<p>I've been looking into this major as a much more reliable path towards a job than let's say psychology. I'm still at my first year at a CCC but I've been getting straight A's and honors and everything; I'm just hesitant to commit to a major. Honestly, part of why I've been banking on transferring for psychology is because the pre-reqs aren't all that bad. And it's probably my favorite subject.</p>
<p>Anyway...</p>
<p>What should I do? I'm already set for this semester. I'll be taking mostly GE classes (IGETC) and also classes that transfer up for psychology (assist.org). I think I'm going to take trig too, because I want to take calculus eventually (which is critical for majors like comp sci right?). </p>
<p>So for you comp sci majors, how has it been? Obviously it's a bigger (or at least more intimidating) workload than psychology, but would you recommend it as a practical transfer major? UCLA and Berkeley are my dream schools, so honestly I'd be happy with whatever major I can get, but I've been reading up on computer science and it seems like one of the best things to major in nowadays. </p>
<p>The computer industry has its ups and downs. Ten years ago was a bad time to graduate with a CS degree.</p>
<p>The math you need to take to transfer to CS is typically calculus, linear algebra, and discrete math, sometimes also multivariable calculus and/or differential equations. You will also likely need introductory computer science and electronics courses, as described on [Welcome</a> to ASSIST](<a href=“http://www.assist.org%5DWelcome”>http://www.assist.org) . In engineering-oriented CS degree programs, you also likely have to take physics.</p>
<p>Go for it dude. There’ll always be a need for CS people, especially in the public sector. One thing I’ve noticed - it seems to be a “you get it or you don’t” major. Once we hit algorithm analysis and abstract data types in my data structures class, half the class was like “uhhhhh”. Read up on CS concepts and programming languages to see if you might like it.</p>
<p>Nah, it’s not bad, just gotta study… some nasty integrals I’ve seen were pretty terrifying though lol. If you plan on applying to LA/Berk, think you’ll need to finish diff eqs. Good luck!</p>
<p>If the only reason you want to go into CS is for money, chances are you’ll be miserable in it. If you’ve always loved math and physics and problem solving, that’s a different story, and I’d say go for it. If that’s not your strong point, you’ll probably be miserable as a CS major.</p>
<p>Also, at least at Cal, there are three lower division CS courses, the 61 series. You’re expected to have some knowledge of CS going into A (recursion, at least), and you’re not supposed to take them out of order. If you want to go after CS as a transfer, you need to be pretty committed to catch up on all the pre-reqs that you can’t transfer in and need to take before upper divs. Most of the others I’ve talked to were either doubling up CS courses or taking summer classes to catch up, but that’ll be harder to do if you’re entering with no experience. That said, the classes here are amazing and the professors are great, it’s a wonderful place to be for comp sci. There are also tons of companies that recruit here; this upcoming week Microsoft’s holding a tech talk and Intel has a recruitment info session.</p>
<p>My suggestion would be to go take a CS class, and see if it’s your sort of thing while you’re still at CC. If you end up hating it, you could save yourself a lot of math headaches, and could keep your focus on something like psychology. If you love it and decide to pursue it, you’ll have more time to angle your schedule towards CS.</p>