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I remember finding myself in 3rd year Calculus in a Computer Science degree, and realizing: I don't have to be here! (only two years were mandatory) I've alwa

I remember finding myself in 3rd year Calculus in a Computer Science degree, and realizing: I don't have to be here! (only two years were mandatory) I've always enjoyed math and kept enrolling into it out of habit, until it became so esoteric, and my actual interests more solid and practical. I find a lot of my university career was fascinating and... useless. Not just from "I will never use this directly perspective", but also largely from "this will give me broader understanding and framework and enable me to learn faster" perspective. We can have wonderful philosophical discussion on what University should be for - job prep or educational enhancement for the sake of it - but truth of the matter was that I envied those in Engineering fields who had fun AND learned AND were doing practical things AND were going to apply some of it. Whereas my 3rd and 4th year maths were just maths for the sake of maths. I may be hanging out with uninteresting crowds, but same experience is broadly true for my friends and co-workers - Java developer, VMWare architect, Database Administrator, ERP developer, etc. We all value education and love learning and will go on our vacation with couple of technical books - but university Computer Science degree seems very mistailored, or at least, sold wrong.

gmadsen 5y ago
interesting, I think almost the complete opposite. I am happy where I'm at, but I most certainly would have preferred doing a math/cs double major rather than all the BS busy work of an engineering degree I went through. I wouldn't call 60 hours a week of symbol manipulation practical...
selimthegrim 5y ago
Good luck deriving matrix identities without Calc III.
matwood 5y ago
> I find a lot of my university career was fascinating and... useless. I was in college long ago and for my CS undergrad and masters took the usual CS and math courses. When I needed electives though I took courses like economics, finance and accounting. Many years later, those electives ended up being the most useful. The CS and math courses I wouldn't consider useless though. I'm sure I lean on theory I learned without realizing. But, at the time I couldn't have predicted working in small companies or startups and how important basic finance and accounting would end up.

gmadsen 5y ago

interesting, I think almost the complete opposite. I am happy where I'm at, but I most certainly would have preferred doing a math/cs double major rather than all the BS busy work of an engineering degree I went through. I wouldn't call 60 hours a week of symbol manipulation practical...

selimthegrim 5y ago

Good luck deriving matrix identities without Calc III.

matwood 5y ago

> I find a lot of my university career was fascinating and... useless. I was in college long ago and for my CS undergrad and masters took the usual CS and math courses. When I needed electives though I took courses like economics, finance and accounting. Many years later, those electives ended up being the most useful. The CS and math courses I wouldn't consider useless though. I'm sure I lean on theory I learned without realizing. But, at the time I couldn't have predicted working in small companies or startups and how important basic finance and accounting would end up.