<p>So say I want to major in computer science. Would I be able to do this with no previous knowledge of it? As in, I know no programming languages, only some html & css coding. I'm very good at Maths and problem solving, so I thought computer science would be a good choice for me, even though I've never done it.
Opinions please?</p>
<p>I would weigh what some of the younger posters who are CS majors than my posting since I was in undergrad now 20 years ago, but…my first computer science course was as a freshman. It covered the PASCAL language. For what it is worth, I ended up a Math/CS major.</p>
<p>I would take the “Intro to Computers” course either this summer at a community college or during the fall semester of your freshman year. I know schools vary in CS programs, but CS is the one major where one can take “pre-whatever” courses in the fall of freshman year and still graduate on time (like Pre-Calculus, Intro to Computers, etc)</p>
<p>There are some people who show up never having coded before in their life and make it through. They typically have to work a lot harder than others who are familiar with things do, but eventually they can make it…</p>
<p>Programming is a unique job. Not everyone enjoys it. It can be very frustrating at times. The best programmers are the ones who teach themselves. See if you can learn from a book how to program, and see if you enjoy it.</p>
<p>so if I wanted to learn on my own, how do you propose I should start?</p>
<p>Before I got to college, I only knew how to write small math functions on my graphing calculator. (The most involved it ever got was a Riemann sum calculator.) The following was my final project for my first ever programming class in college: [url=<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/user/dsblank#p/u/18/LXoWuqb9oXI]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/user/dsblank#p/u/18/LXoWuqb9oXI]YouTube</a> - dsblank’s Channel<a href=“Please%20excuse%20my%20horrible%20accent!”>/url</a></p>
<p>Programming really isn’t all that hard once you pick up on the basic concepts. Past the first few weeks in college, I never felt at a disadvantage compared to the students who had been married to computers for half of their life. Just don’t be intimidated when someone shows off their knowledge of IP protocols. </p>
<p>I almost decided to major in computer science but I lost interest when I got to the systems classes (architecture, operating systems, compilers, etc).</p>
<p>Ohh, really?
Why didnt those appeal to you?</p>
<p>And what are you majoring in instead then?</p>
<p>I decided to major in math and kept computer science as a minor.</p>
<p>I think I am mostly attracted to the problem-solving aspects of the field. Coming up with an algorithm is fun for me - implementing it, debugging it, documenting the code… not so much. Systems stuff is conceptually very straight forward but <em>extremely tedious</em> to implement. After my first systems class I decided to stick to high-level, mathy and theory-based computer science classes: theory of computation, graphics, computational geometry, machine learning, … I have been very happy with all of my computer science classes since!</p>
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<p>LOL…that is still the case with most engineers, regardless of experience. Documentation still is an afterthought, unless you get a good project manager to keep badgering you about doing it.</p>