What to Do About College?

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Some background: I'm currently on college (actually typing this from a computer in the library) and will start next week a new job at CompUSA. I'm supposed to be studying Computer Science, but I've lost most motivation. I'm currently having many emotional problems and conflicts with myself and somewhat with my family over it and other things.

I know right now I'm probably at the best age to be productive and to do things, but I feel like I'm stuck and that time is passing by and I'm wasting it--and at the worst time possible. I hate some of the general courses they make you take at college here, and I'm not really liking the idea of studying Computer Science as my major because I like more the engineering and hardware aspect of things, while I see Operating Systems/Programming as more of a hobby. I simply cannot see myself in some years working a job typing for hours hundreds if not thousands of lines of code while socializing almost nothing. It'd be incredibly boring and depressing, not to mention I wouldn't get to interact with others and learn new ideas. I also decided to start working at CompUSA because I know I'll need some experience to get a job after getting a degree; that is, if I end up doing so. Is it worth losing what amounts to almost a year of credit-hours to start all over again (if my credits aren't accepted in another university)? I think I'd like Computer Engineering or Electrical Engineering more.

What do you guys think?

 

[Saint Nick]

Now is the time to change your major if you want to do it. At my school, CS and CE majors took similar programming courses, but CE also took the upper level electrical design courses. Then, of course, there are the courses that merge the two. IMO, CE is going to be even more difficult than CS. You will spend countless hours doing projects each semester/year and probably a very time-consuming and stressful capstone at the end of your undergraduate career.

EE is probably somewhere between the two as far as difficulty and time spent studying. If you want an easy major, go with something in the College of Business or College of (Fine) Arts. But don't expect to get paid squat once you graduate.

I was in your shoes when I was a freshman in 2006. I changed my major to MIS and never looked back. I'm still doing programming at my current job/internship (graduated in Dec. 2009), but I have lots of work experience in different companies to keep my options open. My senior capstone was to design a time keeping system for a non profit (lots of analysis and design BS paperwork stuff, but lots of hands-on coding, too). I gained a ton of experience, as well as held internships throughout my undergraduate years.

 

[Gibson486]

you think in Electrical or Computer Engineering you will not end up in a cube not talking to anyone all day? You are flat out wrong. If you do not want to sit in a cube all day, go for a job that is service oriented. You can do it with a CS degree, but engineering degrees would not hurt either. Ultimately, you can chose any of those majors and still end up on the same path.

 

[Ricemarine]

I've actually done the complete opposite of you OP.

I wanted to be a CS major, but it was too competitive for me to get in. So I stuck it out with EE. After having experience making and working with hardware, I quickly learned that hardware wasn't right for me. I didn't have the patience debugging circuitry, nor did I have the proper knowledge how. So, I started working for people in CS, took a few CS classes, and loved it. I don't mind writing low level code for hardware, but I enjoy looking at the bigger view and the applications possible in CS. EE gave me a lot of low level knowledge, and I took the initiative to learn higher level. I'm pretty happy where I am now.

AFAIK, Gibson486 is right. An electronics engineer I knew would sit in his office, listen to e-books, and grind through the work. I couldn't see myself doing that.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

you think in Electrical or Computer Engineering you will not end up in a cube not talking to anyone all day? You are flat out wrong. If you do not want to sit in a cube all day, go for a job that is service oriented. You can do it with a CS degree, but engineering degrees would not hurt either. Ultimately, you can chose any of those majors and still end up on the same path.

I don't want to be stuck CODING all day. It's not as much the part about being alone that I don't like, but the fact that I have to be alone doing something that can become incredibly boring after a long time, like writing code. I find programming good as a hobby, but not as an actual career.

I want to do something that satisfies me and that I like more. For me that's CE or EE. If I choose that route, it can probably also mean that I lose many of my credit-hours, and I'd have to start all over again.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I've actually done the complete opposite of you OP.

I wanted to be a CS major, but it was too competitive for me to get in. So I stuck it out with EE. After having experience making and working with hardware, I quickly learned that hardware wasn't right for me. I didn't have the patience debugging circuitry, nor did I have the proper knowledge how. So, I started working for people in CS, took a few CS classes, and loved it. I don't mind writing low level code for hardware, but I enjoy looking at the bigger view and the applications possible in CS. EE gave me a lot of low level knowledge, and I took the initiative to learn higher level. I'm pretty happy where I am now.

AFAIK, Gibson486 is right. An electronics engineer I knew would sit in his office, listen to e-books, and grind through the work. I couldn't see myself doing that.

Funny that. It's just I don't see anything exciting about writing code as a job. As a hobby I've done it and liked it, but it gets boring after some hours. I love things like computer architectures and how they work. I also like to deal a lot with hardware.

 

[punjabiplaya]

you better like math and calculus if you want to do ee

 

[busydude]

Not every one becomes a hardware design engineer. CE and EE's spend a lot of time coding. If you don't like coding.. Then you need to major in power.

 

[Fear No Evil]

My advice? Stop thinking about a job/career as something that will fulfill you. If work was so great they would call it 'fun' and not work. But seriously, most people don't love their jobs.. its something they do so that they can afford to do the things they do love. Very few people actually get paid for something they love to do or really enjoy doing.

I have a 4 year degree and I also agree that some of the general courses are difficult to plod through. I think what it does give you is a broader experience that you can apply to your life/career overall. By the time I was a senior in college I wanted nothing more than to just get the hell out and start earning some money. In the end though, I think its worth it to stick it out. The degree will definitely help open some doors and give you a higher income so you can afford to do things you do enjoy on your time off.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

you better like math and calculus if you want to do ee

Seriously?

Not every one becomes a hardware design engineer. CE and EE's spend a lot of time coding. If you don't like coding.. Then you need to major in power.

Perhaps you misunderstood what I said? What I don't like about CS is that it focuses a lot more on software and not hardware, and I'd like the opposite. That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to code (which is something I do sometimes, but again, as a hobby), but I wouldn't want it to be my primary job. You spend a lot more time coding on CS than CE.

My advice? Stop thinking about a job/career as something that will fulfill you. If work was so great they would call it 'fun' and not work. But seriously, most people don't love their jobs.. its something they do so that they can afford to do the things they do love. Very few people actually get paid for something they love to do or really enjoy doing.

I have a 4 year degree and I also agree that some of the general courses are difficult to plod through. I think what it does give you is a broader experience that you can apply to your life/career overall. By the time I was a senior in college I wanted nothing more than to just get the hell out and start earning some money. In the end though, I think its worth it to stick it out. The degree will definitely help open some doors and give you a higher income so you can afford to do things you do enjoy on your time off.

I'm not thinking of it as being something "fun" per se, but I WOULD like to get a degree on something I like. I think it's not too late to do that, but having to start all over is something I have to take into account.

I do agree with the general courses giving you a broader view of the world, especially things like ethics, social sciences, and humanities. What I don't get is them giving you classes that you should've taken before like biology (which I do admit I like, but it's something I took in HS already), history (in my case PR history, something I've taken more than two times and get to hear the same crap), and Spanish (it's our goddamned official language and something we've learned since we're three-years-old, for fuck's sake).

 

[Spikesoldier]

go into information security

 

[gorcorps]

Some background: I'm currently on college (actually typing this from a computer in the library) and will start next week ...

What do you guys think?

Last long, you will not

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Would I be correct with this overall assessment?
Deals with:

Hardware<------------------------------------------------>Software
Electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, software engineering.

 

[guyver01]

Some background: I'm currently on college (actually typing this from a computer in the library) and will start next week a new job at CompUSA.

So.. you're going to become a porter at compusa?

gratz.

fulfill that lifelong ambition

be all your can be.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Last long, you will not

Great advice.

If you have nothing to contribute, leave. :thumbsdown:

I don't spend time here trolling people's threads if they're genuinely asking for help.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

So.. you're going to become a porter at compusa?

gratz.

fulfill that lifelong ambition

be all your can be.

Yep. Looks like the trolls have arrived.

And no, sales associate. I need experience working with people.

How is what you wrote even relevant to what I'm discussing? Oh wait, you're a troll.

 

[busydude]

Would I be correct with this overall assessment?
Deals with:

Hardware<------------------------------------------------>Software
Electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, software engineering.

You seem to ignore the fact that CE's and EE's have to deal with a lot of coding. I am not talking about just the curriculum.

 

[guyver01]

How is what you wrote even relevant to what I'm discussing?

i congradulate you on fulfilling every puerto rican's lifelong ambition of becoming a porter.

that is why you're going to janitor college, right?

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

You seem to ignore the fact that CE's and EE's have to deal with a lot of coding. I am not talking about just the curriculum.

Well, again: you have to deal with it, but not near as much as you do with CS or SE. I'm fine with coding, just not as much as CS or having it as a job to do every day for eight hours. I like the hardware and electronics aspect more, and that's something you don't cover a lot in comparison to software in CS.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

i congradulate you on fulfilling every puerto rican's lifelong ambition of becoming a porter.

that is why you're going to janitor college, right?

You really don't have anything better to do with your time?

Don't feed the trolls.

 

[xalos]

Yep. Looks like the trolls have arrived.

And no, sales associate. I need experience.

How is what you wrote even relevant to what I'm discussing? Oh wait, you're a troll.

Experience doing what? Do you really think that your future employer is going to care that
you worked at CompUSA in a retail capacity? If you're going to work at CompUSA do it for the discount and/or the cash. Don't think for a second that the experience is going to matter that much when you're applying for some sort of engineering job.

They're going to be interested in what internships or what organizations you were involved in while majoring in whatever. So, study hard, get a good internship, and be involved in the ACM, ACS, or any of those other organizations that pretty much guarantee you exposure to potential employers.

 

[CountZero]

Would I be correct with this overall assessment?
Deals with:

Hardware<------------------------------------------------>Software
Electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, software engineering.

More or less though I have not heard of software engineering as a major.

Also as others have mentioned many EE specialties are basically coding of different types. CE is also going to be coding. Nearly all you do as an EE will be done in modeling type of tools.

I wouldn't worry about the socializing aspect. It is unlikely you would be working alone as most projects will be team oriented things with different folks with different backgrounds working together.

That being said if you like hardware then EE or CE is the way to go.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Experience doing what? Do you really think that your future employer is going to care that
you worked at CompUSA in a retail capacity? If you're going to work at CompUSA do it for the discount and/or the cash. Don't think for a second that the experience is going to matter that much when you're applying for some sort of engineering job.

They're going to be interested in what internships or what organizations you were involved in while majoring in whatever. So, study hard, get a good internship, and be involved in the ACM, ACS, or any of those other organizations that pretty much guarantee you exposure to potential employers.

I mean experience working with people. And yes, obviously the money.

I would definitely look into an internship. Thanks for the advice.

 

[davmat787]

I don't want to be stuck CODING all day. It's not as much the part about being alone that I don't like, but the fact that I have to be alone doing something that can become incredibly boring after a long time, like writing code. I find programming good as a hobby, but not as an actual career.

I want to do something that satisfies me and that I like more. For me that's CE or EE. If I choose that route, it can probably also mean that I lose many of my credit-hours, and I'd have to start all over again.

Here is an idea, Software Quality Assurance aka Software Testing. Sounds like you don't want to be a code monkey the rest of your life, but enjoy it to some degree. Software Test Engineers are ultimately responsible for the quality of the end product.

As for how your coding skills would come into play for a tester, the majority of it will be writing automation wrappers for test tools, simple web front ends so upper management can make those pretty graphs, reports, and pie charts they so love. Knowing some coding helps interface with the Dev's who wrote the code you are testing and filing more complete bug reports against the code owner.

When I started out at Microsoft in testing, I knew zero coding basically. After seeing the opportunities that exist for testing that have some coding knowledge convinced me to dig in. Plus, there was no shortage of uber sharp devs at MSFT to help, lots of great people there.

Obviously there is way more to it than that but have you considered Software Testing? I did so at Microsoft for over 10 years. The only reason I am still not there is due to an injury on the job.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

 

[xalos]

Also as others have mentioned many EE specialties are basically coding of different types. CE is also going to be coding. Nearly all you do as an EE will be done in modeling type of tools.

Hit the nail squarely on the head....lol Everything is pretty much done in software now.