<p>Hello everyone, I've been wanting to start a thread for parents of CS majors for a while now. I have two sons at Stanford with my oldest majoring in CS and youngest majoring in MS&E. My older son will be an incoming Junior this year. He luckily received a paid internship for the summer where he should receive good experience in his field. That being said, he is really bummed right now because he just received his grades for this last quarter (waited to check because he was worried) and received a C in one of his classes. This is the first C of his life and he is questioning whether he should be majoring in CS. I've tried to be positive and supportive but worry that it might not be for him... I just don't know.</p>
<p>One concern he has had from the beginning is that at his high school there weren't any CS classes taught and he really didn't consider CS until he took the first class the latter part of his Freshman year. He has always been able to out work his classmates but says that with so many brilliant people at Stanford, that is just NOT going to happen. His cuurent GPA is a 3.2 and he is really struggling to stay positive. </p>
<p>Are there any parents out there with suggestions?</p>
<p>Oh man and I was thinking about trying to double major in EE and CS… The good thing about college is that your GPA really doesn’t matter if you don’t plan to pursue graduate work which is characteristic of a lot of CS majors. Judging by the fact that he’s gotten an internship (and I have a feeling it’s from google…) I don’t think he’s too interested in research. I may be completely wrong though. </p>
<p>I’m pretty worried too as I’ve gotten my grades through mostly putting more time into my work. I think the shock of not getting straight As is something we’re all going to face in top universities though and it just doesn’t mean the same as in high school. Don’t let him feel bummed and tell him that even if he didn’t get the grade he wanted what ultimately matters is he learned the material. If it helps at all. I met a guy this year that received more than just a few C’s in college and still became a multimillionaire because he focused on his career throughout school and stopped worrying about the two extra points on his final exam. His grades really don’t determine success so tell him not to let that stop him from doing CS if that’s what he really loves doing. I’m not particularly good at EE and I can already feel the sleepless nights soon to come but I’m not gonna let it stop me.</p>
<p>If it helps, my daughter too got a C+ in a CS class. This was a major crisis too say the least. She just finished her sophomore year and was able to keep the straight A thing going through her freshman year so the C+ in a class in her major was very tough for her. She is a sym sys major and waited until the very last second to declare partly because it.</p>
<p>No specific advice here - just want to say your son was not alone. But this is a learning experience for these kids and they’ll survive. I kept reassuring her that the Sophomore classes tend to be the toughest and that she’ll have more choice in the upper level classes and they’ll be more interesting. Plus I believe that ANY CS grad from Stanford will find multiple opportunities in the world.</p>
<p>@Wendeli… You are correct in the fact that he isn’t interested in research. It’s just not his cup of tea. His internship, however, is with a company called Cloudleaps. So far, so good… he is learning and enjoys the people who he is working with. He tells me they are very supportive and have been very patient with him while he learns new languages and gets acclimated to the work environment. </p>
<p>@Heartponderer… Thanks for the support. I’m sure both of our kids will do fine. Also, I’m sure you’re right and they should both have great opportunities coming out of Stanford. Good luck to your daughter.</p>
<p>Tripletime, here’s the thing: lots of CS and SymSys majors at Stanford arrive with years of familiarity and experience with CS concepts, programming, development, etc. In many cases this knowledge and experience was gained independently, as a result of early and sustained interest in the subjects. It usually has little or nothing to do with whether their high schools offered any CS classes (especially since most high school offerings in CS are pretty pathetic). Some CS majors at Stanford only discovered the subject after taking the intro-level class that a large majority of all Stanford students take at some point, but for those people there’s going to be a pretty steep learning curve relative to their classmates who have CS in their blood, so to speak. That’s just a fact of life when you’re in one of the very top programs in the world. Getting an isolated C in a course isn’t a very big deal, but I think that understanding the backgrounds and preparation of many CS and SymSys majors at Stanford is something to consider. Also, I wouldn’t assume that the CS courses get easier after sophomore year. People may tend to do better in upper-level courses, but that’s probably because there’s been a lot of foundational learning by that point, and also because those who continue on with the upper-level courses (especially the more theoretical courses) in these majors tend to be adept with the material. Good luck to your son.</p>
<p>Tripletime - thanks for starting this thread. My son just completed his freshman year at Stanford and he tells me that about half of the students in his dorm are switching from initial majors of pre-med/engineering, etc to computer science. What is the cs class your son received a C? Is this considered a “weeder” class? Unless your son is planning to apply to med/law/grad school, grades are not that critical. His internship experience and references will be more important in the job market.</p>
<p>@Zenkoan… Even though Stanford does a great job of warning incoming students of the rigor of the university, I think it is still hard for most of these kids who’ve never received anything other than A’s. I’m sure you are exactly right and I think my son has come to realize that it’s going to be a tough road but hopefully one that he continues to follow. I’m optimistic that the internship this summer will give him some confidence. Thanks for the well wishes and thoughts.</p>
