<p>Sup ya'll,
Never really done this before, but I'm just curious what others think.</p>
<p>I'm at a crossroad of sorts in my life at the moment. I was admitted to UC San Diego as a computer science major in 2006. Pretty strong CS program here. I'm now going into my 4th year after having switched out of CS to a Computing in the Arts major (part of the Vis Arts dept. here at UCSD), then switching back to CS after a large financial loss in my family. I figured it's a more secure degree with more lucrative opportunities. My problem is... I've found that even when I try my hardest at my core classes (putting in 40+ hours a week into one class sometimes), I find them extremely difficult (averaging Bs to upper Cs, sometimes Ds). I find that the more upper div courses I take, the less I feel interested in computer science. </p>
<p>I think my main gripe with CS is that I find programming interesting, but only when there is some kind of visual feedback... The courses I'm taking now teach about building operating system kernels, using data structures, sorting algorithms, and such. It's not intellectually stimulating to me. I find it much more rewarding to build webpages, create animations with ActionScript, or create interfaces with Java API. I'm an artist at heart, having drawn all through my childhood until recently when coursework took over a majority of my time. I've given up a lot of hobbies and my social life, and it's been eating away at my mental health.</p>
<p>My career goals are to go into the video gaming industry, particularly as a technical artist. Beyond that, I'd be interested in education based human-computer interaction... so taking video game technology to a more humanitarian level. UC San Diego does offer a program in Cognitive Science with an emphasis in human-computer interaction(HCI). A lot of my CS courses will transfer over... plus I plan to pick up a minor in CS if I do switch.</p>
<p>I feel that mentally and emotionally, pushing on in the CS degree will not be intellectually rewarding... Certainly switching over to Cognitive Science with a specialization in HCI will extend my undergrad time, but only by a quarter or two... is it worth it? That's what I'm wondering.</p>
<p>If you want to be a technical artist, you don’t need to stay in CS. Perhaps your school has a graphic design, digital design, digital art, etc. program that would be worth looking into. If you’re interested in educational aspects of games, cognitive science, psychology, etc. wouldn’t be bad choices.</p>
<p>If CS isn’t for you, you might want to get out sooner rather than later. While I feel that CS is probably, as you said, a stronger degree program than some others, it has to be a good fit.</p>
<p>Hey, thanks for the quick responses! I should add that another part of the reason I switched OUT of the Computing Arts major was because it was far too theoretical and not enough skill learning. It was too much about ogling at prominent artists doing trippy data visualization and not enough “Here’s how you use Flash” or “Here’s how you build a rendering engine”. I do like the fact that in the CS dept, I learn skills. I’m still interested in the Computer Graphics course, for example. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t say I want to do purely art, i.e. graphic design, digital art, etc. I’d like to comprehend–if only at a surface level, but preferebly a bit deeper–the guts behind the pretty stuff, y’know? Because it’s so hard to find an artist that understands engineers, and its so hard to find engineers that understand artists. I’m interested in striking a balance between the two, if you feel me.</p>
<p>From what I understand, technical artists do exactly that. They have some strong programming skills (mostly in scripting languages), and also a solid background in visual arts.</p>
<p>A CS degree is probably not too important if you’re aspiring to be a technical artist, and I don’t think you should bend too much purely for financial reasons. If you don’t enjoy the upper-division CS courses it’s probably not a good fit - 300+ level courses are supposed to be the fun ones!</p>
<p>There is one thing I thought I should mention about taking a computer graphics class, since you brought it up: it may not be what you expect. Within CS, graphics is mostly about the math and algorithms: orthographic/perspective projections, clipping and culling, affine transformations, rotations/quaternions, ray tracing, etc. I only bring this up because you seem more interested in the art aspects of graphics. There are certainly topics in computer graphics relevant to technical artists, but you’ll probably need to pick these up outside an introductory computer graphics class. In particular, you would probably be interested in learning how to work with shaders.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: I once was a BA student now on track to graduating with a BSc in CS.</p>
<p>My take would be to suck it up and finish the program. I have two comments:</p>
<p>1) The fact that you do not find CS classes “intellectually stimulating” is a bit worrying. Yes, some of them are relatively unpleasant but I personally found them all interesting (even those that I had poor(er) grades in). However you don’t have to love them, because of the next point. Take heart!</p>
<p>2) You like ActionScript, web based stuff, building things with existing APIs and frameworks, GREAT! Guess what?! This is exactly what most employers will want. I’ve spent nearly 8 months doing internships with two quite large corporations and not once have I been asked about analyzing the runtime of randomized QuickSort or to talk about automata theory. In fact, most of my coworkers didn’t even have a CS education, they were either electrical or mechanical engineers or something else altogether (political science majors anyone?). That being said I find formal CS education beneficial and a stronger foundation even if I rarely use the tools I have learned about at school. Which is why I advise you to graduate as soon as possible and then branch off into the areas that truly interest you. No degree will replace work experience in the areas you have stated to enjoy.</p>
<p>List of things companies have demanded from me: Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, ActionScript, PHP, C# and .NET. How many of those did I learn about at school? None of them, that’s the difference between academics and boring ol’ real life work ;).</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Edit: Also a note on what js911 said, this is absolutely correct. “Graphics” classes in traditional universities will be about exactly what he described. Some more hands-on schools will cut down the math and introduce a bunch of (sometimes cheesy) OpenGL exercises instead. Either way it will have very little to do with graphics as understood in the Flash animation world.</p>
<p>Right, don’t get me wrong… I’m well aware of how difficult the Computer Graphics courses will potentially be. They’re some of the harder upper divs at my school. I’ve been warned about how much math is involved with it.</p>
<p>That said… PerpetualStudent, your feedback seems to give me more reason to switch majors if I’m hearing you right, haha. I’d be lying if I said there’s nothing I find interesting about the classes. I can see how the classes can be interesting for sure, but I simply don’t feel that the amount of time I invest into the courses outweighs the sense of accomplishment. It detracts from other aspects of my life too. I really don’t have time anymore to explore hobbies I used to enjoy… including things that would help me in my career, like the things you mentioned… AS, PHP, Flex, arts, etc… even getting more exercise… haven’t hit the gym in weeks.</p>
<p>So if those are things you learned outside of academia, why not take classes in something I’m interested in instead? Plus, I’ll have more time to balance my life, y’know?</p>