Should I switch out of CS?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Los Angeles
1

<p>I didn't do very well in CS32 last quarter. I'm taking CS33 this quarter and we just got our midterms back. Judging from my score, it looks I'm not going to do very well in this class either. If I'm not getting As or high Bs in these classes, is this an indication that I'm in the wrong major? Are upper division classes going to be 10x more work and 10x harder than this series?</p>

<p>I do enjoy programming some of the time but I'm not absolutely passionate about it, as many people seem to be. I'm also not really sure what else I would major in or what I want to do with my life in general.</p>

<p>I'd really appreciate any advice or input!</p>

2

<p>I was in this same position last year.</p>

<p>Always did fine on projects but below average on midterm/finals.</p>

<p>I averaged a B- (few C+'s, few B’s) on all the lower div CS classes.</p>

<p>Upper Division classes in my opinion are actually curved MORE. (easier to get B’s) The material gets more complex but it is only more complex because it assumes you understand the knowledge you learned from CS 31/32. I’m [taking/have taken] 3 upper divs. I’ve gotten a B in one, and am expecting an A/B in the others. Try to plan your schedule around good professors and go to Office Hours if you don’t understand a topic.</p>

<p>I am not entirely passionate in programming, but I do understand how it works, and do understand the material I learn from class. I’m not the best test taker, but so be it.</p>

<p>So yeah, as long as you enjoy the topics you learn, then stick with it.</p>

<p>Ask yourself, is there any other major you would actually enjoy doing and eventually starting a CAREER in?</p>

<p>I also have a friend who stayed two years as EE, hated it entirely, switched to BizEcon as a junior, and now loves it and even got an internship with Deloitte. You can try some other intro classes like Management 1A etc.</p>

<p>Really try to make up your GPA from the other classes you take. I’ve never gotten an A in a CS class, but I’ve gotten all A/A-s in the GE classes I’ve taken. Really strive to get above 3.0 even if that means buffering it with easy GE’s.</p>

<p>Also, from what I have seen, most CS graduates from UCLA head towards Software Development. This is not the route I want to follow, and it doesn’t seem like the way you want to go either.</p>

<p>Do some reading on these careers:</p>

<p>Program Manager
Business Analyst
IT Consultant
Information Systems
Information Technology</p>

<p>do any of these interest you? What do you want to do after you get that diploma?</p>

3

<p>I switched from CSE to AE even though I had figured I wanted to go into CS pretty much all my life. It was a tough decision but it’s hard to keep playing that game if you lose every time and dear gods those first few CS classes are a lot of work.</p>

<p>Sometimes I regret it but I’m happy with my new major too. I liked programming but hated how ridiculous some of the projects were - not to mention how weird it is doing a class entirely on your computer and then having a paper midterm/final. The thing I hated about those early CS classes is that CS is really free-form by nature but a lot of the time you have to do things JUST SO or you end up spinning your wheels for hours and hours without really getting anywhere. I absolutely hated having days and days before a something was due but still worrying like hell that I had started down the wrong path from the get go. I like AE because there’s plenty of opportunities to flex your programming skills but it’s nowhere near as “tricky” as in CS.</p>

<p>Anyways, can’t speak for how hard it gets in CS but I can say that if you are having second thoughts and you have more than one interest (like I did, despite pigeonholing myself) then it might be worth it to take a quarter off of CS and take a class or two in an area that you could see yourself getting into. Just don’t do like I did (on Smallberg’s advice) and take a quarter off only to find that you can’t catch up until the next year because they don’t offer the next class in the series again until then!</p>

4

<p>As a CS&E major imo if you consider CS32 and CS33 to be very challenging then you should consider switching. You’ll have much harder upper division CS classes in the future (ex. CS111 and CS131) with assignments that are much more complex and time consuming than anything in CS32 or CS33.</p>

5

<p>I disagree with h4x24 about CS33…a lot of CS majors find CS 33 very hard. It’s not really right in our element. I have to admit though, that doing poorly in CS 32 might be a bad sign. Especially because you said you don’t really love programming…I mean, if you’re doing poorly in something you don’t even enjoy, then maybe you should consider switching.</p>

<p>What is it that attracted you to CS? What about it do you enjoy?</p>

<p>I mean, not getting straight A’s in CS courses doesn’t mean you should switch. They’re all pretty hard.</p>

6

<p>Thanks for the help everyone!</p>

<p>One of the problems is that I’m a second year. I was undeclared when I first came in and I switched into CS late. I’m already quite behind and definitely running out of time to explore various majors… I’ve been thinking that I might want to switch to something more bio-related though, except I haven’t even taken any of the LS classes. </p>

<p>The reason I switched to CS orginally was because I took PIC10A last year and I really enjoyed the class (I also liked CS31). Of course, PIC10a was way, wayyy easier than 32/33. The projects for those classes have just been sucking up so much of my time and making it difficult for me to balance other things along with school. That, combined with doing poorly on the midterms, is making me think I should switch. Some of the upper division CS classes sound interesting though and there are times when I think I really do like programming, especially the whole puzzle solving aspect of it.</p>

<p>I’m not sure exactly what I want to do for a career, but I might want to go into research of some sort. If I do stick with CS, I think I might want to go into software engineering (the more business-related stuff doesn’t appeal as much to me).</p>

7

<p>If you find CS31/CS32 hard, then you’ll find CS132/CS111 impossible. </p>

<p>If you find CS33 hard, then you’ll find CS151B/CS152B impossible. </p>

<p>You need stuff from CS31/32 to understand how to write a compiler. You need stuff from CS33 to understand computer architecture. </p>

<p>If you take CS174 (computer graphics) as one of the electives, then you’ll find it much more time consuming on the programming projects than CS31/32.</p>