Should I bother trying for Computer Science?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Washington
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<p>I'm a current HS senior who is awaiting my fall 2014 admission decision..I'm confident I'll get into UW but I'm worried about not getting to major in CS. I applied for direct admit but I heard they only take like 20-30 kids.</p>

<p>My stats:</p>

<p>SAT: 1760 (M:610, R:540, W:610)</p>

<p>HS GPA 3.45(full-time running start, 100 Bellevue College credits (3.4 college GPA) and my AAS-DTA completed by this June)</p>

<p>ECs:
300 hours child care volunteer
Part-time construction assistant
Play guitar
Bodybuilding/ fitness</p>

<p>Bad news:
I got a 2.7 in CSE 142 equivalent at BC
Failed Calc I first time, retaking now and expecting a C, maybe C+(I got the worst teacher, barely speaks english)</p>

<p>BUT I am getting a 3.7 in CSE 143 right now!</p>

<p>I will be taking Calc II and Phys 121 next quarter at BC and have already been accepted to Bothell, WSU and WWU and a couple avg OOS schools( Utah, BSU). </p>

<p>Assuming I get into UW, should I even bother if I want to be a CS major? Or should I go somewhere else? Any CS-related majors I could get into at UW?</p>

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<p>ALSO: Would re-taking CSE 142/143 at UW increase chances if I dont get DA?</p>

3

<p>Unfortunately it is not looking good for you. Comp Sci is very competitive at UW, a barely passing grade in Calc and a 2.7 in one of the core prerequisites is not going to cut it. My husband had better marks than yours in all these subjects and he was rejected twice. If you are set on doing Comp Sci you are probably much better off going somewhere else…UW Bothell is probably a good choice. </p>

<p>Edit to add: I am fairly sure that most people who are accepted get at or near 4.0s in both 142 and 143. You’d have to ask an adviser what they’d think of you retaking them. It might be worth a shot if you think you can do very well a second time around.</p>

4

<p>Wow, yeah I guess I sort of knew that’d be the answer…I just don’t want to accept it. (SIgh)</p>

<p>On the bright-side, maybe they’ll like the fact that I did all of this while a junior/senior in HS. The fact that I’m a “freshman” applicant has to help my chances, when compared to other people just graduating from high school.</p>

<p>I really love the UW-Seattle and am sick of the community college environment(which Bothell seems a lot like).</p>

<p>I’m mostly interested in web-design/development, phone apps, and internet advertising…could I major in something like Communications or Sociology and just take a lot of non-Major CSE courses and make my own personal projects(websites, apps, etc)?? (If I wanted to be able to get a job in the fields)</p>

5

<p>If you’re intent on working as a developer, it is definitely best to get an actual Comp Sci degree, even if it means going to a less prestigious university. However, is this what you’re actually interested in? Is it possible that you’re really into the whole tech/startup culture, but not necessarily into coding? If so, you might want to consider a different major with the intention of working in tech in some non-coding capacity. For what it’s worth, my husband is majoring in Interaction Design (which involves designing functional user interfaces and things like that…companies like Facebook hire ID majors). </p>

<p>But you’re right, the fact that you completed these courses in high school may be looked upon favorably. </p>

6

<p>Yeah I’m much more interested in “tech” than engineering or “the dirty work”. I just assumed one needed a CS degree to get their foot in the door. Actual coding is cool but not something I’m passionate about. I love business/marketing/communications with a technological aspect…I wish I thought more about this before.</p>

<p>I’ll be a junior this fall and need to choose a major, CS is looking less and less likely…</p>

7

<p><a href=“https://ischool.uw.edu/”>https://ischool.uw.edu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Informatics covers a broad range, in particular user experience, information architecture, project management, and web development (and you are also able to take the five or so CSE non majors classes as well if you choose). As a result, you’ll meet people with a variety of backgrounds. You’ll still find a significant number of developers in the major (most of whom were CSE rejects), but they have to self study more on their own time to make up for the lack of CSE knowledge. But in your case, Informatics sounds like it’d be an excellent fit. </p>

<p>Here are the course descriptions:
<a href=“INFORMATICS”>https://www.washington.edu/students/crscat/info.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Web development: check (INFO 343 and INFO 344, though you can also take CSE 154)
Phone app development: check (this quarter is the first quarter that they’ve offered an app dev course and it’s listed as a section under special topics, so I can’t guarantee if the course will still be held in the future)
Internet advertising: check (there’s an SEO course that’s also listed under special topics, and INFO 320 (at least when I took it) was making a search engine combined with marketing it with a touch of SEO).</p>

