What Should I do?

<p>CRD, I might easily agree with you if we knew about OP as little as you just revealed about yourself. High math scores. If this were x debt and he could note any one or two things that show he is prepared for this, if we could see this was a goal that had been somehow worked toward, it would change. I’m not even responding to OP anymore. I don’t even know if it’s a he or she, top of the class, or slacker. Or what his perspective or challenges are. The confusing remark about transportation to the local school, which is near moms job, the hesitation about “revealing” when we’re just asking about prep, a major that requires some math savvy and yet an inability to respond in ways that hint he understands compounding… Sure, he’s 17. But the dance becomes a game. I want off this thread, but want to say, your intentions are noble. Plenty of times, we all feel your way. But I don’t see an exchange with OP that allows us to take this on blind faith. Not this one. It’s off. It doesn’t ring right. It’s not even a question of “maybe” he is ready- because he can’t say that. Or won’t. It’s rare on a legit CC thread, not to see the basics at least start to come through. Now he’s fatigued.</p>

<p>The parents have already signed off on the plan and understand the risks. They want their kid to have chances that they never had. The kid has those chances. It’s worth it to them to risk everything. I get it. It’s not really that big of a risk because the OP will know after Freshman year where s/he stands, and success is very attainable.</p>

<p>Okay imma just say this, I’m not the top, yes I slacked a bit in highschool, I was only ranked 29 of my class, If I worked harder I coudl’ve been much much much higher. Those days are over, I will be working much harder from now on… Why? Its not only because of my parents but for my own future. My math isnt outrageously high but it was a 670 on the SAT but on Uconn’s Alek Math test I scored a 93… and you only need a 73% to get into Calc. Sigh, the reason why I canceled off avery point is because I found out that my parent’s work place is actually much farther that I expected. You guys are way more experienced than me but even if I try to take in your advice, I have to confirm it with my parents and theyre telling me to stay at Uconn.</p>

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<p>Improving your GPA will increase your chances for internships. So will doing research with a professor and applying some of what you learned to open ended problems. </p>

<p>The things I struggled with at first were

  1. The shear volume of work required - I was simply not prepared for this, and while there were others who could do it in less time, I needed the time I needed. When I stopped comparing myself to others and just put in the time that I needed, I started doing better, and the material became interesting and less stressful. </p>

<p>2) Getting behind - this rapidly deteriorates into a disaster and you need help immediately. The solution is to read ahead, to always have read the material before lecture, to take rough notes during lecture and copy them over neatly afterwards. It gives it time to sink in. It gives you time to formalize questions that you can bring to office hours.
3) Problem sets - make a solid attempt as soon as they are handed out. The trick is to do as much as you can before office hours and always go to office hours even if you don’t have questions. Office hours are packed with the students who will get As. </p>

<p>Basically, if you get behind, you are in no position to get help when it’s offered and things quickly spiral out of control. If you can keep up, it becomes really efficient and though brutal, you can really learn a lot in a short period of time.</p>

<p>4) Work in groups, but hold each member to the standard of keeping up. Everybody needs to struggle with all of the problems. Don’t divide them up. Basically, you want to learn the material well enough to teach it to your groupmates. I also had some classes where they didn’t give enough work but the tests were brutal. So we did extra problems together in a group to learn everything well enough for the tests.</p>

<p>I disagree about the whole being poor and not having anything else to lose. At least for me, that’s not true. I think it depends on the person. </p>

<p>My mom and I are dirt poor, and I have EVERYTHING to lose while also having EVERYTHING to gain, depending on the cards I play. </p>

<p>I could’ve gone to a much better and more expensive university than I currently attend. I maybe would’ve gotten equal/similar financial/merit aid to some schools, but if I got into a public u that didn’t meet aid but that I set my heart on attending, I’d be screwed.</p>

<p>My mom’s credit is tanked, and my father is dead. Who would give me the money for my dream school? How would I “get out?” </p>

<p>College is typically a poor kid’s dream. It’s a way to get out of the working class grind, a way to rise above the occasion; a way to be given a second chance. If your poor parents don’t qualify for loans, you can’t take classes, you have to start paying back loans before you get that good job, and you’re struck in the same blue collar job you were trying to escape, then how far did you go? How did you spend that second chance? You gambled it and erased any opportunity for further mobility. </p>

<p>And just because a kid’s parent is poor doesn’t mean they’re stuck there. Going to college on the cheap and getting a decent job can easily bypass that. Or even going to college on the cheap and getting stuck with a blue collar job wouldn’t put you at more of a disadvantage. You’d be stalled, but you could still move and advance. With the right amount of talent, realism, and luck, you can come out just as much ahead as spending 90k on a degree.</p>

