<p>I used to think that computer science was dull, until I saw what they do at Carnegie Melon. (Bumped into their ETC page when I was reading/watching Professor Randy Pausch.) The bits that he showed in his "Last Lecture" looked very cool.</p>
<p>Thanks, all, for those added insights.</p>
<p>Originaloog & kitty--son visited RPI a few days ago & really liked it. They have a monster, big, new research lab & he likes (at least, conceptually) AI & 'nanotechnology' (not sure where he got these ideas from...possibly reading science fiction, which I'm not necessarily dismissing as a source for interesting concepts/directions..why not?).</p>
<p>KarenC--CM sounds really great but I think son's B gpa (bad 9/10 gr years) would keep him from there (although SAT scores are fine & he's straight As now...cummulative gpa is a reality). Son did say he'd like to be around other 'smart' kids at a school such as CM, though...so guess we'll see how it plays.</p>
<p>mpn--interesting re: the Data Structures class. Something to look ahead to as a litnus test, maybe!</p>
<p>Thanks again!</p>
<p>If your son likes puzzles he will like Comp Sci. I found it a fun career and there are so many paths you can take: top design engineer, management, tech support, sales, marketing.</p>
<p>Is it dull? It depends on the person you are and what you enjoy. I never did care for straight programming, though I was just fine at it. My sweetie, on the other hand, got ahold of computers at a young age and never stopped; he's very happy with programming. He doesn't even do what I'd consider "sexy" programming. He's best known as a device driver writer. He works in world between machine code and applications. When I first met him, I once sat and watch him work on a driver problem. He would change a single value in a low level program, and then check how that change affected the color and placement of a single pixel on the screen. Then he'd do it again. I couldn't imagine a more boring tedious thing to do with your days, but it kept him enraptured. It still does, pretty much. He's written computer games, worked in cell phones and set top boxes, but he keeps coming back to graphics device drivers. </p>
<p>My point here is that you know, if you love something, it's not boring. And if you don't love it, anything can be boring.</p>
<p>ricegal--thanks; good to hear of the multiple options w/in comp sci.</p>
<p>TrinSF--so true about work being interesting if you enjoy it. The trick, I think, is finding that area that blends with your aptitudes/interests and still has ongoing challenge & chance for decent remuneration! Hope son finds that.</p>
<p>One encouraging thing on the financial front--at the RPI tour, they had posted the av starting salaries for each major (at the career planning office). Comp Sci was by far the highest ($62k roughly). So...if you're going to find something you like, always a bonus that society might reward it monetarily, too!</p>