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<p>I went to an information session for the UW, they claimed that they accept 200-300 into CSE, and about 50-70 attend. I too applied for CSE and am hoping for good news over the horizon. To get into CSE as a non direct admit, it can be very difficult. You need some obscene GPA and required courses. Which makes it so that you can only apply by the end of your second year. Your scores are going to hurt you as well as your CS and calculus grade. To be honest you will probably not get into CSE with that, I might not even get in with my grades and scores.</p>

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<p>What are your scores? Have you already taken CS 142 and 143 in high school?</p>

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<p>Direct admit (HS '10) here – </p>

<p>It’s actually easier to get into CSE through upper division admissions compared to direct admit. Yes, you’ll have to work on your prereqs to keep your grades up, but it’s also not true that you need a 4.0 to get into the department. Grades don’t hurt, but some people with 3.8+ GPAs get rejected because their personal statements just aren’t up to what the admissions committee is looking for. </p>

<p>We also recently got enough funding to open up more spots in each graduating class in CSE. When I was a freshman, there were 160 graduating CSE students per year. Now, there’s 250.</p>

<p>It’s possible to go into the tech field without majoring in CSE at UW. Common majors include: EE, INFO, and ACMS. There are science and engineering career fairs every quarter, where companies like Microsoft, Snapchat, Tesla, and Zappos come to recruit. </p>

<p>Feel free to PM me; I don’t frequent the forums as much as I did in the past. :\ I’ve also talked about CSE or direct admit in general. Other CSE students who had some great insight on this forum include: mlidge and sumzup. Note that our numbers are most likely out of date in terms of admissions and other stuff.</p>

<p>You should also contact our undergraduate advisors to see what they say. They’re awesome!</p>

<p>Side note: NinRash, what do you mean by “dirty work”? And how are you differentiating between “tech” and “engineering” (which I assume might be software engineering)? </p>

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<p>Thanks for the info Speedsolver, your post definitely motivates me and gives me hope about UW-Seattle. </p>

<p>By dirty work I meant things like database work and data structures(engineering) vs more front-end programming like websites and other sub-fields of technology like design and business of technology. This might be a horrible way of differentiating, and might not make any sense…maybe I’m just anxious to actually make applications and stuff vs “write a method that takes a stack of integers…”</p>

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<p>Word of advice: You will insult the majority of software engineers if you call what we do on a daily basis “dirty work.”</p>

<p>We’re not given specs that say “write a method that takes a stack of integers…”. The last time I did anything like that was in CSE 143. Instead, we have a goal, like “add video calling to Google Hangouts.” Our CSE background gives us the knowledge to design a solid product or feature. Many of us work on front end or design components. Some of us become entrepreneurs.</p>

<p>If you’re only interested in front end, design, and business, you should look into INFO, HCDE, and the Business with Tech Concentration(?) programs. </p>

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<p>Ooof. Where do I start. (I’m DA '10, CSE grad Dec '13, fulltime Software Engineer)</p>

<p>Based purely on
this:
“Yeah I’m much more interested in “tech” than engineering or “the dirty work”. I just assumed one needed a CS degree to get their foot in the door. Actual coding is cool but not something I’m passionate about. I love business/marketing/communications with a technological aspect…I wish I thought more about this before.”
and
this:
"By dirty work I meant things like database work and data structures(engineering) vs more front-end programming like websites and other sub-fields of technology like design and business of technology. This might be a horrible way of differentiating, and might not make any sense…maybe I’m just anxious to actually make applications and stuff vs ‘write a method that takes a stack of integers…’</p>

<p>You either a) don’t actually want to be a developer and so should probably not major in CSE or b) don’t actually understand what a software engineer/developer does. Actually, I think it may be a bit of both.</p>

<p>Let me tell you about what I do at my job. I’m in kinda a weird form of dev - my team works on creating validation (test) automation solutions and using automation to test products. I haven’t written a method that takes a stack of integers to do anything since my freshman year, because once you get past the data structures class you can actually call object methods that do that for you, better than you can (well in data structures you are technically writing methods to do something like that, but you’re also writing the stack too so it’s much more involved - and fun)</p>

