<p>Hello folks
I'm going to be a junior this year, and unfortunately, I am still undecided.
I have switched from
Aerospace Engineering->Biomedical Engineering->Bio/Psych->??
Pretty much I realized a little late that engineering is not for me, and now I am paying the price for it (especially since I will most likely spend an extra year in college). The majority of my classes have been in chemistry, all the way up to orgo 2 and orgo lab.
So all of my complaining/whining aside, my question is,
Would an attempt at a CS degree now be a futile effort, since I am already two years in and have had no prior programming experience?
Reading past posts on CS have been extremely discouraging so far. "You have to start early, it's extremely difficult, you'll end up hating it or loving it," etc... Should I just not even waste my time with an attempt? The only positive thing is that I have finished all of the math necessary for the degree (by first semester freshman year actually). Also my GPA isn't to bad at 3.51
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks</p>
<p>Also, is this thread more suited for the engineering section?</p>
<p>Do you like math? Have you taken any of the CS courses for CS majors? Would it be realistic to complete the CS degree in reasonable time at your school if you start now (based on the prerequisite chain of CS courses)?</p>
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<p>If it ends up being something that you enjoy it would definitely not be futile, but you should try to teach yourself some programming before you start to see if you like it or if you’re any good at it. Look at 6.00 on ocw.mit.edu and just start. Being able to teach yourself is critical to success in CS anyway. There is always too much new stuff to rely on a class to learn. </p>
<p>If you’re getting blown away immediately, well then it’s probably not for you. If you find it relatively easy, then take a chance and go for it.</p>
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<p>I disagree with ClassicRockerDad. I felt completely overwhelmed when I tried to teach myself programming from scratch and never got beyond “hello world”, but I have excelled in all of my CS classes and programming jobs. (Heck, after my one semester intro course, I wrote my first jump-and-run computer game complete with sound and graphics. Getting familiar with the graphics library was easy once I knew how the language worked in general.)</p>
<p>A guy in my year took his first programming class as a junior and graduated with a computer science major less than two years later. He took nothing but CS classes for his last three semesters and had to take a number of courses out of sequence, but he managed to pull it off.</p>
<p>You can most definitely complete the CS major in three years, if you are willing to stay the extra year.</p>
<p>That being said, you are taking quite a risk: what if you decide at the end of next year that computer science is not for you after all? From that point of view, the advice to teach yourself programming and see how it goes makes sense. If you enjoy that, there’s a greater chance that you would be happy with the CS major. But struggling to teach yourself the basics does NOT mean that you wouldn’t excel as a CS major.</p>
<p>After talking to a CS advisor, she said it would most likely take an extra semester, and that is without taking any summer classes.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the advice!</p>