I hope this isn't a stupid question. It seems to be increasingly more common for children to learn computer science from a younger age in their school. I think this is incredibly awesome and honestly definitely needed considering how tech savvy our society is turning.
But, will this have a negative effect for the people who work in tech or are planning to work in tech who don't have a computer science degree?
Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science
Do you have a question within these topics you weren't sure was worth submitting? Is something a bit too speculative for a typical /r/AskScience post? No question is too big or small for AAW. In this thread you can ask any science-related question! Things like: "What would happen if...", "How will the future...", "If all the rules for 'X' were different...", "Why does my...".
Asking Questions:
Please post your question as a top-level response to this, and our team of panellists will be here to answer and discuss your questions. The other topic areas will appear in future Ask Anything Wednesdays, so if you have other questions not covered by this weeks theme please either hold on to it until those topics come around, or go and post over in our sister subreddit /r/AskScienceDiscussion , where every day is Ask Anything Wednesday! Off-theme questions in this post will be removed to try and keep the thread a manageable size for both our readers and panellists.
Answering Questions:
Please only answer a posted question if you are an expert in the field. The full guidelines for posting responses in AskScience can be found here. In short, this is a moderated subreddit, and responses which do not meet our quality guidelines will be removed. Remember, peer reviewed sources are always appreciated, and anecdotes are absolutely not appropriate. In general if your answer begins with 'I think', or 'I've heard', then it's not suitable for /r/AskScience.
If you would like to become a member of the AskScience panel, please refer to the information provided here.
Past AskAnythingWednesday posts can be found here. Ask away!
I was talking to this girl I met while playing tennis, and we had a great conversation. Then she asked me what I’m studying at school, I say CS, and she got noticeably disappointed. I asked her what’s up and she said she prefer men in other fields like business.
Is that true? Can any woman chime in? CS degrees have great job prospects and very high salary compared to other fields, so why does she dislike it?
I assume cause of the nerdy stereotypes associated with computers?
I know a few people graduating but barely know anything from their courses. But ever since the pandemic started it has been easier to cheat.
Now, I am not fully against cheating but imagine the extreme ends of the spectrum. A person that cheats all the way till graduation and barely knows anything, and another person who graduated but spent the time and effort to learn each topic without cheating.
It seems unfair imo
I searched and searched and still haven't been able to really figure out how NFTs are working behind the scenes. There is sooo much hype.
Could a developer please explain. I'd like to know -
- How are they created? Using which popular frameworks (any code snippets appreciated)
- Where is the media hosted? My understanding is that NFTs are really a record that your wallet owns this unique hash. But then how is that has linked to an image? And where is this image hosted? Follow up - can't anyone take this image host down and then that link between the hash and the image is lost.
Appreciate any elightenment without the hype. I am tired of 100th video about an influencer explaining NFTs as if they are the next gold with no context.
Hi guys, I've decided to change my degree from mechanical engineering to a degree in computer science and my question is will it be fine if I enter the degree without any programming experience?
(This all depends on whether the university will exempt me from a year of foundation studies)
My friend told me we will be learning c++ and java which I have 0 experience in both and if I start studying from codecademy right now before entering school, I will only have about a month of time to learn as much as possible
So my question is is it fine to enter computer science degree without programming experience?
I have been wanting to find some good videos that I can watch in my free time that are about cool computer science projects so I can learn more about new algorithms, and programs in a more leisure way instead of solely doing projects and reading documentation.
I'm interested in most anything related to Python, Data science, or back end development, but I'd really love to learn more about Machine learning algorithms if there are any good series about people working on machine learning algorithms.
When you go to a doctor, a lawyer or a financial advisor it's not strange to get a senior professional like 55-65 yo, yet when you think of IT it's usually your typical 23-30 yo. I know a lot of the older programmers end up in leadership/CEO or teaching positions at college, but those positions have to be limited to only a small percentage right, what happens to the others?
I am not the OP. u/Laser_Lens_4 is the OP from r/blind.