<p>And bear in mind, validation automation and infrastructure isn’t for everyone, and mine in particular is an atypical software dev job - my company actually has a physical product so we have different validation needs.</p>

<p>I don’t “design” in the graphical sense, but I do “design” in the software sense - I work to architect software and tools that will be maintainable, functional, and efficient. I create test scripts (the actual test content to be run by the automation system), work on tools to add on to our system, work on the system itself, stuff like that. I’ve only been with this team for a couple months, but that’s generally what I’m working on.</p>

<p>It’s not glamorous. No one outside of my organization will ever see what I do directly. But it’s fun for me. Development, especially validation development, is like a puzzle to me. I try to figure out what the best solution is given what I’m trying to accomplish, what speed goals I have, memory and other restrictions, etc. And yes, I have to decide the best data structure to use, but I don’t implement it myself ;)</p>

<p>Based on your description, it’s 100% dirty work (thanks for that by the way).</p>

<p>I’ve also found that in UW CSE, it’s rare to find a person who both likes frontend/ui AND is good at it (although most people who are actually motivated to develop those skills are pretty good at it). For me, design and front end and graphical anything is like pulling teeth. I don’t like it and I’m not good at it at all. Gimme a command line and some backend to implement though and I’m one happy girl.</p>

<p>If you prefer “business/marketing/communications with a technological aspect” and “front-end programming like websites and other sub-fields of technology like design and business of technology” (bear in mind though that modern websites DEFINITELY have backend too, and it’s very important) to working with software design/architecture and coding (after understanding what a software engineer actually does), don’t go into the CSE dept. You won’t be happy. The department does not have a focus on that at all, and the majority of the department is fine with that. Look at HCDE or Info, or Business with Tech concentration.</p>

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<p>Before anything, I want to make sure that you understand I did NOT mean to offend anybody! If you guys have prompts like that (add video to google hangouts example) then I am VERY interested in CSE! Building products and features would be amazing! </p>

<p>I think I understand better now…looks like I wanted to run before learning to crawl</p>

<p>CSE is the goal!</p>

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<p>ALSO: Sorry, english isn’t my first language…I thought “dirty work” meant “the harder stuff that others don’t want to do, because it’s too hard”. Apparently it means (according to google) “harder stuff others dont want to do, because it is unpleasant.”</p>

<p>Mlidge - Your job sounds interesting and all the others who have similar jobs like you must be very intelligent and have a lot of perserverance. I take back the “dirty work” comment, (since i wasnt even using the term correctly), I think a better term would be “foundational” or “backbone”?</p>

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<p>Haha don’t worry about it. Speedsolver and I are friends IRL and we mayyy have conspired a bit to give you a hard time. And some people really do see it that way and are vocal about it, so we try to cut that off when it starts.</p>

<p>After reading you post, I kinda figured you were trying to run without knowing where you were going. Real software engineering is nothing like 143. For example, you can use things other people (like Java devs) have made. Software engineering isn’t really like upper division classes either - but the classes give you tools to succeed in industry. I’ve heard getting a CSE degree described as “learning how to learn” before. You’re given fundamental knowledge and the tools to do your job, but you never stop learning in your career. This especially applies to languages - people can get really caught up on what programming languages they should know, but in truth once you know one programming language, it’s pretty easy to pick up others (caveats - oop to C sucks, and oop to functional languages sucks), but in the most basic way programming languages do the same thing. [oop := Object Oriented Programming, like Java or C#]</p>

<p>In a way, my job is test engineering. If you’ve ever heard of SDET (software development engineer in test), I’m kinda like that - but not in the traditional sense because of our products. </p>

<p>Really, the best word for what you meant is back-end - stuff that enables features but is not directly seen. Front-end usually refers more to the literal web dev and ui. To use Speedsolver’s video in Google Hangouts example, backend would handle connecting to the video source and streaming it to the other person, integrating it with existing google hangouts features (such as having chat along side the video, being able to associate video input with a user), while front end is kinda like the final integration - putting the pieces into the existing ui and pulling it together. (my understanding at least - of course depends on company, project, and people’s own definitions of stuff). And front end dev is totally a thing too! It’s just a different type of problem to solve. Front end does not always equal graphic design - although front end people generally do have a better understanding of design than systems nerds like me.
My current job doesn’t even really have any front-end engineering. Our automation system has a bit, but it’s more function over form. Front end is a big thing at web companies though - your FB, Google, Amazon etc</p>

