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Anecdote from a mid-90s grad. I found that in the late 90s/early aughts my friends with the coolest jobs had degrees in something computational but not CS. Biom
by jghn 5y ago
Anecdote from a mid-90s grad. I found that in the late 90s/early aughts my friends with the coolest jobs had degrees in something computational but not CS. Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics.
They all had to learn to code in school and had background domain knowledge in some specialty. In contrast myself and my CS friends had, well, we had knowledge of Turing machines with infinite tapes.
As the years played out it normalized between the two groups as each filled in their own weak spots with experience. But in those early days I was pretty jealous.
- coldpie 5y ago> In contrast myself and my CS friends had, well, we had knowledge of Turing machines with infinite tapes. Yeah. Going to school for Computer Science is probably the biggest regret in my life. I could have spent that time & money learning something useful/interesting instead, or better yet, not waste my time in University at all.
- trashface 5y agoI completely agree. With a different degree, one can still do programming. I worked with several good programmers who had no CS degree. Some had no degree at all. For me, CS was largely a waste. Most of the real, required-for-job programming skills I learned were self-taught anyway. I just used CS as an on-ramp to industry. Maybe nowadays CS is required for "signalling" but it definitely wasn't in the 90s. Wish I had done physics or hell even math. Now I'm middle-aged and the only things I "know" relate to this stupid pile of silicon on my desk.
- jghn 5y agoOver time I found the CS degree worked out. I was able to pick up the necessary domain knowledge for my own specialty. And having the deeper understanding of how/why things work at a theoretical level enabled me to transition to new technologies faster than people I know who just "learned to code". But yes. As a junior developer where my programming skills were roughly the same as my friends who had non-coding skills as well, there was some second guessing on my part
- maestroia 5y agoI graduated in 1990 with triple major in CompSci, Political Science, and Psychologywhi l it data science!) these gave me the domain and technical knowledge. Fast forward to today, and my biggest regret is either: a) not going directly on to get a PhD in Psychology, which would have been very beneficial now; or, b) not going back and taking over the family farm, which would see me truly working for myself at something which has true meaning and not creating TPS reports.
- Dracophoenix 5y agoWhich university offers/ed triple majors? And what would've made your psychology PHD beneficial?