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Ask HN: What are the reasons not to go into computer science?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the reasons not to go into computer science?

#21

Post by AznHisoka »

nostrademons wrote: post #17
shubhamjain wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The egos. A large segment of the software world seems to be composed of people who keep trying to one-up each others in their knowledge of esoteric trivia, and then once they've found something they know that nobody else does, suddenly everyone else is an idiot. ///// I have tried a lot but the being arrgant when you meet somene with similar skills is so tough to avoid. Plus the sheer chauvinism against non-techie pe…

It comes from insecurity. A lot (not all, this is a gross generalization) of tech people are really insecure, because a profession where you don't have to deal with people tends to attract a lot of people who don't like to deal with people, and one of the most common reasons for not liking people is being insecure about our own worth. The best way to avoid this is to not tie your self-worth to your technological prow…

Do you feel that people in Google are more or less egotistical than other engineers you've encountered? Or is it a culture where people are willing to teach others without making them feel stupid that they don't know X?

Re: Ask HN: What are the reasons not to go into computer science?

#22

Post by AznHisoka »

nostrademons wrote: post #10

I assume you're actually thinking of going into software engineering as a profession, and not just getting a CS degree and doing something else. The latter can actually be pretty useful in a variety of scientific, technical, and management fields, except you have to pair it with something. Anyway, here's my list (for reference, I'm 32, have roughly 9 years of professional experience all of it in software, and current…

Did you learn data mining/clustering/ranking algorithms before you worked at Google? or was it something you mostly? picked up during the job?

Re: Ask HN: What are the reasons not to go into computer science?

#24

Post by nostrademons »

keiferski wrote: post #20
nostrademons wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CS is a better major for an entrepreneur than either business or economics. Marc Andreesen recommends engineering or other hard sciences: http://sloentrepreneur.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/the-pmarca-g... (My former cofounder was a psych undergrad + MBA, my girlfriend is a business undergrad + MBA, and I've got many more startup offers from people wanting to found companies with me than either of them.)

If and ONLY if you want to start a tech startup. CS is relatively useless if you want to start a restaurant, fashion label, or virtually any business not related to technology.

That's true, but I doubt that the OP would be posting on "Hacker News" if he wanted to start a restaurant, fashion label, or virtually any business not related to technology.

Re: Ask HN: What are the reasons not to go into computer science?

#25

Post by nostrademons »

AznHisoka wrote: post #22
nostrademons wrote: post #10

I assume you're actually thinking of going into software engineering as a profession, and not just getting a CS degree and doing something else. The latter can actually be pretty useful in a variety of scientific, technical, and management fields, except you have to pair it with something. Anyway, here's my list (for reference, I'm 32, have roughly 9 years of professional experience all of it in software, and current…

Did you learn data mining/clustering/ranking algorithms before you worked at Google? or was it something you mostly? picked up during the job?

I did not - it was pretty much something I picked up entirely at Google.

Re: Ask HN: What are the reasons not to go into computer science?

#26

Post by nostrademons »

AznHisoka wrote: post #21
nostrademons wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes from insecurity. A lot (not all, this is a gross generalization) of tech people are really insecure, because a profession where you don't have to deal with people tends to attract a lot of people who don't like to deal with people, and one of the most common reasons for not liking people is being insecure about our own worth. The best way to avoid this is to not tie your self-worth to your technological prow…

Do you feel that people in Google are more or less egotistical than other engineers you've encountered? Or is it a culture where people are willing to teach others without making them feel stupid that they don't know X?

There's really no way to answer that question without making a gross generalization. There are some programmers at Google with outsize egos (although to be fair, they often have outsize accomplishments as well). For the most part, though, the culture rejects the chest-thumping brogrammer type. Your performance reviews are done by your peers, and so if you continually make your peers feel stupid, it will be hard to get promoted. Also, virtually everything is done in teams, and you're judged by what your team accomplishes, and so it's to your advantage to raise the level of the people around you.

Re: Ask HN: What are the reasons not to go into computer science?

#27

Post by helen842000 »

Sitting. Seriously! It's a pretty unhealthy lifestyle unless you make significant effort to request a standing desk, work in hands-on manual role (server integration, physical networking) or are actively fixing issues at different locations or mixing with different teams.

Shoulder, neck, back issues. RSI, eye strain are all common complaints. You have to be prepared to integrate decent amounts of exercise into your free time to stay healthy.

I know engineers that are so used to having everything accessible at their finger tips that it becomes a major effort to get off their ass and go and put a disk into a server.

Always remember, when you go to interview for a job - look at the team. Are they healthy & active or will you be joining a culture that expects you to be sedentary all day.

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