<p>I want to do CS because I'm interested in the theory and the math of it, and of course making cool software. But it worries me that, because of the recent surge of kids who do nothing but play video games, they'll all go into CS because they "like computers" and have no other motivations in life. I'm afraid I'm going to be lumped in with them. Is this all true?</p>
<p>No, not true. CS is far from easy… those that go into because they play video games and “like computers”, which is a very small minority by the way (most gamers will not do so), will get weeded out fairly quickly.</p>
<p>I don’t think you should be worried about other people. If someone who got into it for “the wrong reasons” does very well then you should consider that you are in good company and not look down on them. So I don’t really understand your question “is this all true”. Is what true, that all people in the major are treated with respect? Huh?</p>
<p>It is true that a lot of people in the major will get weeded out because it is not as easy as they think. Or they find they don’t like it, it wasn’t what they though it would be. You might be interested in the data that @ucbalumnus posted about San Jose State, located in Silicon Valley, summary</p>
<p>“After one year, 79.7% of incoming computer science majors are still at the school, but only 48.6% are still in the major. After six years, 59.5% have graduated or are still enrolled, but only 18.9% graduated or are still enrolled in the major.”</p>
<p>I will mention that my daughter has similar interest you you and did joint math-cs major and research in theory and that route worked out very well for her.</p>
<p>Trust me, a, for lack of a better word, dingbat at math that just “likes computers” will not make it through. Same as a dingbat at math that “likes cars” wont make it in mechanical engineering. not saying gamers are dingbats (I am one myself) but your average joe that only cares about video games will probably transfer to business, IT, graphic design, or straight up programming.</p>
<p>CS has a lot more applications than just video games (although game design is an interesting field in itself), and there are many unsolved problems in computer science. So CS is not necessarily an easy major.</p>
<p>The way I think of video games is this: just because you like video games does not mean that you would enjoy making them. This is kind of like how enoying reading books doesn’t necessarily mean you want to write a book. In fact, liking video games doesn’t really say a lot as to whether or not someone would be a good fit for CS. I feel like there’s still a lot of people who go into CS for the money and don’t end up being able to stick with it which is probably representative in the statistic that BrownParent mentioned above. I’d say CS is a little easier than most engineering majors but it would still not be far off from them in difficulty. No one is going to look at your CS degree and assume that because you have a CS degree that it wasn’t rigorous enough. If you like CS, go into CS.</p>