People tell me Comp.Sci. is a path to unemployment

[Leela]

Zeroth @ Wed Mar 11, 2009 8:31 am wrote:

Like I said, Humanities doesn't mean crappy "real world" jobs. You have a lot of knowledge and skills, which if you enjoyed the area, would trade off well in a lot of careers, most of which you'd have to invent yourself. But since you don't enjoy humanities, that changes the game.

Take a first year computer programming course. If you enjoy it, then continue, otherwise you aren't wasting your time again. That or find something else. There are very suitable and effective aptitude tests, usually used by job seeker crown corporations.

That's exactly what I am doing.
And by the way, I am primarily worried about jobs and money because I rely in financing my studies on PEY or Co-op placement. If there no jobs I am stuck with half of the degree.

[Zeroth]

Well, this will encourage you: nearly every company of a decent size has a software division. That means, and I know it doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but internal software development. This is for customizing the CMS, internal applications for finance, shipping, HR, etc. No matter what happens to the economy, these companies need developers. No matter what happens, they need people to keep the money flowing.

[Brightguy]

Leela @ Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:37 pm wrote:

in the real world people feel very lucky if they can simply tolerate their jobs.

*Larry Smith vomits*

Due to the economic conditions, this term he tries every class to kill this notion. You do not tolerate your work. It's something you would do for fun.

[Drew416]

Leela @ Wed Mar 11, 2009 2:35 pm wrote:

Zeroth @ Wed Mar 11, 2009 8:31 am wrote:

Like I said, Humanities doesn't mean crappy "real world" jobs. You have a lot of knowledge and skills, which if you enjoyed the area, would trade off well in a lot of careers, most of which you'd have to invent yourself. But since you don't enjoy humanities, that changes the game.

Take a first year computer programming course. If you enjoy it, then continue, otherwise you aren't wasting your time again. That or find something else. There are very suitable and effective aptitude tests, usually used by job seeker crown corporations.

That's exactly what I am doing.
And by the way, I am primarily worried about jobs and money because I rely in financing my studies on PEY or Co-op placement. If there no jobs I am stuck with half of the degree.

Don't worry. Even in the worst case scenario in which you can't get a PEY or Co-op placement (probably unlikely but for the sake of argument) you will be able to find money to complete your degree. You're living at home that's huge savings. UofT is $7,789/year for tuition. Even if you work for around minimum wage in the summer you'd make $5760, that leaves $2029. If you work part time during the term 8 hrs or 1 shift a week you'd make $2304. I don't know if you qualify for student loans or not but if you do then that's an added cushion. And in the end I'm pretty sure UofT is one of those unis which has an educational guarantee and promises to pay the remainder you need to complete your studies. I know this is an oversimplification and does not include books cost/transportation but those things can be cheap if you play your cards right and all of this is not counting any scholarships/bursaries you might be eligible for. Again, this is the absolute worst case scenario, you'd probably find a PEY job, but even in this worst case scenario I don't see a scenario in which you'd have to abandon your degree due to financial problems.

[Leela]

Zeroth @ Wed Mar 11, 2009 10:38 pm wrote:

Well, this will encourage you: nearly every company of a decent size has a software division. That means, and I know it doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but internal software development. This is for customizing the CMS, internal applications for finance, shipping, HR, etc. No matter what happens to the economy, these companies need developers. No matter what happens, they need people to keep the money flowing.

So, is it a good thing then that I have applied to the software engineering stream of CS?

By the way, I remembered another of my reasons for not wanting to continue in Humanities - I am not a native English speaker. On the level where it is required from you to be able to endlessly and with your eyes closed produce oratories on any subject imaginable, it is extremely hard to compete with an army of anglo-saxon "rhetoricians" brought up to be modern Ciceros.

[Leela]

Quote:

You're living at home that's huge savings.

Not if you pay for the house.

Quote:

UofT is $7,789/year for tuition. Even if you work for around minimum wage in the summer you'd make $5760, that leaves $2029. If you work part time during the term 8 hrs or 1 shift a week you'd make $2304. I don't know if you qualify for student loans or not but if you do then that's an added cushion. And in the end I'm pretty sure UofT is one of those unis which has an educational guarantee and promises to pay the remainder you need to complete your studies. I know this is an oversimplification and does not include books cost/transportation but those things can be cheap if you play your cards right and all of this is not counting any scholarships/bursaries you might be eligible for. Again, this is the absolute worst case scenario, you'd probably find a PEY job, but even in this worst case scenario I don't see a scenario in which you'd have to abandon your degree due to financial problems.

Thanks for encouragement.

[Zeroth]

Leela @ Thu Mar 12, 2009 4:29 am wrote:

Zeroth @ Wed Mar 11, 2009 10:38 pm wrote:

Well, this will encourage you: nearly every company of a decent size has a software division. That means, and I know it doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but internal software development. This is for customizing the CMS, internal applications for finance, shipping, HR, etc. No matter what happens to the economy, these companies need developers. No matter what happens, they need people to keep the money flowing.

