<p>Hello CC, I'm an incoming college freshmen attending Santa Barbara City College to study Comp Sci and to cut to the chase am extremely anxious about the whole prospect of this major to the point of staying up very late researching more about the course work and getting more anxious reading about the difficulties others have had with it. Comp Sci is a field I'm really interested in but I'm generally unsure if I'm going to be in over my head the whole time.</p>
<p>To give some background info I'm definitely not a student at the top of my highschool (think I was in the top 30%?) and my GPA wasn't anything impressive at a 3.4 with SAT Score of 1650. I generally am fairly good at understanding math but I never really studied in high school because I simply never felt the need to (partly due to not challenging myself was much as I probably should have). </p>
<p>However the highest math I've taken so far is AP Statistics, before that was a mixture of Algebra 2/Trig mixed with some pre-Calculus but I never actually even moved on to our school's Pre Calc 2 needed for Calc. I understand I'm behind in math and due to this I'm going to be doing an extra year at SBCC (which is probably better to help spread out my classes more) but I'm still ridiculously anxious about what some people's experiences with Comp Sci have been. Unfortunately my school offered no programming classes and I didn't have the opportunity to take one.</p>
<p>I've read that most Comp Sci majors go in Freshmen year with some programming experience and I have very little. I've also been told that some people just don't get it and that the upper level course work has a large drop out rate and it makes me anxious that I will not be able to keep up with my peers and may fail. The last thing I want is to dedicate myself with hours of study to a subject just to fail later and end up switching majors. </p>
<p>I've looked at websites like Khanacademy for experience but the lessons were weak as they seemed to just tell me what to type without giving much explanation into the theory of what was going on. I have also looked at some books but a lot of them seem to require some experience and knowledge of coding/programming that I don't have and approach it in a very complex fashion. </p>
<p>I would like to believe, even being as behind as I am, that any hard work I put into learning CS will allow me to do well and maintain a good GPA in the major for transferring. However many speak of this major as if the harder courses are only survivable to those who have the talent and that no hard work will help me get through the difficulty. </p>
<p>Can any Comp Sci major give advice on what to expect difficulty wise in the coursework and how many hours I should be putting towards the classes? I would also appreciate any recommended introductory books that could help me start programming through what's left of the summer in preparation for CS101. Thanks in advance, any advice is appreciated.</p>
<p>You seem like a good researcher, but I agree you have less math than a typical CS student. You may be able to overcome that. </p>
<p>Can you tell more about why you picked CS? Often it is based on a love of programming in hs, but not in your case. </p>
<p>While our school didn’t offer in CS Courses, I luckily had a very involved AP Statistics teacher that understood the missed opportunity this was for a lot of students and decided to do a small (1 month) unit on very basic programming. The whole unit was very interesting to me and I even got to know a friend who’s father worked as a full time programmer for a well established lab in our area. We both talked about what we were looking for in programming and it turns out we were both interested in very similar things.</p>
<p>Logic and reasoning is something I think I’ll do well with and math has always been a strong subject of mine, but it’s difficult to say what I can succeed in when HS math classes are very easy to pass and do well in with little effort due to homework being a large majority of grades. I admittedly should’ve challenged myself much more in HS but going into Freshmen year I had very little self esteem and wasn’t quite aware of what my capacity for academics was (our middle school had no AP programs available to students). </p>
<p>Either way I understand I can’t redo HS but it matters very little to me because I know what I’m capable of now. I just have no idea what amount of work to expect being a Comp Sci major in college. During HS, a hard night of work was 2 hours of studying/cramming for a large point test. From the sounds of it things are very different in Engineering majors in college.</p>
<p>Some speak of Comp Sci major as the easiest of the Engineering majors and that any student who can handle math and reasoning will do well, but others seem to say it’s one of the most difficult and that a talent is truly needed to grasp the upper level concepts. If it matters I’m probably going to transfer from SBCC to a CSU, and I hear the upper level coursework at CSUs are less theoretical than at UCs. </p>
<p>I’m very apprehensive in choosing a major because there are many things I enjoy doing that seem like a lot of majors may be a good fit for me and I don’t want to waste money studying something I can’t handle; but I also want something that is relatively stable financially in the future. </p>
<p>If you are undecided about major, you could take more courses in different subjects at SBCC, since extra semesters at SBCC won’t be as expensive as extra semesters at a UC or CSU (and since you expect to be there for extra semesters due to the math situation).</p>
<p>SBCC’s CS courses closely emulate those at UCSB, according to <a href=“Welcome to ASSIST”>Welcome to ASSIST; . Use <a href=“http://www.assist.org”>http://www.assist.org</a> to check course articulation with other UCs and CSUs.</p>
<p>Note that while CS graduates are currently in high demand, and demand for them is higher on average than for many other majors, the computer industry has booms and busts, so it may not be that stable. The 2001-2003 bust resulted in a very bad job market for CS graduates. In addition, there are many smaller startup companies, many of which fail.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply ucbalumnus, I’ll certainly look into diversifying the classes. </p>
<p>I’ve decided to try to set a goal for myself of maintaining at least a 3.5 GPA first semester when I get to college and if I start to fall below I’ll examine if CS is really a major for me. Hopefully CS101 can give me a good idea of what to expect.</p>