[Rant] Math makes me resent sighted people
I don't like doing these, but I need to talk about my frustrations with people who actually get it. Maybe some good can come out of it. Maybe some blind math wiz will laugh and tell me I've done everything wrong and send me to a website that let's me do this all with perfect accessibility. so here goes.
I'm one week away from completing a remedial math course in community college here in the states. I'm tired, stressed, angry, and want it to end... oh, and I'm insane enough to pursue a computer science degree, so I've got years of math ahead. Let me tell you a bit about my math story as a blind woman.
I was terrible at math in grade school. In retrospect, it was probably because I spent so much effort on squinting at all the weird symbols that I had no time left to actually learn the content. Now that I'm in college and using a sight-free workflow, I'm actually getting it. The most surreal event so far is learning logarithms and understanding it easily whilst vividly remembering sitting in high school and being thoroughly confused.
So where's the rant? Well, the entire past 16 weeks have been an exercise in misery. So, I walk into class, introduce myself to the instructor, and listen to him talk about math for an hour and a half. I go home to try homework online. What do I find? Not LaTeX, not MathML, but some proprietary code on Cengage's website. It's not too bad at first, but mind you absolutely nobody showed me how to use this website, so the first week consisted of me aimlessly navigating by headings and form fields. Then we hit exponents and quadratics. NVDA straight up didn't read superscripts. Thus begins my first email chain bitching at disability workers and web devs. They tell me to use Firefox and Math Player with NVDA, so that means I have to switch browsers, install software, and count my lucky stars that I know how to use NVDA since they provided no instruction for that. Fine, right? Nope. I have to switch the math renderer on the website to MathML, oh and they had to create a duplicate course where everything had been made accessible. So you know, separate but equal... just like the 60's! But wait, there's more. I couldn't switch the renderer myself. I had to have a sighted
... keep reading on reddit ➡I am an undergrad studying computer science. While I enjoy coding (it is ludic) I can’t quite grasp its purpose/use in the bigger meaning of life.
Why do you study computer science and how do you find purpose in it?
With the cost of a computer science degree being so high, I'm often surprised that other computer science students are not leveraging the skills they are learning in class to start making money before they graduate. I'm not making this post to brag, but rather to show another fellow CS student a different perspective on paying for college.
First, as a disclaimer, this probably won't pay for your entire tuition, but I find it's often a better alternative to working minimum wage jobs as many other college students do.
I'll get straight to the point - if you're a computer science student, you can start leveraging your skills pretty early in your academic career by offering your services as a freelance software developer. I often recommend this to other computer science students looking to make money and not surprisingly, I usually get a response like this:
But I’m just learning to code. But I don’t know how to build websites. What if I can’t build what they want me to build? I’m a noob. I’m not qualified to do that yet. No one is going to hire a beginner. Why would they choose a beginner over a professional? What if I mess up? What if they don’t like my work?
Take it from someone that started building software for others just after taking their second programming class - You don't have to be the best developer nor do you have to know how to do everything to start offering your services as a freelance software developer.
In fact, the first job I got as a freelance software developer involved creating a command-line application for which I did not know how to do specific things. But that was ok because I realized that I could just learn what I didn't know as I was working on the project. I got paid $100/hr for that, which I put towards my school expenses. With that said, as I have taken up more freelance jobs and worked on more personal projects, I have gained more skills and expanded into other types of work such as web development and custom internal tool development.
Not too long ago, I landed a job that paid me $250/hr for web development. I'll leave the specifics of the job out for respect to the customer, however, the reason they were willing to pay me the premium (which as a disclaimer is not super common), is because they wanted something built fast. With the skills I have gained, I was able to deliver what they wanted and they walked away a happy customer. They even returned a few times with more work for me.
Freelance software development is
... keep reading on reddit ➡I apologize if my question is a little broad. I recently took a philosophy class on propositional and FOL and various systems within each and the metalogic behind them.
I was wondering in what ways what I learned can be useful for computer science?