<p>And you’ll find that sometimes dirty work applies in a sense - it can be hard, and other people DON’T want to do it, and it can suck sometimes, but we find it enjoyable enough and challenging enough to keep going, and we’re proud of what we do. Software engineering isn’t 100% sunshine and flowers and rainbows. Things go wrong. You have to stay late and frantically work to fix something. You accidentally cause servers, websites, and test machines to go down. You design something you’re really proud of and then the next day you realize that you forgot x important thing and have to redesign. (and then you sad face and have to go get a vitamin water from the fridge)</p>

<p>But like I said, it’s hard, and it sucks sometimes, but I love it.</p>

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<p>It’s really neat to hear from people like you and where UW is taking you!</p>

<p>For now…fingers crossed on awaiting admissions and a lot more studying!! Thanks!</p>

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<p>Hey! Sorry if we scared you a bit there. =) </p>

<p>During internships, all good managers listen to what their interns wants to work on and see what features/projects would be a better fit based on their skill level and interests.</p>

<p>Some general examples of intern projects are:

  • Create a data visualization tool for X
  • Reduce latency for system Y
  • Build the mobile app for Z product with a team (ie. Kindle for Android, Facebook Paper, etc).
  • Redesign the customer experience for a product (lots of front end, customer centered design decisions)
  • “This one feature we’ve wanted for a while doesn’t exist. It’s really messy but super cool. Build it.” (I got this once! Best. Project. Ever.)</p>

<p>As a full time engineer, it’s a bit different since you’re (hopefully) at the company for more than 12 weeks. </p>

<p>Anyway, I find that the strongest front end engineers (or any team member, really) I’ve worked with in the past have a solid technical background. Since they really understand how databases and other components in the product architecture work, they can build a beautiful and scalable front end component that is fast. To be well respected and successful, front end engineers know it’s more than just HTML/CSS and maybe basic JavaScript. If Google’s search results take a little more time (think ms) to render on the search page because of a random decision the front end people made, Google will lose a ton of customers. This in turn also loses numbers of people who use their products, ads monetization, etc…</p>

<p>Anyway, there’s a ton of cool stuff you can do here. You will have to take some classes that you might not be interested in at all in the long run. However, all of this knowledge builds up and prepares you for the real world out there. It’s totally worth it. </p>

<p>If I tried to fit myself into a ‘role’ on a team, I suppose I would say I’m a full stack engineer (works on both back end and front end) who loves to deal with product/front end design. There’s a ton of routes in the CSE department; you could do really low level, systems type work. You could also take classes like HCI or non-CSE design classes to fulfill some major requirements. The experience is up to you! </p>

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<p>Hi, I hope I’m not intruding in NinRash’s thread but since the topic of Washington’s CSE is raised I’ll like to get some advice here since I’m in a similar situation. I’m an international transfer applying for general admission first because I haven’t done CSE142 and 143, and my pre-req grades are decent (I think): 4.0s in Physics 1 and Calculus 1&2, 3.7s in Calculus 3 and Chemistry 1. Washington is my first choice (applying for Computer Engineering), but assuming I’m accepted, I’m still unsure whether I should risk it since I may not get into the CSE department. I’m worried that international credits will be looked down on compared to other applicants who finished their pre-reqs at the college itself, and that I will be at a huge disadvantage while applying to CSE.</p>

<p>To be honest I’m confused if CE is really what I want to do. I’ve always been interested in computers and stuff like web design (interested but not skilled at it heh), robotics, and app development (I attended a workshop on making apps with Xcode and enjoyed it a lot), but at the same time I feel that I’m not passionate enough about it like some people who learn coding from a young age are. This is why I decided on CE so that I will be exposed to both software and hardware, with CS as my second choice if I felt that I liked the programming part better. Clearly having CS as an alternative is impossible at Washington since both CE and CS are so difficult to enter. If I end up getting rejected I will probably choose EE, but I’m not too keen on it really.</p>

<p>I really like the sound of Washington though, due to reasons like weather and location (and a particular club I’ll love to join), but I’m not sure if my dilemma above is a dealbreaker for me. I’m sorry if this is off-topic or something, but I would appreciate any opinions especially from seniors! :)</p>

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<p>fortyeight…I think CE and CS are perfect for you!</p>