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Ask HN: Stuck as a CS Major. Is there a way out?

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Re: Ask HN: Stuck as a CS Major. Is there a way out?

#51

Post by culopatin »

smoyer wrote: post #11

If you like and understand physics, try adding an EE minor or applying your CS skills to robotics. Both these career paths are physics-adjacent (electrodynamics and mechanics respectively) and might allow you to have a passion for the software you're developing. Also, remember that your career is simply there to pay the bills and that you can pursue your interests outside work too (I build wooden boats).

But you need to have some sort of interest in what you do, no? I spend the 8hs at work thinking of what I do outside of those 8hs. When I have things in my personal life that I have to do, I find that they “get in the way” of the things I actually wanted to work on.

In other words, the 8hs that pay the bills steal time from the things I actually want to do and it makes me dread them tremendously.

Re: Ask HN: Stuck as a CS Major. Is there a way out?

#52

Post by apohn »

Clubber wrote: post #25
hardcorenobody wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a program in my university called "Management Information Systems." I suppose I should look at what kind of things their majors do, and what their jobs are usually like?

MIS is like programming + business. You take regular business classes (accounting, marketing, finance, management) but also programming related classes like database design, programming, project management, etc. It skips the 3 semesters of Calc and 3 semesters of Physics and replaces it with statistics and business calc. It's more practical and less theoretical than CS. It's a nice balance IMO. You could just minor i…

It's been a long time for me too, but I went to a school with a well regarded MIS program and I interacted with a lot of MIS people.

I'm saying this wery lightheartedly - I felt like 80% of the people in MIS programs where people who needed (because society dictates you have to get a degree) to go to college and didn't care really care about tech or business, but they need a degree so why not both? 10% were people who should have majored in CS or Business, but for some reason didn't realize it early enough in their college journey and they didn't want to redo 1-2 years of coursework. The other 10% were destined to become the a$$hole VPs/SVPs who everybody hates, and the MIS degree was just another step to world domination and them self-justifying that they have a "technical" background.

>Companies typically treat it as equivalent to a CS degree.

I don't think this is true at all unless the company is one of those who hires SWEs who don't really do any actual software engineering.

Re: Ask HN: Stuck as a CS Major. Is there a way out?

#53

Post by apohn »

hardcorenobody wrote: post #21
johntdaly wrote: post #17

Finish you degree with a minor in Business and go into the management aspect of IT sounds like the best plan. After you got some experience you should be able to “shop around” a bit for some other type of management position that aligns with your interest.

There's a program in my university called "Management Information Systems." I suppose I should look at what kind of things their majors do, and what their jobs are usually like?

MIS is a generic enough degree that I wouldn't read too much into what people do with that degree. There are lots of degrees that are basically catch-alls for people who don't really feel like they fit into a particular discipline.

The end result is that there is a wide variance in what people do after they graduate, and the degree isn't really an indicator of anything other than them getting a degree.

I have one of these generic multi-disciplinary undergraduate degrees and honestly, years later I feel like I would have less regret about how I spent those 4 years had I done CS or another program that was more focused. YMMV.

Re: Ask HN: Stuck as a CS Major. Is there a way out?

#54

Post by Clubber »

apohn wrote: post #52
Clubber wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIS is like programming + business. You take regular business classes (accounting, marketing, finance, management) but also programming related classes like database design, programming, project management, etc. It skips the 3 semesters of Calc and 3 semesters of Physics and replaces it with statistics and business calc. It's more practical and less theoretical than CS. It's a nice balance IMO. You could just minor i…

It's been a long time for me too, but I went to a school with a well regarded MIS program and I interacted with a lot of MIS people. I'm saying this wery lightheartedly - I felt like 80% of the people in MIS programs where people who needed (because society dictates you have to get a degree) to go to college and didn't care really care about tech or business, but they need a degree so why not both? 10% were people wh…

In my experience, you could get a lot out of it if you were really into it like I was. You could also coast by and not obtain any desirable skills for employers and still pass. I suspect most degrees are like that though.

I really enjoyed it though. I learned so much that my first job utilized everything I learned. At a small growing company that needed in-house expertise. I did the network, the switches, the workstation builds, the servers, built the database and applications on top of it all. I did project cost/time estimates and carried them out. After about a year we hired a full time network/client guy and I stuck to applications / database. It was a lot of work but I really enjoyed it and got a lot out of it. I don't think I would have been able to cover that much ground with just a CS degree.

>I don't think this is true at all unless the company is one of those who hires SWEs who don't really do any actual software engineering.

I don't know if it's still true, but when jobs would require "CS degree or equivalent," they meant MIS/CIS, at least 20+ years ago.

Re: Ask HN: Stuck as a CS Major. Is there a way out?

#55

Post by apohn »

Clubber wrote: post #54
apohn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a long time for me too, but I went to a school with a well regarded MIS program and I interacted with a lot of MIS people. I'm saying this wery lightheartedly - I felt like 80% of the people in MIS programs where people who needed (because society dictates you have to get a degree) to go to college and didn't care really care about tech or business, but they need a degree so why not both? 10% were people wh…

In my experience, you could get a lot out of it if you were really into it like I was. You could also coast by and not obtain any desirable skills for employers and still pass. I suspect most degrees are like that though. I really enjoyed it though. I learned so much that my first job utilized everything I learned. At a small growing company that needed in-house expertise. I did the network, the switches, the worksta…

> I did the network, the switches, the workstation builds, the servers, built the database and applications on top of it all.

You are most certainly an exception to most people I knew in the MIS program at my school. :)

>I don't know if it's still true, but when jobs would require "CS degree or equivalent," they meant MIS/CIS, at least 20+ years ago.

I'm old enough to remember when people I know would graduate with "MIS" or "IT" degrees and get a $55K job building and installing Windows NT 4.0 servers with a bunch of other stuff (e.g. networking) on the side. It was a great starting salary at the time. Then the dot-com bust happened.

I definitely think software engineering now is at the point where CS or STEM degree really means that. Programming has just become a lot more specialized than back then. Well, at least hiring managers seem to think so...

Re: Ask HN: Stuck as a CS Major. Is there a way out?

#56

Post by ericbarrett »

hardcorenobody wrote: post #28
ericbarrett wrote: post #26

Why is it too late to switch to e.g. physics or EE? You may tack on an extra year of school, and the financial cost thereof; and I'm sure the make-up classes and homework will be hard; but your education will set the trajectory of your adult life so it's probably worth it. You wouldn't be the first or the last to bail on a degree in their third year. Knowing some basic programming will make you better at those fields…

It's too late because of personal reasons not appropriate for this forum, lol. Interesting, what's wrong with Android or web dev? I keep hearing they're pretty okay to get into.

Mobile and web development are usually more about plugging libraries into each other, fiddling with style and pixel alignment, setting widget properties to ensure the underlying renderer does the right thing, and so on. The libraries and languages cycle out every 3-4 years depending on the whims of big tech companies and whoever has the ear of your department's director. 100% there are exceptions to this but it's overwhelmingly likely that any given job in the field is mainly the above.

That said, the jobs are lucrative (for now) and you won't hurt for employment (for now), and they can certainly scratch the same creator's itch that hardware and low-level development do. Maybe you need to try a project or two.

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