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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?

#51

Post by bproven »

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…

>Programming AND speaking AND good writing will put you on a better career path.

This is very true. If you are a decent developer AND have this "speaking AND good writing skills" you will go much further - it really separates you from the pack...

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

#52

Post by xyzwave »

nlawalker wrote: post #15

Not to imply you're not ready, but in response to "I've been coding since I was young, so I'm not worried about struggling academically": "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." Depending on the nature of what your department offers, be prepared to learn about, spend time on and potentially struggle with concepts that have nothing to do with coding or software engineering as…

Such a timeless quote. I believe this is the source:

https://youtu.be/2Op3QLzMgSY

While there, SICP is not a bad way to augment a CS degree :-)

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

#53

Post by vegannet »

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…

I emphatically agree. Very few programmers are so talented that their soft skills don’t move the needle. For the majority of programmers, soft skills will be the single greatest differentiator between being a middle of the road software engineer or excelling and being _the_ engineer people adore.

An average programmers job is 90% writing code that anybody with a year of experience could write, it’s the 10% where you’re bridging the gap between technology and business that can realise a whole new world of value — and that depends on soft skills.

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

#54

Post by zests »

College is a place to learn social skills as well as technical skills. 75% of your effort should go to technical college work, 25% of your effort should go to socializing. Conversely, 75% of your leisure should go to socializing and 25% to non technical yet brain stimulating work.

I shouldn’t have to state that this rule is better taken figuratively than literally.

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

#55

Post by aaron_seattle »

"Real life has no curriculum".

~80% of what I've learned vocationally, came after school, under the informal mentorship of seasoned practitioners.

Arguably the #1 exportable skill you gain from college is metacognition - learning how to learn. So that the next time you find yourself staring into a "I have no idea" moment, instead of being stuck, you'll be able to iteratively expand your mental map of the territory; form and test hypotheses; sketch out needed or missing tooling, etc.

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

#57

Post by cushychicken »

You squander a big benefit of going to college if you focus solely on academics.

This is one of the only times in your life you will have a ton of free time and proximity to a bunch of smart people your own age. Don't pass up an opportunity to do something fun, just because it doesn't have anything to do with school!

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

#58

Post by aaron_seattle »

aaron_seattle wrote: post #55

"Real life has no curriculum". ~80% of what I've learned vocationally, came after school, under the informal mentorship of seasoned practitioners. Arguably the #1 exportable skill you gain from college is metacognition - learning how to learn. So that the next time you find yourself staring into a "I have no idea" moment, instead of being stuck, you'll be able to iteratively expand your mental map of the territory; f…

i.e. remember this when you find yourself deep into some "am I ever going to really need this" curriculum. Directly, probably not. Indirectly, you are rewiring your neurons for generalized problem solving to the nth degree.

Also, this "missing course": https://missing.csail.mit.edu/

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