<p>@Coll1TBD… my son is not interested in law or med school so that is definitely a plus. Also, I’m not sure which class it was that he received a C in. And I’m sure you’re right… his internship should be a great benefit to him.</p>
I believe that GPA is always important regardless where you apply for jobs, GPA and the courses they take.</p>
<p>My son took the first two CS courses and did not continue on the CS road, even the TA said that he could do extremely well in CS. Like what Zenkoan said, a lot of CS major students have years of experience and passion for CS, my son was not, even he could do it, maybe do it extremely well because he double majored in related fields, and did very well.</p>
It depends on the company. I graduated from Stanford with 3 degrees in engineering fields (2 coterm programs). For my first job after college, I interviewed at many tech companies on the western coast. Some companies didn’t seem to care about grades. Others obviously did. One company went so far as to request a transcript showing all the courses I had taken and grades received in those classes. One of the persons giving interviews asked me to explain why 2 classes on my transcript had lower grades. Google recently made news for no longer requesting transcripts, GPA, and similar unless recently out of college; as they were found to have little correlation with job performance – [Google:</a> GPAs are worthless | Technically Incorrect - CNET News](<a href=“http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57590249-71/google-gpas-are-worthless/]Google:”>CNET: Product reviews, advice, how-tos and the latest news) . I wouldn’t say it’s worthless, but I can see why there is little correlation because the work environment is very different from the classroom, which makes internships and other work-type experience important. It’s easier to get this type of experience while in colleges as well as get quality references, if you excel in your field. </p>
<p>Once you have been in the work force for a few years, college GPA (and which college you attended) becomes far less important. Instead work experience and what you have accomplished after graduating becomes key. </p>
<p>If you plan on going to grad school and/or doing a coterminal MS at Stanford, then it’s a different story. Your full transcript becomes more important, including GPA.</p>
<p>^. I asked my son if the Google news was true or not. He said certainly he did not know how Google used his numbers, but he believed that Google would not totally ignore his stats - he is coding at Google, though he only took two basic CS courses.</p>
<p>zenkoen - hmm “CS in your blood”. I know what you mean, some have a strong interest early on, but the implication is that CS is field for only a chosen few and that only those who programmed apps in the crib may enter. In reality, CS is a body of knowledge that can be learned. </p>
<p>I know that my daughter was at a disadvantage because she did not have years of programming experience. Every two weeks she had to learn both a new concepts/ language, and write and execute an advanced program. As anyone who has programmed knows, a single misplaced comma can bring down an entire application and learning these pit falls takes time and experience. But all this can be learned.</p>
<p>The CS field is so hot, applications seemingly limitless, research fascinating, opportunities numerous. I’d like to believe there is a place for all, whether one gets “CS in your blood” at age 12 or at age 20. (or 50 for that matter)</p>
<p>heartponderer, there’s a distribution of natural ability in CS just as there is in most every field. Certainly many people can learn to program whenever they decide to pick it up, but “programming apps in the crib” isn’t at all what I was referring to. Computer science is the process of solving complex problems algorithmically, and determining the limits of that process. Programming is just a tool. Lots of CS majors at Stanford have studied the theory and mathematics of the subject in some depth before they arrived, which puts them in a different place than those who may have designed an iPhone app or similar, let alone those with no prior exposure to programming languages. This is not to say that others who have ability and motivation won’t learn fast and excel in the field, but just to explain what the situation is here, in response to the OP. Cheers.</p>
<p>I would recommend getting acquainted with combinatorics, number theory, set theory, mathematical logic and probability, among other areas of discrete mathematics. Also theory of computation. Concurrently it’s good to get some familiarity with a basic set of object-oriented languages, maybe starting with Python and including some version of C. There are lots of good tutorials online for an array of languages, and online resources for getting exposed to the other topics listed above. This kind of background helps you hit the ground running when designing problem-solving algorithms. I didn’t need to take the intro-level CS classes at Stanford but classes beyond those move pretty fast and the quarter system doesn’t leave a lot of time for catching up if you want to be involved in lots of things besides classes.</p>
<p>^ many of Stanford’s CS lectures, including 106, are available online for free. Check out YouTube and Coursera. Funnily enough, while that’s helpful to get a jump start, it probably contributes to the problem discussed above. ;)</p>
<p>Besides EE, what are some good majors to double with computer science in terms of job marketability? I’m a little concerned about the large number of comp sci majors that Stanford and other top universities are graduating each year and wonder if comp sci students need to specialize/differentiate? What do you think?</p>
<p>Early summer update… well as I stated before, my son stayed in the Palo Alto area where he received an internship for the summer. He initially had to learn a couple of new languages but said that he has someone mentoring him and within a couple of weeks I can see his confidence level has gone up. This internship is already having a positive impact on him after only a couple of weeks. He has completed a couple of projects he was assigned and feels really good about what he’s doing :)</p>