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Choosing Careers in Technology?
Salandarin asks: "Until recently, I was convinced that my destiny involved a degree in CS, stemming from my love of video games. I've really enjoyed what I've found so far, and I enjoy the art of programming and the study of algorithms. However, from what I'm told, more advanced study requires a strong knowledge of mathematics. Mathematics, much like the hard sciences, are not my interest. Although I'm not ready to abandon CS just yet, I'm starting to examine other options. I enjoy the world of technology more than any other, and as such I would really like to stay here, no matter what field I choose. I am specifically curious about jobs that involve some form of journalism, writing, and/or communication, but I'm open to everything at this point. What other careers are available in technology, for a person like me?"
I am a professional programmer, I make a 6 figure salary, and I suck at math. Good programmers are efficent with linguistics and are able to think in terms of structure and process. If that sounds like you -- strugle with the math like I did. If not, consider something else.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Keep in mind that CS began as a branch of the mathematics departments at many universities. Probably at least partially because of this, deep theory is extremely mathematical.
On the other hand, if all you want to do is program, you don't need that much math. What you get in a typical undergraduate CS curriculum should be enough.
The biggest shock for me, when I started programming professionally, was not the pain of higher-level math, but the pain of maintenance. In school, you work on a project for a few weeks, maybe with one or two people, hand it in, and it's over. You never have to think about it again.
At work, they hand you a pile of poorly written, undocumented code and tell you to fix it. Programming is often not so much about creating something new, but tweaking what already exists.
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
I wouldn't suggest journalism.
It sounds like you got into comptuers because you liked games and playing around. Then you got into programming and liked some topics and now that you've come up against something hard, you want to pack up your bags and go home to Mommy.
Journalism, like many jobs, is hard work (if done right and well). If you think you love a field, but don't love it enough to go through the hard stuff, the subject is a good line: you can always work at Best Buy.
If you're just starting out and you're going to give up, turn tail, and run from what you think you love because of temporary adversity (it'll be over when you graduate -- you know that), then please, quit now. I certainly don't want you ever working for me.
On the other hand, you can face the Math, get a good tutor, and you might find that it can be different than what you expect. When I worked in education, I found many students hated math because they had rotten teachers and had not done well. They came in with such a poor attitude, they never gave it a chance.
But if you don't want to face some classes that will be over when you graduate to do what you think you love, then start right now practicing the words, "Would you like some fries with that."
I enjoy the art of programming and the study of algorithms. However, from what I'm told, more advanced study requires a strong knowledge of mathematics. Mathematics, much like the hard sciences, are not my interest.
I'm having trouble understanding this comment. First you say that you enjoy studying algorithms... and then you go on to say that you aren't interested in mathematics.
Since these two statements don't really fit together, I see two possibilities:
1. Your idea of what the "study of algorithms" is doesn't match mine. Are you interested in finding new algorithms, analyzing how long it takes them to run, and proving that they work? That's all computer science, and thus a part of mathematics.
2. Your idea of what "mathematics" is doesn't match mine. What exactly do you find uninteresting? If the only things you dislike are vector calculus and complex analysis -- hey, join the club. Fortunately, very little computer science needs those.
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If you want to do CS "for real", and not just have it as a job skill, then yes, you'll need quite a bit of mathematics.
On the other hand, programming, by itself, is not really worth all that much as a skill by itself outside the actual field of CS. Somebody who only have skills as a programmer is not going to find themselves in any great demand. You need to have something else that is relevant for the business field you will find yourself working in. A "programmer" is always going to lose out to a "[chosen field skill] with documented programming skills".
What I mean is, if you aim to work with programming in, say, the financial sector, then having a solid, documented skill set in economics or revision wil be at least as important as programming skill. If you're aiming for some technical field, you will need at least a bachelor's degree in subjects relevant to the field, whether it means a degree in chemistry, mechanical engineering, combustion physics, medicine or whatever. And always, always, "people skills" matter and are important, no matter what field you choose, since you will always be dealing with people.
Programming skills are a lot like mathematical skill. for most fields, it is a tool, not an end in itself, so you need to know your target field first and foremost. The lone exception is if your chosen field is CD (or mathematics) itself, but then you need to go a a lot deeper into the field; a doctorate will not hurt at all at that point.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Of course, if you don't want to get into that field but do application development, then you don't need any more math knowledge than what the basic undergraduate degree will get you.
Without a love of hard science and mathematics you will never be more than a mediocre programmer.
The hacker spirit is an undying desire to know; a hacker never settles for 'black box' explanations or shies away from knowledge because it's too hard.