This is a question that, at least to me, always seemed to generate an unexpectedly large amount of disagreement. Personally, I always saw the “science” in the name as a misnomer, and I see it as mathematics. But whenever the topic is brought up, a lot of people disagree with it.
I think it’s a field of math because, unlike in the sciences, we don’t put much emphasis on experiments in computer science. Furthermore, the birth of computer science came from the field of formal logic, which is definitely math.
At first, the topic came up at the dinner table, and our family was split 50-50. My brother and I both arguing that it was mathematics, and our parents arguing that it was science. This led me to think it was just an issue with familiarity, since my brother and I are both moderately experienced coders and both know more math than our parents. However, when the topic was brought up during a meet of my school’s math team, there was still a lot of disagreement, so I don’t think someone’s viewpoint just comes down to familiarity.
Do you think computer science is a science, or a branch of mathematics, or something else entirely?
Hi, I am a current high school senior who got admission to Texas A&M for ETAM and UT Dallas for computer science. I would go to TAMU, but ETAM and the fact that it is in the middle of nowhere is pushing me away from fully commiting. As for UTD, I actually got my major and it is close to home. However, I've heard some pretty depressing reviews about UTD on this subreddit. Therefore, I would like a brutally honest review for this school (and if possible, in comparison with TAMU). Thanks!
I’m currently working as a Software Development intern for a startup. My boss (CTO) said that if I dropped out of school next semester, they could offer me a full time job making 80k salary + equity (I make $20/hr currently with about 20 hours a week). I would still keep my current job if I didn’t drop out and go full time.
I’m currently a junior in school, and have scholarships to bring tuition down to a little bit under what in-state tuition would be (I pay out of state). I could potentially differ my scholarships, though I’m not sure how worth it that would be (or if I could even do it).
Does anyone have any experience doing this? Did you have issues getting a job or getting more compensation because you didn’t have a full degree? Any help or thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
Edit 1: A lot of people have suggested going to school for 1 or 2 classes, and just take the job. I would do it, except my scholarships (20k a year) require me to be full-time, so I would end up paying a lot more for just the 1 or 2 classes than I would be paying as a full-time student. My tuition is 25k a year before my scholarships, just for reference.
Edit 2: I think I’m going to stay in school (like a lot of people have suggested). I want to have more options than this, I’m not sure I could get myself to go back to school, and I’m not sure I want to take the risk that I’m out of a job and my scholarships in 3 months if the company goes under.
Money, fun, or something else?
I am thinking about doing computer science in college and I thought this would be an interesting question to ask. In particular, I am interested in answers relating to careers in tech as opposed to answers about the college course.
I am 20+ years into a career with BS / MS in Chem E, largely having worked in Oil & Gas, R&D, Consulting, and Pulp/Paper in descending order of total years.
The shift into computer science concerns me a bit as all you good talent people are leaving the discipline.
I'm interested in the biggest drivers.
What I've observe so far are the following, not in any order of significance:
- Supply of jobs for Comp Sci larger
- Ability to remote work
- Cultural / political preference to avoid Oil & Gas
- Oil & Gas / PetroChem / Chemicals roles not in good places to live
- Roles at various jobs did not provide meaningful contribution, i.e. Chem E at brewery 'passion industry' was not a goof fit
I would love to hear if these are common or of other drivers behind the shift into Comp Sci.
Thanks in advance!
Disclaimer, I know PhDs are not about the money. I wanted to pursue a PhD in computer science for my own reasons.
I never realized, though; apparently, a postdoc researcher only makes between 50-80k a year.
Is that for-real? Would I be guaranteed higher pay with a bachelors/masters?
I am a high school senior and I am going to be graduating in a few months. I am going to be attending a community college this Fall and I am looking into earning my associate's in cybersecurity with zero prior experience in that field and no programming knowledge, so I am unsure if that is where I should start. I've seen a lot of other posts online where IT professionals have advised that it is best to start with a Computer Science degree as a foundation and then look into cybersecurity later on after I have a stronger knowledge of computer systems. I am meeting with an academic adviser tomorrow in order to discuss my degree plan, but I am still not certain of the proper route to take first.
