how difficult is computer science?

greenmachine88

as a matter of interest? Anybody know much about it?

The Waltzing Consumer

greenmachine88 wrote: »

as a matter of interest? Anybody know much about it?

Yes, Yes I do

jackiebaron

greenmachine88 wrote: »

as a matter of interest? Anybody know much about it?

I have a degree in it if that's any help.

CreepingDeath

You'll want to be good at maths for a lot of the theory side of it, neural networks, 3D graphics, statistics, etc.

Tiddlypeeps

If you are in any way good at maths and that kind of logical problem solving then you shouldn't find it too difficult. If not then you may struggle with it a bit.

greenmachine88

jackiebaron wrote: »

I have a degree in it if that's any help.

How would you describe it?

The Waltzing Consumer

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

If you are in any way good at maths and that kind of logical problem solving then you shouldn't find it too difficult. If not then you may struggle with it a bit.

Ah come on, stop scaring him or her

It is a great area of study, some parts will challenge you, some parts will be easier for you, all will be explained to you though and there is huge support through other students, lecturers and resources.

El Weirdo

greenmachine88 wrote: »

How would you describe it?

It's a bit of paper with his name and some other words on it.

myflipflops

If your idea of researching a subgect is to ask After Hours, I would stay away from it.

The Waltzing Consumer

greenmachine88 wrote: »

How would you describe it?

You do not to be perfect at maths, science or computers to do good in it. These subjects will obviously benefit you if you have studied them before, but if not, it is no harm and makes little difference. Everyone is taught the same, they start at the beginning no matter what your level.

Have you tried going on to the computer science departments in college websites? They give a lot of info there about courses and subjects.

For example,
http://www.cs.nuim.ie/
http://www.ucd.ie/csi/index.html

jackiebaron

greenmachine88 wrote: »

How would you describe it?

What do you mean? What do you want to know?
Strange question.

JohnathanM

Depends what you mean by computer science, exactly. If you're trying to get to grips with the programming side of it, it's practice is much more of an art.

Read this, and get a good feel for whether or not you find it difficult:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/

If you can't get enough theory, move on to these:
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/taocp.html

I'm a programmer - I worked through the first, found myself relatively uninterested in the second. Bad me.

greenmachine88

The Waltzing Consumer wrote: »

You do not to be perfect at maths, science or computers to do good in it. These subjects will obviously benefit you if you have studied them before, but if not, it is no harm and makes little difference. Everyone is taught the same, they start at the beginning no matter what your level.

Have you tried going on to the computer science departments in college websites? They give a lot of info there about courses and subjects.

For example,
http://www.cs.nuim.ie/
http://www.ucd.ie/csi/index.html

I had a look, any further information is appreciated thanks!

greenmachine88

jackiebaron wrote: »

What do you mean? What do you want to know?
Strange question.

I mean how did you find the course?

El Weirdo

greenmachine88 wrote: »

I mean how did you find the course?

They normally advertise them in brochures and on the interwebs.

The Waltzing Consumer

greenmachine88 wrote: »

I had a look, any further information is appreciated thanks!

Okay, well, if you do the course, say in Maynooth, it is a four year course, with one year work placement. If you read things now about programming or any other comp science subject, it may look pretty foreign and you may not understand it, but that is because it has not been taught to you. Don't be daunted by that, it is pretty normal. Comp science is a great course and it is well worth doing.

Pherekydes

The Waltzing Consumer wrote: »

You do not to be perfect at maths, science or computers to do good in it.

You do not to be good at English, either.

The Waltzing Consumer

Pherekydes wrote: »

You do not to be good at English, either.

Indeed

dlofnep

I'm not very good at maths, and I was 2 points short of a first class honours

CS is great, but only if you are into computing.

Davidius

This may be of interest.

Tiddlypeeps

I studied how to make games, so I may have talked up how important the maths is. Unless your looking to make games, in which case what I said about maths is true.

Logical thinking/reasoning is till a must tho.

jackiebaron

greenmachine88 wrote: »

I mean how did you find the course?

