<p>I think you’ll be okay, powerbomb. If you don’t like the idea of being “just” a computer science major, you may want to check out what other programs are offered. I took a look at Penn’s CS web page and it seems like they offer an interesting computer science + cognitive science major. I have a friend who was doing a similar type of program for his master’s and he was researching the use of gesture based apps for teaching young children (apparently, the gestures help kids learn new concepts). I thought that was pretty cool.</p>
<p>I think it’s great that you want to get into start-ups and entrepreneurship. Too many students just want to get into companies with the most status (Google, Apple) or go into finance in hopes of making obscene amounts of money. But I sort of agree with an earlier poster that it’s probably best to wait a few years and gain some experience before trying to create your own startup (I’ve also heard this sentiment echoed by one of my professors). Personally, I knew a few guys who started their own “companies” right after college and they were all doomed to fail from the start. Finally, I think it looks pretty silly when you look at their LinkedIn profiles and they have “CEO of company X” or “CTO of startup Y from March 2008 to August 2008” or whatever when they’re only a few years removed from graduating college.</p>
<p>I don’t agree. I spoke to someone who is “CEO” of his own iPhone video game company (a successful one), and he told me that the best time to start your own company is in college - when you have all that free time, when you’re still in daily contact with tons of other programmers (potential partners), and when you have relatively fewer obligations (no family, no work, don’t have to worry about the electric bill/paying the rent if your parents are paying or if you have financial aid, etc).</p>
<p>
90% of startups fail, no matter where in life you are. So the fact that you knew a couple of guys whose companies failed after college really does not mean anything. Whether or not a company succeeds is up to you, really. Furthermore, there’s nothing wrong if your company fails when you’re fresh out of college, or still in college. Unlike when you’re older and have actual obligations, being temporarily unemployed is not as terrible a prospect when you’re younger. Furthermore, being able to tell an employer that you started your own company with X product, and tell them what you learned from the experience is not something your average college grad or recent college grad can say they did, and it will really make you stand out.</p>
<p>
Nothing about the “CEO” or “CTO” title necessarily REQUIRES that your company be a large company. “Oh, your company is too small. That CEO title doesn’t apply to you.” It is not silly at all and it is quite routine.</p>
<p>I agree with a lot of your points, terenc, and of course, I’ve thought the same things myself, but I still think that a few years in grad school or a few years stint working in a company (not necessarily a huge company, but even working at a start up) would be beneficial for aspiring tech entrepreneur. My coworker also told me about his former classmates who are self-employed and running their own iphone/android game company, but I sort of feel like mobile gaming is an exception and not the norm.</p>
<p>When I see “CEO of company X for 4 months”, I basically interpret that as, “me and my friends tried to create a startup in our last year of school and it turns out that we didn’t have a good idea to begin with”. I think it can be a fun thing to mention on an interview, but I would personally leave that out of my resume.</p>
<p>^Head First Java is good, too. I personally don’t like how it’s organized, though.</p>
<p>
I did not intend to use mobile companies as an example. Reddit, for example, was founded by two UVA students right after they graduated from college. The point is not whether you will be successful with your startup in college/early in your career - the point is that what you learn in that experience is not only very impressive to a company like Google that wants employees to spend 20% of their time on their own projects, but also gives you knowledge on mistakes to avoid if you ever want to try again, knowledge that, I would guess, you are not taught in grad school or while working for a company as a software engineer (e.g. raising money, “scaling” a product, etc.)</p>
<p>
4 months is way too short and might indicate you gave up too early, and is unrealistic to use as an example because no one can know if their company will be a failure or not that early - it takes you 4 months to even develop a product.
Everyone I have talked to says that trying to start your own company while in college is something that makes you stand out from everyone else. In my opinion, any employer would be very interested in hearing about your experience.</p>
<p>CS is different for everyone, and if you’re not interested in theoretical CS, never cared for it, and probably never will, well that’s fine too, you’ll pick up what you need as you go. However, the one thing you quickly realize about CS is that programming (at least writing code to be executed by some kind of machine) has very little to do with computer science. If you want to make your ideas come true, you gotta have the will power to do it yourself.</p>
<p>I guess it depends on your perspective, terenc. You look at a 21 year old “CEO” of a failed start up and see a young person with initiative and valuable experience. I mostly see hubris and immaturity. I admit, however, that I’m probably a little biased since the classmates I knew who started their own “companies” after college were incredibly douch ey and annoying.</p>
<p>In any case, I didn’t mean to hijack this thread! Good luck with Java, powerbomb.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus, are the examples and exercises on that site doable without ANY cs experience? While I may not enjoy the theoretical stuff, I also don’t want to get a false sense that CS is impossible by doing things that beginners aren’t supposed to do.</p>
I see where you’re coming from, because I’ve seen plenty of people just like that. However, assuming they’re not like that, it’s definitely a huge plus compared to years in industry, according to Google, Apple, Yahoo etc.</p>
<p>The book is for a course used as an introductory CS course for CS majors at many colleges (including MIT, until they reorganized their introductory courses to combine EE and CS concepts).</p>
<p>There is nothing especially weird about a Bachelor of Arts degree in computer science, math, physics, etc… Just make sure that you take a reasonable selection of the important computer science courses for your future goals (industry jobs and/or graduate school) to give you a stronger foundation for future self-education (which is expected in the computer industry and is by definition what graduate students and academic researchers do).</p>
Personally, I would stay away from SICP/Scheme. I know several software engineers who did not like the language when they studied it (and indeed they had to “study” it). It’s not an easy language to self-teach, in my opinion, since it is a very academic language, and not a language ever used in industry applications.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I can personally attest to the fact that SICP gets VERY confusing and difficult past Chapter 2 or so.</p>
<p>MIT and Berkeley used to use SICP for their intro CS classes. Both schools no longer use SICP/Scheme, and instead use Python.</p>
<p>
You see hubris and immaturity. Why is it immature to build your own product and start your own company? If anything, you have to be mature and ahead-of-the-times to have the type of self-starting personality that drives you to start your own company. If anything, you have to be creative to think up of a product that is not already on the market.
