Help Please

[Zeroth]

Those people that have problems with courses? They're in it for money. Or they assumed that University would be like High School. Its not. Your hand is not held. So my advice is go into whatever area interests you the most. Typically as an elective the university will offer a couple of computer engineering style courses, and if you enjoy those, you can switch your major.

You don't need to decided now.

SAP is huge. They used to be one of the biggest software companies of the 70's and 80's IIRC(Of course Btiffin likely knows better than I do). Or, you could be meaning the protocol... specify, please. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP)

Here's what you need to do: go talk to your counselors. They'll know the admission standards for each of your schools, and they'll know best what you need to do. Not us. Would you go talk to the elephant trainer about how to become an acrobat in a circus?

Of course, the key advice is: Do what you enjoy the most. Don't worry about money. Don't worry about what people are hiring for. Do not. Because what companies hire for inevitably changes. And it is better to understand the basics, and be able to learn whats needed, than to focus on one specific area of the industry;odds are, that education will be obsolete by the time you graduate. Instead... learn how to learn. Most valuable skill you can bring from university.

[implosion]

Yeah okay, that's one of my problems... i didn't realize that once i got into university that i could switch my majors.. from like computer engineering to software engineering or something like that... my guidance councilor wasn't a ton of help. i asked him a bunch of questions and all he really said was that its different between schools (duh). But i kind of want to decide right now of what i want to do (i'm the kind of person where i need to see where i'm going before i'll move) because i want to get it done in one shot.

SAP i don't even know a ton about... my cousin works with an agency that hires people and she said that in the IT area if i want to make a money i should check out SAP. I don't have any computer classes untill next semester and we just got a new tech. teacher.. so i have to find him and ask him a bunch of questions (but i'm shy guy.. crap).

Would anyone know what McMaster, Toronto or UW weigh on you if you take a class over again ?

and to zeroth, my interests are in computers (haha, duh) but i don't know where i would go in the field.. such a broad range, and lets just say i'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. i know all the different kinds.. but thats about it.. i don't know much detail of it. (eg. computer engineering.. i think of building parts, making faster CPU, working on a team etc.)

i know everyone says don't worry about the money and do what you want (which i am, just a bit confused) but i want to make around the $100 000 (doesnt everyone, haha) for some personal reasons and i want to do a ton of charity in Pakistan (where im from).

and how hard is Calculus? ... gr.11 i got a 79 in math (university)

[Zeroth]

Well, if you live in the area of these universities, you can go right down and ask them yourself.

Here's the thing: You can't always know where your going, especially in IT/Computer Science. Things change, things happen, courses get shuffled around, teachers switch schools. Being rigid in your plans will never help you. Be adaptable and flexible. Have a general goal, then work towards it.

Money: Like I said, don't worry about the money. Worry about finding something you do enjoy; odds are, you will be good at it. Just because you took four, five, six, or eight years of schooling does NOT entitle you to a $100k job though. Nothing entitles you to anything else. You can have a desire to make that much, but you should never feel thats what you must make. Because you'll never be happy with anything but. And if you make $100k a year, well, you'll need to get an accountant, and hopefully the accountant can save you from paying over $40k in taxes iirc. Sometimes making more money doesn't make you richer.

Just be willing to adapt, be willing to learn, and learn to be happy, and you'll do well. The people that flame out in university are the ones that think this is their only chance, and that they are entitled to $100k salary when they graduate, and that see University as just an obstacle. Its not.

[jbking]

This may have been said before but there are a number of different areas within IT that one can work from a Computer Science/Computer Engineering/Software Engineering side:

1) Software Development - Making software which can range from PC or console games to business applications to all kinds of other stuff. SAP if you are talking about the big German company is known for what is called Enterprise Resource Planning, e.g. financial, inventory management, and forecasting to name just a few parts, though there are also other areas like Customer Relationship Management or Content Management systems.

2) Databases - The folks that manage all the data out there whether it be in big data warehouses using Business Intelligence or data mining techniques to simple little Microsoft Access databases to get some basic stuff done.

3) Networks - how computers talk to each other is its own big field where there are load balancers, firewalls and other hardware to play with in how all these computers get wired together.

4) Security - This is its own field I think that you could be looking at what kinds of policies should a company have, what software to use to enforce such policies, etc. though there is also the hacking side of things here.

5) Hardware development - Look at Microsoft's new blue lit mice though I'm sure there will be other new things out in the next few years as netbooks grow and microchips keep on shrinking.

6) Tech support/help desk - Enjoy solving someone else's headaches? Then this could be another area to get into. Sometimes these are also the system administrators in some companies if there aren't too many other things to fix.

7) Theoretical computer science - This would be more limited to academic circles but I'd think some of the biggest names in research do make a nice salary out there. Stuff like the P = NP or finding other NP-complete problems would be examples here. Encryption may be something else that has some theoretical aspects to it in terms of what complexity is required to break various methods to encode data.

