don't be lazy with your CS projects and you will be in a comfortable place. > 2. Try to double major or minor in something completely unr…

A diverse education will also help your relationship with the flawed person you interact with the most: yourself.

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

#125

Post by paulcole »

The best advice I can give is do not take advice from anyone who graduated college more than 10 years or so ago. The problem is that their advice is woefully out of date and even worse, they’re incredibly confident that it’s still useful advice.

Most people are wrong about most things most of the time. Keep that in mind when listening to any advice (yes I am aware of the irony).

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

#126

Post by helicalspiral »

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.

In most (all?) universities/colleges in America a double major doesn’t cost extra financially. You might have to give up taking more electives in one or the other programs however.

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

#127

Post by MaxBarraclough »

sosodev wrote: post #114

HN is probably the worst group to ask for advice. Most people here take their careers way too seriously. You’ll notice that most people here are telling you to do some specific set of actions but few of them overlap significantly. That’s because there aren’t “right” things for you to do. They’re just pushing their biases on you. I’d argue that you just take it easy and do whatever makes you happy. You can definitely…

'Take it easy' seems like terrible advice. A computer science degree is the foundation of a tech career.

The opportunity to build a solid foundation shouldn't be squandered, even if you aren't planning on being a workaholic careerist. A strong degree opens doors.

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

#128

Post by oneplane »

foxtr0t wrote: post #120
_t0du wrote: post #100

CS is less about coding and more about thinking analytically about coding. I started coding at 11, but some of my college classes were still pretty difficult. I wouldn't assume your classes will be a cakewalk - definitely put the time into studying your material even if you think it's easy. With respect to getting a job - I would think about programming as a tool. What industry do you want to use that tool on? I woul…

> Worst case, you'll be good at whiteboard interviews and can get a job at a FAANG company. Since when is this the worst case scenario for a CS grad? Last I checked, FAANGs value and compensate their engineers more than basically every other industry. I double majored in economics and comp sci, then got a masters in cs/ml. I didn't plan on going to a FAANG until I realized a few things: 1. Staying in academia was cle…

The thing with the FAANGs is that they can be rather unfulfilling. At first, when you are fresh out of the playground going in to commercial engineering, everything seems great, because you suddenly get paid to do a thing you like, and there is all this technology and information and people.

But that is not unique to FAANGs, and not unique to CS/IT. At some point you usually end up wanting more, either a more fulfilling job or a job that pays more. The former is probably going to have a human or societal component, the latter will drive you more to banks, economic institutions, insurance, government contractors, exchanges and similar jobs.

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

#129

Post by dehrmann »

barbecue_sauce wrote: post #93
dehrmann wrote: post #39

Be mindful of your program's retention rate. My first CS class has a very bimodal distribution (this is common in CS classes), and about half the students weren't in the followup class next semester. We lost another third after that semester. The engineering program at my school was run similarly--only about a third of students entering the program would graduate with an engineering degree. Not every school is run li…

How did you have time to get three minors? I got a 4 year business degree from a liberal arts college, and between the business school requirements, the major requirements, and the gen-ed requirements, I had maybe 2 open elective slots. And this was even with AP course waivers.

The CS courses got me half of the way to a Math minor, well-planned GEs did the same for English and History minors. Then I had a heavy load my last semester to finish them up (with one last CS course). I think I was two courses from an electrical engineering minor, too, and I did this in 8 semesters.
Post reply on HN