What confuses me most is how you reconcile your proclaimed love for algorithms with your disdain for mathematics: that portion of CS, more than any other, is pure mathematics. I ask you to check your claim and trying to read, and more importantly grasp the essence, of Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming" without a strong background in mathematics.
I ask you to check your claim and try to design, and truly understand the workings of, a simple full adder circuit without a fair knowledge of quantum mechanics.
Without a love of physics and math you can never become more than a code monkey, the desk jockey equivalent of a construction worker, who can put pre-assembled bits and pieces together but will never gain any true mastery of the material or progress above the millions of other mindless bromides.
A BS in Computer Science should be easy to get with only average math talent. Can you get a B in Cal I? You can handle the math in CS. Once you get out, you can probably forget it.
The notable exception is most areas of machine learning. ML is for computer scientists who were too smart to be statisticians. The math there can be obscene.
I've always liked that CS isn't rigorously scientific, but not so towards the liberal arts that anyone can get a degree in it. You need to be creative but you need to think about the structure of things. You need to think outside the box, but also work within limitations.
Sometimes CS is engineering, many times it is artistry, in some ways it is a true science, and occasionally there is some math.
The nice part about the math, is once you (or somebody) gets it right, you don't have to think about it anymore. Make it a function, use it a million times, forget the math.
I see a lot of negative comments here, and so I thought I would post something that his hopefully helpful.
Firstly, I have to say that a lot of the comments here should be heeded, Computer Science is a hard science, and is as mathematical as any other hard science, and more mathematical than some. In light of this, you should first think about you're statement that you do not care for hard science or mathematics. You may find that this is not true, instead you may find that what you really find is that you are primarily interested in those areas of mathematics and science which directly relate to computer science, and find it loathsome to be forced into required math and science courses which you do not see as directly related to CS. If this is true, then I urge you to push forward, you will often find that at the beginning of you're education, things seem disjointed. It is not until you near the end of you're education that those disperate elements of you're education begin to form a cohesive whole. If, on the other hand, you decide that hard math and science is not for you, then you should seriously consider changing you're major.
Computer Science is not the only technology related field of study, and it is not the only vector to working in a technology related job. I would say that you may consider looking into Computer Information Systems, which focuses less on algorithms and hard programming, and instead takes a look at how systems work together at a higher level, desiging those systems on that higher level, and resolving computer and business sytems into a cohesive and useful technological infrastructure for business. This will mean that you won't do much hard programming, though there may be some programming involved. Instead, as you expressed a desire for, you're focus will be on communication within a buisness. Writing documentation on the design of the system, interacting with people, departments, managers, and users. You act as a lieson between the developers and admnistrators and the business side of things.
I'm in a very similar situation as to yours, except I started out in CIS and realized that my interest in mathematics and hard science meant that I should have chosen CS instead of settling for CIS as my major. I'm getting ready to graduate this term and I have to say that I would suggest you don't make my mistake, and find the major that really suits you.
If analysis and design does not suit you, you may also consider other fields such as working as a technical writer, a technological reporter, or (if you're evil) working with marketing. There are a lot of areas where people need someone who can act as a translator between technological people and systems and others.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
If you are interested in technology, there's some fields of study that most computer geeks aren't aware of: Broadcast Electronics Technology and Telecommunications Technology. Both are typically 2 year programs at a technical institute. Broadcast engineers (actually technologists) deals with the installation, repair, maintenance , design of radio, television and video/audio production facilities. Here's a link to the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology's (SAIT) website on the Broadcast Technology program with a nice short video.
Telecommunications conjours up ideas of phone systems but it is much more than that. In 1996, a milestone occured in telecommunications. It was the first time that more data then voice was transmitted via the phone networks. Telecommunication is the backbone of the Internet!
Every ISP, MAN or WAN ends up running through the telecommunications system. Computer networking ends at the router where it connects to the phone system, then the data magically appears at the destination router. The movie Warriors of the Net refers to the telecommunication's network as the Wild West where networking runs wild with little rules! Quite the opposite is true but it illustrates the point on how little is known about telecommunications from the computer industry.
Every residence, business and government office has a phone system and data communication network that connects to its head or branch office. There is a major convergence going on where cable companies are offering voice service and data service along with their cable service. Phone companies are offering data and video services on their networks including cell phones. It is truly an interesting era!
Here is SAIT's Telecommunication website that I am currently updating to include VOIP and PBX labs based on Astericks software. And ys, I am biased as I am an instructor at SAIT teaching these disciplines.
Good luck in your search, I hope that this information opens your eyes to other possibilities.