Would it be better to pursue an associate's in Computer Science or cybersecurity first?
The unis i apply to would be the same for each course in light of the rankings:
(no particular order)
- Durham
- Edinburgh
- Warwick
- Bristol
- Glasgow
my extra/super-curriculars are:
- placements with EDF energy
- physics rep. of my cohort
- attending lectures on computational cosmology at Durham
- projects in data visualisation for compsci
- some MOOCs for compsci and engineering
- (Also some awards at GCSE in relevant subjects and finishing first in physics at A-level)
Given these i think i'd produce the best application with physics, but the careers and outcome of physics degrees statistically aren't good unless you study at certain unis (durham/edinburgh from the ones i'd be applying to).
I'd study engineering for a more employable route, it's just that i'm terrible at workshop based practicals and the idea of having important pass/fail based modules in workshops sounds like a nightmare for me. I love the theory of the courses however, the mathematics and physics is great, i just dislike the practicals, especially those with welding/fabrication/metal work. I would probably be doing EEE if any engineering, so there mightn't be so many practicals similar to what i've experience with mechanical engineering.
For compsci, i just like the prospect doing lots of maths and having what is generally a versatile and employable degree. It's very competitive though, so it might be better to apply for physics or engineering instead.
I've been milling over this for the last few months and can't decide, and i have to within 3 weeks...
(before anyone says just do what you enjoy the most, i enjoy them all, with the fabrication type-practicals of engineering being an exception, so i'm looking for the best career prospects out of my options)
Edit: i think i'm going to go with CS. If i had studied Further Mathematics, i would be 100% on that, but i'm more like 85% rn. It's a field in STEM, i'm interested in it, and you can't argue with the graduate salaries.
I’m a computer science student (studying after some years gap) but get really embarrassed when I can’t work fast enough with computers. I can’t type fast or know quick keyboard shortcuts or any random tips that makes things super easy to work with on computers.
Need tips and resources that can help me build efficiency in 4 months.
Currently, im in year 11 but i still have time to change my choices for a level.
I have a passion for coding and have been since i was 11, i would like to persue computer science at a top uni. However, my school does not offer computer science.
I have opted for Maths, Further Maths and Economics.
Would getting good grades in these me to get into imperial/oxford/cambridge? Would switching economics for physics (risky because i find physics hard) be more benefitial?
Is there any way to let these unis know I have created projects downloaded by thousands and a website dedicated to my skills and if so would that make my chances any higher?
I ditched assignments, lectures are freaking boring (i dont even listen to class wtf), i dont freaking do anything at all and play games. LIKE DAMN??? Im planning to take study leave to rethink my course and switch but fck this shit, my time and money are affected so bad esp when i have scholarship too. But urgh the classes are so freaking depressingly not fun at all, why the fck did i even take it 😃. It made me so unhappy i barely eat dinner 3 days straight and my indecisive self of what to even major next/take extra steps to fix my failure is really bringing my whole studying desire down. 😞 I hope everything between my doctor and counsellor and me will be okay soon :(((( i am such a disappointment to my parents considering that I used to make them proud with my okayish grades but took a freaking huge turn when going into this degree 💀😭😭😭😭 and lol it's just the first semester
I'm in the process of switching careers to computer science and was wondering if any of you have had any experience with Neumont or know how it compares with CS programs at the U
I am a bit pissed right now. For A-Level (exams you do when 17-18 in UK) computer science, my exam board, OCR, won't let me use GameMaker Studio 2, which would make my life much easier as I have about 5 years of experience in it! I would be fine with this if they actually provided a good reason, but the response I received from them is the exact opposite!