8) Mathematical applications. Here you'd have stuff like Matlab and Maple for a couple of software programs that handle numbers rather differently where one uses floating point while the other may try to maintain as much precision as possible, e.g. not using an approximation of pi but just leave the letter in the answer to some expression to evaluate.

This is without mentioning other things like making websites, virtualization, web services, cloud computing or operating systems that are still big things getting developed out here in this world.

Calculus isn't that hard if you can crunch some numbers, remember a few theorems and work on a few limits.

http://www.gummy-stuff.org/ has some calculus tutorials I think that may shed some light on the mysteries that are derivatives, integrals and series.

JB

[implosion]

Yeah, i don't live near any close university except Toronto which is about 45 mins / 1 hour drive.

And yeah, i always love to learn (That's what i want to go into the computer field) since technology is always changing; constantly updated your skills.

Yeah i know that i'm not entitled to make 100K ... but its like i said, i have a ton of charity projects to do that i want to be able to accomplish when i'm older ... but whatever i see that i shouldn't be holding on to the 100K and be really stuborn about it.

so this is what i'm thinking of doing (any comments). I'm going to try and apply to universities for Computer Engineering... and then take it the first year.. then see if i can possibly switch into computer science / software engineering ?

Also... could i get into video games (anything) with any of these things Also what is the difference between Computer Programmer and Software Engineer... isn't it basically the same (from what i see)?

And does anyone know if McMaster, Toronto, Waterloo care if i take a victory lap because i did realllllyyyy crappy job in any of my subjects... because if i don't get above 80 - 85% in my subjects i'm planning to re-do them in a victory lap ??

and thank you jbking for that calculus site, much appreciated ! -- and for the list your wrote, it helped a bit... but i'm still a bit confused... (i'm not the smartest guy. haha)


P.S does anyone know about University of Alberta ... my parents want to move there and i really don't want to because the research i've done on it so far says it has hardly any computer courses ??

[Roman]

I'm not really entitled to give programming advice, given my personal lack of skills, but...

If the program you want to get into has a 70% requirement, will you only get 70% and stop trying? I'm of the opinion that one should do the best they can (and better) regardless of what's required of them, because if you do "just enough" the 100k job is very unlikely

However, for admission averages and other such info you can go on University sites, student forums, and everything inbetween. Your school should also have university booklets (if not, go to University Fair) with rough admission averages listed. And if you're feeling lazy, just throw an e-mail at the university in question and they'll likely point you to a page on their site.

Either way, you should do your best (not limited to school) and get as good as you can. Doing whatever you do well is a good habit to have =) If you want to make 100k and give to charity, that's an excellent goal. And the only person who can make it come true is you. And the only way you can accomplish your goals (given they're ambitious) is to be the very best you can be.

Lastly, try not to so unconfident Comments like "I'm not the smartest guy" etc. can have a bad effect subconsciously.

-RZ

[[Gandalf]]

Last I checked, University of Alberta had one of the best CS programs in Canada, especially for AI. They have a game research group, and have done a number of pretty impressive things, such as the world's strongest Reversi/Othello program:
http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~mburo/log.html

On switching from engineering to computer science or something along those lines, from what I've heard it's not that easy. It's definitely a lot easier to get into the program you want straight from high school.

As for differences between software engineering and CS, there's a good blog article about it on compsci.ca/blog and there's a small discussion about it right now in the sticky right above this topic.

[implosion]

yeah well obviously not i wouldn't stop trying to just get 70% i'm giving it my all ... but i just happen to blank on test's i don't know why... for instance i just wrote a math test, i knew everything, i helped my friend study for it... but soon as i got the paper... i just blanked and then was crushed for time, got 72% on K/U and 48% on A ... yeah the guidance counselor i went to was alright, i only went to him because before he was my english teacher.. but now i'm going to a different counselor and she knows more.. haha... but does anyone know what universities think (mcmaster, waterloo, toronto) if i happen to retake a course?

also, university fair is coming up this weekend... and as you can see from my thread... i'm totally confused... i went to make a guidance appoint to ask them... but the whole week is full... so any advice ??? would it be a good idea if i were to bring along my cousin, he's finished university but he was in for business (accounting stuff).

and umm.. yeah... what would be some good questions to ask and does any one know websites that help you pick your career... besides careercruising ??

[jbking]

There are a few personality tests that may be of some help in figuring out which careers may suit you here are links about a couple of them:

Keirsey
Myers-Briggs

If you want something with a bit more of a career tilt, most universities have a career services area that may help as well as various student clubs that could also be a resource in helping to figure out what various majors could mean for yourself. There are also 101 books on this subject ranging from the classic, "What Color Is Your Parachute?" to Ask the Headhunter there are various blogs and books that may help.

A common idea is to think about 2 sets of things:
What do you like to do? What is it that you enjoy doing and that you could do for many hours without feeling drained and tired?
What are you good at doing? This is more about proficiency with a skill rather than whether you like it or not.

If there are things that meet both, then those are the career ideas you should explore as some people like talking to others and giving sales pitches and others like myself tend to be helpful and handy if someone has a problem but aren't natural salesmen.