<p>I’m rooting for the OP because I believe in one following their dreams, but I’m also rooting for reality because in the end, she always wins. I’m happy that poor kids can attend college with financial and merit help, and I’m happy that some of us can say that we overcame our roots. </p>

<p>However, I will NOT adamantly advocate people going into debt when they might not be able to pay it back. That’s just how I feel. As a poor kid, I don’t want my life story to be that of anyone else. And as a poor kid, I want to come out ahead and not be burdened with debt like I’ve been for my entire life.</p>

<p>I digress, but I just wanted to add that tidbit. Just another way to look at it.</p>

<p>Why computer science? Well honestly, one of the toughest parts of my senior year was deciding my major. I was thinking to myself what interest me the most and I thought about all kinds of stuff. I wondered how a doctor would be like, a dentist would be like, or what that would be like but then i didn’t find it to be that interesting. I’ve always been interested in technology, and alot of computer related things. Then I looked into it, I want to be a software developer or anything computer related, and i think computer science can take me there. MY top 3 languages that I want to learn is python, java, and C++. No I have not yet taken the steps to learn it yet but I will start. I’m still kind of lost as to what Computer Science is because i still think its a very broad category but I want to learn more about it and discover it. One thing that I’m confident about and won’t turn my head a way, is that I do actually want to know more about computers.</p>

<p>No I wont change into any other majors…</p>

<p>OP - to your question about scholarships: the best source of scholarships is the college/university you attend. At this point, you should be looking for departmental scholarships for the sophomore year, as funds are probably all allocated for the upcoming year. I took a quick look at U Conn’s website and saw scholarship awards listed for upperclassmen. So take some time searching the website this summer and early fall to reduce your costs in future years.</p>

<p>I will be looking into that, thanks LizzieT</p>

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<p>It’s really less about computers than it is about carefully organized thinking and problem solving. </p>

<p>Basically you use abstraction - the hiding of details - to break the problem into smaller and smaller pieces, solve each one, and put the pieces back together treating each one as a black box, without concern for the details inside. The idea of abstraction allows you to handle complexity because you don’t have to think about things all at once. Much of what you will learn are techniques and tools to create abstractions in data (data structures) and abstractions in the processes that manipulate the data (algorithms). That’s what allows you to do write very complex software from simple pieces. </p>

<p>Of course it is about computers also, so you learn about computer architecture, operating systems, and programming language and other “systems” concepts.</p>

<p>“I’m still kind of lost as to what Computer Science is…” Wow. OP, I truly wish you luck. I just hope you know what you’re getting into having your parents put their credit on the line with 12k+ loans per year. The risk just doesn’t seem worth it to me for a major that you apparently don’t even really know about. Either way, I’m bowing out of this conversation because it’s not going anywhere and I really haven’t seen productivity after 12-13 pages of posts. Good luck, OP.</p>

<p>Like I said I want to have a computer related job and a bachelors in computer science opens the gates to many of those jobs.</p>

<p>But how would you know much about its job prospects if you said you don’t know much about computer science? Certainly if you looked to see its job prospects you would have looked to see what kind of skills said jobs require and so what said major entails? </p>

<p>Sorry, but this still seems a bit blurry to me, and if this is how it is (ie not really knowing much about what you’re going into debt over) then I really don’t think it’s a prudent decision. It’s okay to not really know what you’re doing and to hopefully find that spark, but going more than 50k over debt for that just seems to cross the line.</p>

<p>Wow, give the kid a break! He’s just graduated high school, knows he wants to do something with computers, and also knows that a B.S. in computer science is the way to get there. Sounds pretty good to me.</p>

<p>For goodness sakes, consider how many engineering majors start out as “undeclared.” He has plenty of time over the next few years to decide where his specific area of interest lies and what he wants to specialize in. He certainly doesn’t need to know that today.</p>

<p>I don’t see it as a problem that the OP doesn’t know precisely what CS entails at this point. It’s hard to pin down precisely what CS is, but CRD did a good job explaining it in his last post. From that you see to succeed it’s more about a logical way of thinking with some specific computer knowledge added. Given the logical way of thinking you can teach yourself the new technologies as things change so fast. People have the ability to think this way to a greater or lesser extent or some not at all. I don’t know if this way of thinking can be taught or not or if it’s just a talent but CS education can give you tools to aid in that way of thinking. I was a mainframe programmer/analyst and then a systems programmer for 40 years and I could tell pretty quickly who could think things through logically more than others and who needed a nudge here and there to keep them on track. Those who do well in math more often are able to think this way. My son is a CS and math major, at a solid directional state U I might add, with a $30/hour internship this summer with 5 or 6 others from in-state publics and the rest being from Harvard, MIT, Cornell, Notre Dame, UMich, CMU, Swarthmore, Rice, Columbia, GA Tech, Northwestern and on and on. There are a number of ways to skin a cat.</p>