Well I'm guessing that you are contemplating studying Comp Sci. Is that correct?
Personally I found the course tough but I still got through it. There were certain subjects that bored the sh!t out of me like microprocessor systems and other subjects that I found really interesting like Computer Aided Design. There's a lot of superflous crap in there but it's necessary such as Numerical Methods, Statistics, etc. Incidentally I didn't actually study Computer Science. My degree is in Computer Engineering so maybe Comp Sci is a bit more theoretical....i.e. more coding and less electronics. But we (in Comp. Eng.) shared a lot of lectures with the Comp Sci people.

It's a good degree to have but if you are not really interested in computers and just want to get a degree that guarantees you some kind of job then I would think long and hard about the decision.
You will encounter some weird concepts and boring, annoying stuff but there's nothing mysterious about computers or how they work. It's all black and white, logical. You don't need some kind of warped brain that allows you to dream in multiple dimensions which you would need if studying Advanced Mathematics or Theoretical Physics.

The basis of the sh!t they teach you regarding operating systems is always going to be the Design of the Unix OS, so get an old PC and stick Linux on it (or better still Solaris x86) then you've got your own machine that you can use to learn Unix AND do all the coding assignments (C, C++, Java, Pascal, LISP, Perl, SQL, etc.) at home. Don't have to fart around the computer lab waiting to get half an hour on some clapped out system to debug your crappy "Hello World" program.

Good luck.

pakb1ue

I am getting my CS degree on Thursday and what do I get? A piece of paper I cant even read.

You spend 4 years in college not having a single girl in the class, having to deal with people who stink of BO and having to sit though the most boring lectures you will ever have but I would still do it all again

I found CS pretty boring till 4th year when it got really interesting but very stressful due to the work load you have.

In NUIM the 1st year is just general Science course but you have to do Maths and two other Science subjects.

As for jobs you will hear companies are finding it hard to fill programming jobs that is because there is a lot more people who come out of a CS degree not being able to program 'Hello World'. There is a high number of my class mates who are still finding it hard to find any sort of work.

ironictoaster

I think Computer Applications in DCU has the highest drop out rate on CAO courses in Ireland afaik.

My friend did it for a year and now he hates using a computer in general and now doing nursing!

johnmcdnl

easiest course in the world - you can just show up for the exams :pac::pac: programming pppfffttt

btw - you really shouldn't have come to after hours for this because god knows what your gonna hear here :pac::pac:

jackiebaron

Screw it.

See if you can find some course that combines IT/Comp Sci with Media Studies. The next boom will be internet TV and that should make the dot.com and housing bubbles look like a gnat's fart. Cash in on that sh!t then get out and buy your own island before the whole things come crashing down again.

pakb1ue

jackiebaron wrote: »

Screw it.

See if you can find some course that combines IT/Comp Sci with Media Studies. The next boom will be internet TV and that should make the dot.com and housing bubbles look like a gnat's fart. Cash in on that sh!t then get out and buy your own island before the whole things come crashing down again.

BSc MULTIMEDIA?

fontanalis

If in doubt turn off the computer for 10 seconds then turn it on again.

Noodleworm

pakb1ue wrote: »

BSc MULTIMEDIA?

If you like computers multimedia is a good way to go but they can vary a lot from place to place. The course Im doing is also a BSc in Multimedia but I've yet to do any real programming, but have covered writing, psychology, and the history of what seems like every form of media.

People I know doing the same degree in different places are all talking about Java, php and xml.

Anyway, If you really really want to know all about how computers work, Computer Science type might be ok but from people I know it contains a lot or math and sometimes business.

If your more creative theres courses that are use a lot of computers but don't go as in depth, multimedia, web design, maybe game design courses....

Jesus Wept

It's not rocket science.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I

Copper23

CreepingDeath wrote: »

You'll want to be good at maths for a lot of the theory side of it, neural networks, 3D graphics, statistics, etc.

Biggest load of bollocks that everyone seems to spout. Maths is NOT a prerequisite. Being good at logic is helpful as it helps with the courses and it helps in general if you have a mind for it when programming.

It's a huge topic though and you can go into lots of different areas. If you get into computational type stuff, then yes of course maths is helpful but thats a VERY specialized area that not a lot of people would go down unless its something they particularly wanted/needed.

biko

Not trying to be mean but AH isn't the right forum for this, OP, even though you got some advice.

You can google this www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=computer+science+site%3Aboards.ie and see what mentions it has on boards already.
Then find a school near you that has the course and ask in its forum