>"Thanks for your email query. GameMaker allows too much pre-generation of code – and the A-level programming project requires students to write a significant amount of code themselves. Therefore it becomes hard to know what they have written, what the software application has generated, and therefore what they can gain credit for.Subject to further feedback from our Principal Moderator, we are still mindful of the fact that students can convert drag and drop into code and therefore not willing to allow GameMaker at this moment for A Level projects.Unity, Monkey X and Unreal game engine are allowed, as are other high-level languages such as Python, Java and C# - all of which can be used to create games.GoDot allows visual scripting and we have allowed students to use GoDot Engine for their A Level programming project. Care must be taken while candidates codes the core of this manually through use of C++ and the like. Using pre-built templates is allowed - but credit can only be given to authentic candidate generated code/modifications - and these should form a significant part of the project."
I am yet to find out what "pre-generation of code" means. I assume it meant drag and drop, so I contacted the exam board to elaborate. I said...
>I realise that the drag and drop feature in Gamemaker could be misinterpreted as pre-generating code, however, as someone with 5 years of experience in a plethora of different versions of the engine (v1.4, v2.0 to v2.3+), I can assure you that the use of drag and drop is severely limited, and therefore absolutely would not be acceptable (and of aid) in the A-Level programming project. Drag and Drop is, in all reality, an advertising tool, and a way to bring in young and amateur programmers to the game making scene, without “scaring them away” with the unusual sight of programming languages, and the necessity for syntax. Obviously, after getting used to the designing of algorithms, programming skills can be introduced in Gamemaker’s “GML” (Gamemaker Language), which shares syntax with languages like Python, or JavaScript. Ove
... keep reading on reddit ➡Seriously.
The only thing easier than cheating on a computer science problem is detecting cheating on a computer science problem.
This has been a public service announcement.
I’ve heard that if you wanna major in that type of field then you don’t even have to go to college and there are other ways to earn your qualifications. I personally want to go to college for the experience and because I wanna pursue an education after high school, but if it’s completely unnecessary for me to go then I’ll reconsider. I have heard some things about how it’s harder to get a job without a degree and things like a boot camp won’t cut it. I’ve heard that college is a minimum requirement for a lot of people working in tech. But I’ve also heard people say that they’ve gotten jobs without a degree. So idk, I just want the facts
For context, I'm a hs senior and I applied for a BA in CS bc I'm interested in doing a double major with applied math, and I heard that I couldn't do that if I applied for EECS. Also, I've been coding for about 5 years and have developed and deployed multiple products that are being used by companies and universities and I breezed through the AP Computer Science and AP Calculus tests and have finished multivariable calculus. Also, I do know some data structures and some algorithms.
However, I've heard about how daunting it is to get a BA in CS at Berkeley because of CS 61A, 61B, and 70, so should I be worried given my background?
?
Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science
Do you have a question within these topics you weren't sure was worth submitting? Is something a bit too speculative for a typical /r/AskScience post? No question is too big or small for AAW. In this thread you can ask any science-related question! Things like: "What would happen if...", "How will the future...", "If all the rules for 'X' were different...", "Why does my...".
Asking Questions:
Please post your question as a top-level response to this, and our team of panellists will be here to answer and discuss your questions. The other topic areas will appear in future Ask Anything Wednesdays, so if you have other questions not covered by this weeks theme please either hold on to it until those topics come around, or go and post over in our sister subreddit /r/AskScienceDiscussion , where every day is Ask Anything Wednesday! Off-theme questions in this post will be removed to try and keep the thread a manageable size for both our readers and panellists.
Answering Questions:
Please only answer a posted question if you are an expert in the field. The full guidelines for posting responses in AskScience can be found here. In short, this is a moderated subreddit, and responses which do not meet our quality guidelines will be removed. Remember, peer reviewed sources are always appreciated, and anecdotes are absolutely not appropriate. In general if your answer begins with 'I think', or 'I've heard', then it's not suitable for /r/AskScience.
If you would like to become a member of the AskScience panel, please refer to the information provided here.
Past AskAnythingWednesday posts can be found here. Ask away!
Any other degree that's worth it other than computer science? What if you want to get a decent paying job after college?
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