Seriously though... if you like writing, you could become a tech journalist. You know, like the guys who write for Wired, Popular Science, ExtremeTech, PC Gamer magazine etc. You could be covering E3 or benchmarking video cards and combing through the data. Or you might be at a future Apple WWDC reporting on Mac OS XI (eleven or "zye"?), or in Cambridge meeting some MIT prof about his flying car. Eventually perhaps you'll author a definitive history of SGI (it truly was an amazing company). I wouldn't call these serious "tech" jobs, but it sounds like you want to get paid to have fun related to tech, preferably involving journalism. Tech journalism would bridge your interests pretty well I think.
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And hey, your
It is true that you need some good mathematical foundations to truly excel. It is also true that those who never realize this rarely make it much past "mediocre", by my admittedly-high standards. However, the math you need to be good at may not be the math you are thinking.
When most people say "math", they're thinking Arithmetic (the manipulation of numbers with few or no "variables"), some Algebra, and maybe Calculus. These maths are nearly useless for day-to-day programming, unless you are dealing with a clear and obvious exception, like game engine programming, writing a CAD program, etc. This is not to say they are completely useless; at the very least they are brain exercise of a calibre hardly attainable anywhere else, and that's nothing to spit at. But in general, this sort of math is not useful to programming, and you can be borderline atrocious at all three of those disciplines and be fine.
What you really need to be good at is "discrete math", which at best gets mentioned in high school cirricula as "sets" and then ignored pretty thoroughly after that. It's still true that what you do in the classroom doesn't bear much resemblence to programming (I've only had to do something even remotely like a proof two or three times in 10 years of programming), but the things they are trying to test you on do matter a lot. Think of it like the exercises you'll do on a basketball team or something; you're not going to do a lot of running straight to half-court and right back again 20 times in a row in a real game, but it's good exercise. And you can still be good at playing basketball even if you don't do the exercises, but you'll be better if you do.
Some examples of things that the discrete math theory will talk about that I find many people are very weak on:
1. the math you need for software and the math you do in college in general is very different from the math you see in high school. There are much less numbers and formula memorization and there is a lot more conceptual thinking.
2. Anything you decide to do will have some difficult parts. That is life. If you keep running away from challanges you will never get anywhere. If you truly like writing programs and figuring out complex algorithms, then you should just stick it out with some math that may not be as enjoyable.
If straight CS is not something you are interested in, perhaps you should look at Informatics. Informatics is a relatively new field of study applying computer technology to other established fields. For example, bioinformatics applies computer science to biology, studying the genome, and using computer modeling to understand how our bodies work at the molecular and cellular level. Wikipedia has an entry in Informatics that explains the connection better than I could in a simple slashdot post, and links to many of the informatics sub-domains talk about work that is being done in those fields, from Human Computer Interface to Health Informatics, Chemical Informatics to Lab Informatics, the field is opening up fast and students are needed. Being a former CIS major who is going into Health Informatics, I can say that I enjoy the prospect of applying my knowledge of computer information systems to the health care industry to help the doctors, nurses, and clinicians do their jobs better, more efficiently and grant them access to information that would not have been easy to come by in the past.
So far the program does not delve into the depths of detail that are seen in many of the other programs. And while knowledge of bits and bytes might help me do my job better, it is more important that I understand the concepts of what clinicians need, and what technology can provide, so that I may bridge the gap between both fields. Instead of Computer Science where you understand a computer as an entity, Informatics allows you to apply knowledge to various fields in ways that experts in one field or another would not find obvious. Consider Informatics to be the jack-of-all-trades degree that allows you to push information technology beyond the "a computer on the desk" mindset and into the future of computer technology.
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A BS in Computer Science should be easy to get with only average math talent. Can you get a B in Cal I? You can handle the math in CS.
... yea ... those of us that took differential equations (DifEQ) are going to have to disagree with you on this one.
Ummm
All I can remember about DifEQ was that it was like the Star Trek of wild ass math - you have a seriously nasty equation that you need to take the derivative of, but nobody on this planet can do it so you get Scotty to beam you to a planet in a parallel time space continua, and in the process the nature of the equation transforms slightly into something you can calculate. You do your math there, get an answer, have Scotty beam you back to Earth and the answer changes form into the Earth form. I believe there were drugs involved in the process, but it was college so we may be talking correlation, not causation.
If the OP sucks at math, he can still do 'computers and tech' but perhaps a bachelors degree in 'software engineering' isn't how he is going to get there. It doesn't take a BS/CS from the Dept of Engineering to program Java or design a network, current HR requirements not withstanding.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer