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Schadrim · Registered User Joined: 19 Jan 2004 Posts: 17

It seems a little nerve racking to choose my major. It decides what I'm going to do for the rest of my life and I'm a little hesitant to just pick one out. I think I may take some biology classes and some business classes then choose, but either way, It's a very tough decision. Confused

hikaru · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 8:45 pm Post subject:

Actually, I changed my major several times before settling on computers. I started out in law, went to medicine then finally to comp-sci. My major was as an EE with a minor in psych. I figured that there would some day be AI's that would need a shrink. What better than to have a programmer who's also a shrink, eh?

Good luck with whatever you decide and remember that you're not locked into it. You can change. Just don't screw your grades up. If you have bad grades, it'll be hard to continue college.

Cheers

Schadrim · Registered User Joined: 19 Jan 2004 Posts: 17

Yeah I'm a computer nerd but I don't want to be in tech support for ages so I've decided to take another route.

Its a daunting descision.

hikaru · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 9:40 pm Post subject:

If you don't want to be in tech support, then go the programming route.

Take 1 and ONLY 1 class, see how well you pick it up. If find it easy and ace the class without sweating, then that's the route to go. Programmers are always in deman. I'm not talking java for HTML. I'm talking C++, Assembly and the like. If you can master C++ with all of it's varying capabilities, then you should be able to handle damn near anything out there.

Cheers

Blueblur2k · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 6:41 am Post subject:

Working on my second semester now. No clue what I'm majoring in, but definetley not programming, heh. Took a basic programming course, and it tore me a new one. I'm much more of a writer myself... C++? The only C+ i'm aware of was my algebra grade.. jk

anthony · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 7:35 am Post subject:

What kind of 'programming course' did you take?

There are some places that foists Visual Basic on their studens, and there are those who expects every student to be able to build a double-linked list using VI and a crossassembler for a PIC micro...

I was lucky in that when I started my education, I already had some programming experience(Mostly Basic on a Sinclari ZX Spectrum, but still)
Also, we worked with ADA on Digital VAX machines(The compiler was slightly 'non-compliant' in that it didn't have 'Long-integer', so that we had to patch the programs when we transferred them from our home PCs)
After that, I've messed with assembler (on intel 8052 controllers and DEC PDP-11/750... Weird)
and several 'high-level' programming languages including C++(which I really suck at)

Many places they don't adequately explain how things work...
As one of my teachers said, 'give me a bigger-than function for any datatype, and I'll build the rest myself'
(He then demonstrated 'less-than', 'equal', 'not-equal', 'bigger-than/equal', 'less-than/equal')

By the time he was finished with us, even the densest could write a program to balance a binary-tree, in any programming language which supports pointers.
(Method, NOT language is what is important. If you understand the problem and the steps to solve it, translating it into an actual language is just details which can be found in any book about that language.)
This goes for anything from Assembler all the way up to SQL-queries and web-scripts.

Blueblur2k · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 2:00 pm Post subject:

I don't remember the exact name of the class. I think it was "Intro to programming" or "Principles of Programming" or somesuch. I remember something about IF functions. I just needed a another 3 credit class to round out my schedule, as long as I have at least 12 credit hours, I get the state to pay my tuition, because i'm a sneaky bastard. I took it with a buddy of mine, who is a programmer, and I understood zip, nada. I took an incomplete and just left it at that. I can use a PC no problem, and even fix it a bit when I need to, but once i start seeing any sort of programming language, I call someone esle in for it. Neutral

Cateagle · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 2:17 pm Post subject:

I was lucky, what I was interested in and what I was good at coincided with a suitable major, Aeronautical Engineering, and I went for it. I've been in the aerospace industry now for 30+ years and it's been an "interesting" ride.

Kit Fox · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 2:59 pm Post subject:

I started in veterinary, but now ive found my calling in teaching Smile

Or I just want to mold peoples children into whatever I want Twisted Evil