<p>Alright so right now I'm a freshman at UPenn in SEAS, studying computer science. Last semester I got a 3.14. This semester, I will probably end up with a 2.96 (or lower if finals go worse than I think they will), making my overall GPA for the year a 3.05. Am I screwed for the rest of my college life? Also, does anyone have any study tips? </p>
<p>I'm really discouraged and I'm even questioning my choice in major. The only classes I actually do well in are the English ones. I was thinking of switching over and becoming an English major, but what can I do with that? Plus, I'll still have to contend with my low freshman year GPA, so it's not like any law schools will actually take me. I just don't know if I should stay in computer science or not. CIS 160 (Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science) completely destroyed me and sapped my interest in the topic.</p>
<p>Study tips? Study and do homework every day. It doesn’t matter when things are due and it doesn’t matter what else you’d rather be doing.</p>
<p>Focus on mastering the concepts involved in your courses. You may be asked to apply them in new and different ways on exams.</p>
<p>There’s nothing wrong with changing your major if you change your mind about what you want to do. But I wouldn’t just follow the path of least resistance.</p>
<p>Is CIS 160 normally taken in the Freshman year? There’s a lot of material that most students haven’t seen before and it assumes fluency with programming and algorithms. I would have suggested self-studying the material before the class started, say during the winter break, which would have made the class easier as you weren’t coming into the material cold.</p>
<p>Books that I would have suggested: Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications by Kenneth Rosen and Discrete Structures, Logic, and Computability. MIT OCW has a complete set of readings online for Mathematical Structures for Computer Science.</p>
<p>BTW, Computer Science is best for those who really love it. You appear to have the ability for it given your grades - do you really love it or are you going into it for the job prospects?</p>
<p>I think the ComputerScience is one of those disciplines where work experience trumps GPA every day of the week. </p>
<p>If an IT department is interviewing to students, one with a 4.0 but no work experience, and one with a 3.0 and extensive work experience, they’ll likely hire the one with the work experience. </p>
<p>So my advice, make sure you get some good work experience/work in an IT department of a local company…etc…And then if you have a low gpa by the time you graduate, you can explain it away by how you’ve been more focused on work…but I’ll think that they’ll be more concerned with how much you’ve learned on the job versus whether or not you put enought time into studying for tests.</p>
<p>The thing is that you’re often competing with the 4.0 with work experience.</p>
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<p>Someone taking CS at Penn would be better off looking for development positions in IS or Software Engineering over IT. You can certainly do IT with a CS degree but it doesn’t make the most of your education.</p>
<p>Get your stuff together. Try harder. Get tutoring. Interact with those who will help you get a better grade. Accept help. Do whatever you have to do in order to ensure that you get a good grade.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice everyone. I’ll try to get everything together next semester and make another go at it. </p>
<p>@BCEagle: I am okay about Computer Science. I really love English, but it’s extremely difficult to find a job in English (and I have no interest in teaching or anything like that. Ideal job would be working at some publishing house, but those are all kind of dying from what I heard). Not so for comp sci, which is why I’m in it…although, the thought of spending the rest of my life programming kind of sucks…oh well.</p>
<p>A software engineer in many companies does many things. They can do functional specification work (figuring out what customers want and then coming up with ideas for solutions), design (researching how to solve a problem and then planning an implementation), then programming and then testing. Software engineers are often involved in documentation too. It’s usually done by tech writers with help from engineers but sometimes the engineer does the writing.</p>
<p>There are companies that hire CS majors for the quantitative skills too. Similar to companies that hire Physics majors to do programming because of their problem-solving skills.</p>
<p>My son has a CS degree and works as a bioinformatician. The job involves programming, design, software engineering, some IT, and lab work (working with tissue samples). He only took one bio course in college but he has done a fair amount of self-study in bio and genetics.</p>
<p>Another area is consulting. A customer may have a performance problem with their application and ask a consulting company to send someone in to look at their systems and software and make recommendations for improvements. A solution could involve adding hardware, adding software, finding performance bottlenecks in software, and solving communications problems.</p>
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<li><p>A major adviser in computer science. Find out how your GPA stacks up to your classmates and if you should expect an upwards trend. </p></li>
<li><p>A pre-law adivser. My undergraduate college could predict quite accurately which law schools an applicant would get accepted to based on GPA and LSAT score. Find out what your options are. (I suspect that a 3.3 GPA from Penn Engineering paired with a strong LSAT score would still give you plenty of option!)</p></li>
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I can understand that! What areas of computer science do you enjoy? </p>
<p>I loved practical programming and “interesting” algorithms type classes, like machine learning or computational geometry. I dropped my CS major though because I couldn’t motivate myself to take most of the core classes for the major - from computer organization to compilers to theory of computation or even a formal “analysis of algorithms” class. Eventually I chose a different major and just took those upper-level computer science classes that I found interesting. I still think that was a good choice: I was much happier and it didn’t seem to hamper my job prospects!</p>
CIS 160 is a first introduction to Discrete Math (induction, quantifiers, combinatorics, elementary number theory) and perfectly appropriate for freshmen.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’ve taken a few discrete math courses so I’m familiar with the material. That said, there are various flavors of courses and many do assume that you have some programming and algorithms background.</p>
<p>Penn renumbered CIS 160 (from 260) in my time there specifically to emphasize that it’s okay for freshman to take the class. </p>
<p>That being said, I can totally see why someone who’s not into foundation-type math would hate a CS 160 - style class. Even many math majors wouldn’t like that much dwelling on logic. (I recall one year where CIS 160 had a final course project on automated theorem provers.)</p>
<p>@b@r!um: Thanks for the advice. I’ll contact my advisor. How do I go about getting a pre-law advisor? Do I just ask? </p>
<p>I enjoy programming itself. It’s just the math I dislike, lol. I haven’t taken enough CS to know what other areas I would/would not like though. But so far my prog classes are alright. </p>
<p>@BCeagle: Thanks! I didn’t know you could do all that with a degree in computer science. Makes me a little more hopeful haha.</p>
<p>I don’t go to Ivy schools but I totally understand how frustrating it will be to get a 2.9 GPA during your first year; especially if you are in the top school. I got 3.0 during my first year but I managed to study and work harder thought. that helped. right now, my GPA seems stable, between 3.5 and 3.6, and I am almost in my 4th year. good luck to you!</p>
<p>ps: aside from study harder, try get as much sleep as possible.</p>