<p>My first post. I am a freshman at college, majoring in CS I am 3-4 weeks in college and would appreciate some help. I didn't do any programming before in HS, but liked computers and math. I did pretty good in HS in almost all the courses. However, now at college, almost all the students in my class have done some sort of programming before which makes me feel a bit stressed. I talked to my professor about it, and he said I would be at a little disadvantage, but should be fine after couple of chapters. So far I didn't have any big issues with the course, but its only been 3-4 weeks. </p>
<p>So what advice would CS majors and software engineers give me in general?</p>
<p>Also I wanted to ask about how the career outlook is of CS majors. I have done some research of my own and I know that some programming jobs tend to get outsourced (though not as much as some people make it sound). I also know that CS is growing as a career, and jobs for software engineers are increasing, but I have more students in my CS class then any other, which says something about the supply of CS majors; in addition, all the jobs I saw during my research, require experience and I heard that people hesitate to train new engineers. I know that the career is good, but it just feels a bit uneasy. So any input/advice would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Just follow the course content and study as required.</p>
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<p>The software industry is less prone to problems caused by off-shoring. Sure, wages may be sinking (like they do in engineering and all sorts of fields) and companies are interested in foreign work, but in the software industry the work “doesn’t disappear”. Because computers are everywhere and software can be developed anytime and everywhere.</p>
<p>You cannot project what the situation will be when you graduate and what kind of opportunities you will find. The only thing you can do is focus on studying what you find interesting, practice hard and be good at whatever you want to do. Then see what opportunities you can find/get.</p>
<p>Also remember that almost every STEM major takes introductory programming courses, because computers are essential tools in pretty much any field. Just because some introductory CS courses are full, doesn’t mean that there are that many CS undergrads (and that they all will finish the degree).</p>
<p>The computer industry has its ups and downs. Right now, it is an up cycle, so CS graduates have good job opportunities. However, there have been times when job opportunities were poor. What the situation looks like four years from now is not easily predictable.</p>
<p>Be aware that software productivity can vary between people by an order of magnitude. People at the high end of the scale are more likely to have longer careers than people at the low end of the scale.</p>
<p>It is okay if you seemed sort of lost. I just started in my CS major, and in my Computer Science 1, not too many people know what is going on. They can barely get code to compile that has simple arithmetic operators. We’ve just defined variables, strings, and used some arithmetic operators, and they seemed lost. I had a little experience in programming before this, but not really C++. You’ll be alright because a lot of people seemed lost at first. Just take notes and seek knowledge outside of the classroom as well.</p>
<p>also I wanted to ask if CS majors are considered engineers in the professional world, since in some colleges it is considered a science degree. I went to a engineering career fair a few days ago, and there was only 1 or 2 companies looking for CS majors, and my college has CS as an engineering major.</p>
<p>another thing I have heard is that CS majors are more then programmers, so what else do they do besides programming.</p>
<p>I would count CS more in to the natural sciences category than engineering. I think engineering is fundamentally about practical physical applications, the application of science (primarily physics) and hard technology. Computer programming on the other hand is computer programming, a subject of its own. And programmers are simply known as programmers or software developers. CS is the academic field that deals with computation and implementing computations on computers.</p>
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<p>Well not really. Programming is programming. The academic subject called CS is about more than programming though, it’s the field about the theory and application of computation, of which programming languages and software development are just two parts/aspects.</p>
<p>Computer Engineering is more of a branch of Electrical Engineering mixed with computer science and often deals more with hardware but also software.</p>
<p>Computer Science is more of a branch of mathematics and deals with computation and algorithms, and deals more with software. Jobs computer scientists get are often called Software Engineers.</p>
<p>roomslat “I went to a engineering career fair a few days ago, and there was only 1 or 2 companies looking for CS majors, and my college has CS as an engineering major.”</p>
<p>Does your college have a separate CS career fair? If not, I find this comment very disturbing. A decent state university should have 40-100+ companies looking for CS majors. If your college really only had 1-2 companies looking for CS majors there is a problem.</p>
<p>How big is the department? How established is the program? Does it have regional accreditation? Does it have ABET-CAC accreditation? Does it have active local chapters of the ACM or IEEE computer society? Are professors members of professional organizations?</p>
<p>I agree with ChrisTKD’s comment: it is very odd to think about a career fair that doesn’t have a ton of companies looking for software people. Normally, the problem is the opposite: all the STEM majors go to the career fair, and 90+% are looking for CS majors.</p>
<p>CS is an engineering course in my college, though I might add that the fair was during the beginning of the school year, so maybe that’s why it wasn’t so big. Also my university is pretty decent but not that great (i could give you the name if you want).</p>