I’d agree that it takes a certain amount of “hubris” to think that you are skilled enough to start your own company. but this is not “hubris” - this is “self-confidence.”</p>
<p>Furthermore, imagine a Google recruiter has two candidates. One candidate worked at Apple for two years after college as a normal software engineer. The second candidate started his own company for two years, designed and built X product, got X funding, got X number of users, implemented X features, but ultimately ran out of money and had the user base disappear due to competition.</p>
<p>About which candidate is the Google recruiter going to think: “This person has the potential to bring ideas to Google and create new sources of revenue and new products”?
The second candidate certainly failed (and 90% of attempts fail)- but the difference is that at least s/he tried; the first candidate has never tried.</p>
<p>Berkeley changed the introductory CS course (CS 61A) to using Python, but is teaching the same material using a modified SICP book: [CS61A</a>, Spring 2012 Online Textbook](<a href=“http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/sp12/book/index.html]CS61A”>CS61A, Spring 2012 Online Textbook) . In addition, Berkeley students have the option of taking a self-paced version of the course (CS 61AS) using the original SICP and Scheme.</p>
<p>I agree with you that it’s very impressive for a young engineer to be able to raise a significant amount of money and run a start up for 2 years. In fact, that’s pretty impressive for any engineer of any age. It’s also extremely rare.</p>
<p>The most important quality that a tech company like Google seeks in an entry level engineer is technical expertise. If you and your friends thought you can make it rich by creating an inferior variation of youtube, I doubt anyone will be very impressed.</p>
<p>Here in SD, there are many biotech startups whose success is based on technical expertise rather than novelty or simply good timing. I’m sure there are many other startups that are successful for the same reason. That’s why I think that spending a few years in grad school may be very beneficial for a budding entrepreneur.</p>
<p>terenc, we’re hijacking this thread. Shoot me a private message if you want to continue this conversation.</p>
That is true, but the CS portion of that class is taught in Python.</p>
<p>
If you look at the profiles of many startup founders, the majority never went to grad school. A Bachelor’s degree in CS gives you all the skills necessary to build professional applications and platforms. </p>
<p>Biotech is entirely different from CS/web startups. Biotech relies very heavily on lab research, which often does require grad school work. Biotech innovations often require cutting edge discoveries. CS/web/mobile companies are unique in that even a high schooler can, if they have spent several years teaching themselves, start a company (and some have, and have been moderately successful). Software companies do not rely on cutting edge scientific innovations - they rely on creativity and having the right idea with the right design.</p>
<p>It isn’t enough for someone to be the type of person that just does what they’re told to do and ends there. Google wants their employees to spend 20% of their time on their own projects - they are very clearly looking for people who are able to formulate new ideas and create new products - Gmail and Google News were not the result of “the boss wants you to do X,” but were actually the result of employees doing their own projects during that 20% time.</p>
<p>Yes, Google seeks technical expertise. I never said they didn’t. Nothing requires more technical expertise, though, than building your own product from scratch. Obviously, if your startup sucks and your product is crap, you do not have technical expertise.</p>
<p>My point is that if the OP is in college and and is skilled at programming, and wants to be involved in entrepreneurship, the OP should be going out and building his/her own products. Obviously if the OP is not skilled, then he or she is not going to do well in a startup, the OP is not going to get a Google job, and the OP is not going to get into a good grad program if the OP wants to go to grad school.</p>
<p>The point is, if you are skilled enough to get a job at Google, you are skilled enough to develop your own products, given the right ideas; in this case it would be more impressive to go off on your own than work for Google.</p>
<p>By the way, we’re not going off-topic. The OP was very specific in his/her desire to enter the world of tech entrepreneurship.</p>
<p>But then, does the computer language really matter, since the suggested book in question is available in both the original Scheme version and a modified Python version?</p>