<p>Hi everyone,
I'm a long time lurker and just decided to finally join as I just need some good advice.</p>
<p>I'm a college freshman that wants to major in computer science or computer engineering. My school has both programs. I've always liked computers and did real well in the classes in high school. I love to solve problems and have always been good at math and science.</p>
<p>The problem is I'm different. I've been reading computerworld and other IT mags for a while, couple that with internet blogs and it is seems that IT people are devoted to their profession 100%. Meaning they do not seem to have any interests (hobbies) outside of computing.</p>
<p>This is where I'm different. I love sports, playing and watching as it's a real outlet for me. I'm not really into playing video games which if you look at these sites it would seem most CS majors and IT professionals are the biggest gamers. I would also like to have a family one day. </p>
<p>I guess the question is do I need to be devoted to computing in everything I do to be successful in IT? If you need to be then I can really see myself getting left behind, thus failure. What do you think? Any CS or CE majors out there or IT pro's? Or anyone else with some words of wisdom?
Thanks</p>
<p>You absolutely do not need to live and breathe the stuff. I like playing sports, couldn’t care less about watching them myself xD Most of my buddies have interests outside of programming - some play D&D (although fewer than I thought), I know at least a few that play sports (although not formally), and then there’s a friend that is into flying RC airplanes. </p>
<p>I don’t do much myself, hobbies are expensive!</p>
<p>Don’'t confuse a job with free time. Of course it will seem like people writing in magazines and blogs spend 40+ hours a week doing computer stuff. That is how they make money. That doesn’t mean they don’t have other types of fun the rest of the time when they are not sleeping.</p>
<p>If you were in the DMV area I’d invite you to the next LAN party made up of a dozen CS/software engineers and IT/Network/Hardware folks (I’m the odd man out). All but two have wives and kids (both are engaged). More than half are very physically active, Karate, tennis, hashing, weight-lifting. About half would say their hobbies are things such as making apps for android, writing scripts/code, gaming conventions. Half travel abroad frequently, a couple volunteer, a couple brew beer, several are always renovating some room in their houses, etc. I’m pretty sure all of them run linux boxes.</p>
<p>Once you get out in the world you’ll see that even successful professionals who like to get together for LAN parties have full lives.</p>
<p>CS and IT people are probably the least devoted to their jobs, honestly. They tend to really like what they do, but it’s pretty damn easy to like what you do when you only spend half of your workday actually doing it.</p>
<p>In my (professional) experience, it varies depending upon various things, such as the company’s culture, the (relative) performance of the company to others in its sector, and the overall economic picture. I’ve been in situations where the others I worked with had outside, non-computer related activities that they felt free to pursue while not working. I’ve also been in situations where there was a lot of pressure to work extra hours, brought about by the people who worked there who wished to be the most successful. There have also been times that the company’s survival depended upon working massive amounts of overtime, leaving little time for other pursuits.</p>
<p>I would also add that if you are considering working at a startup, or at a company with a startup culture, that you should prepare for the likelihood that you’ll be spending quite a bit of your personal time doing things to get and keep the company going. As a guy who I used to work for wrote, “you are sacrificing the present for a chance to buy your time in the future.”</p>
<p>Shhhhhhhhhhhhh…don’t tell all the secrets. We don’t want a sharp spike CS majors. It will mess up what we have now…low competition for jobs where you don’t even need all the skills an employer asks for. I like that leverage of “I can switch employers as I please”…it keeps the supervisors honest :-)</p>
<p>I am not a CS or CE person but have worked with quite a few. Some are into it 24/7 but most are not. They do lots of other things; rock climbing, softball, family time. You name it, and they’ll be someone who’s doing it. It just depends on what YOU want to do.</p>
<p>I am an engineer (retired now) but have always been into playing sports. I loved the fact that most of the people I play with were not engineers. Spending a lot of your waking hours around engineers will give you a somewhat limited perspective and most have similar education backgrounds which has shaped their way of thinking. Talking with plumbers, realtors, lawyers, doctors, actors, etc will really give you a different bent on life.</p>