So, is it a good thing then that I have applied to the software engineering stream of CS?

By the way, I remembered another of my reasons for not wanting to continue in Humanities - I am not a native English speaker. On the level where it is required from you to be able to endlessly and with your eyes closed produce oratories on any subject imaginable, it is extremely hard to compete with an army of anglo-saxon "rhetoricians" brought up to be modern Ciceros.

Pretty much. My recommendation is, assuming you enjoy computer science, to follow this path: finish the degree, get a job with a decent sized company(preferably someone in the news for name recognition), work for a few years, see how things work in the real world. Once you have the experience and the cred, start hiring yourself out as a contractor for five times the pay/hour. Your experience in Humanities, even if you are not a native english speaker, will give you an advantage over your colleagues in terms of communicating your ideas and concerns.

Then you'll be set, so long as the work is good quality, and companies feel you are worth the money. If you do decide to contract out, pick a specialty that is a bit obscure, arcane and important to the company, like security, penetration testing, scalable architecture, etc. Something that will require work to keep up with, and be worth paying someone $200/hr for five months to take care of. A certification like the CCSP(Cisco Certified Security Professional) is well worth the $200 price tag.

Oh, and last factoid, no matter what you pursue, to begin approaching the expert level in it, you need to devote approximately 10,000 hours of practice, study and application to it. Wayne Gretzky played hockey every day, as much as he could. Trained every day. Watched every game. And when he finally went pro, he still kept on studying, and went on to achieve the title, "The Great One". He spent well in excess of 10,000 hours to become great at hockey.

[Leela]

Just wanted to brag about - I got in

[jernst]

congrats

[Leela]

jernst @ Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:43 am wrote:

congrats

Thanks

[CodeMonkey2000]

So where did you get in? Toronto?

[Leela]

CodeMonkey2000 @ Fri Mar 13, 2009 11:17 am wrote:

So where did you get in? Toronto?

Yes. Thanks for all your suggestions and encouragement.

[Leela]

Ok, I am completely at a loss with the UofT admissions/transfer students/subject post regulations. I thought I was admitted to UofT Comp.Sci. program and was jumping from joy. Then, I noticed that on my application status page the actual wording for the program I have been admitted to changed from "Studies in Computer Science" to "Honours Bachelor of Science". I understand that at UofT I either choose my program at the time of the application or after completing the first year's requirements. And I did the former. So, wasn't I supposed to be designated as admitted to Computer Science, first year, whatever, something that would qualify me as their first year, not just a general one? Don't the words "Honours Bachelor of Science" mean that I wasn't actually admitted as a first year Comp.Sci. student - but rather as a general Arts & Science first year, and will not have guaranteed admission, when adding Comp.Sci. on ROSI?
Also, if anyone has been a transfer student at UoFt, maybe you know - does this also mean that I will have to choose a different subject post until I have completed the requirement for the program of my choice (according to what I'm reading I will have to choose subject post straight after I'm accepted because I will have recieved more than 4.00 credits)? And, if this is the case, what happens when I apply to the program itself - will they review my highschool marks again or will the marks for the first years Comp.Sci. courses be enough for thei consideration.

[[Gandalf]]

"Honours Bachelor of Science" is just the name of the degree you'll be getting. For most universities CS falls under this category, unless they want to be different for some reason or another (York gives a CS Bachelor of Arts and Waterloo has both CS Bachelor of Math and Bachelor in Computer Science). I'd take this to be an encouraging thing, meaning rather that you're not doing a general first year or something similar. However, you'd be better off talking to the registrars office or an advisor to make sure.

I have no idea how things work for transfer students, but usually only your first year marks are considered when applying to a program. You have to first fulfill the first year cut offs before being "officially" accepted into your major, specialist, minor, whatever. I don't think it matters how many extra credits you've taken at that point (since you have a bunch of transfer credits), only that you've completed the necessary courses and gotten high enough marks. You can even add a minor or completely different program half way, the main reason to "officially" be in the program is for enrollment in some courses and graduation.

All of this information should be somewhere on U of T's website, if you're curious about specifics and without any mistakes I might have made.

[Leela]

Quote:

Honours Bachelor of Science" is just the name of the degree you'll be getting. For most universities CS falls under this category, unless they want to be different for some reason or another (York gives a CS Bachelor of Arts and Waterloo has both CS Bachelor of Math and Bachelor in Computer Science). I'd take this to be an encouraging thing, meaning rather that you're not doing a general first year or something similar. However, you'd be better off talking to the registrars office or an advisor to make sure.

I have no idea how things work for transfer students, but usually only your first year marks are considered when applying to a program. You have to first fulfill the first year cut offs before being "officially" accepted into your major, specialist, minor, whatever. I don't think it matters how many extra credits you've taken at that point (since you have a bunch of transfer credits), only that you've completed the necessary courses and gotten high enough marks. You can even add a minor or completely different program half way, the main reason to "officially" be in the program is for enrollment in some courses and graduation.

All of this information should be somewhere on U of T's website, if you're curious about specifics and without any mistakes I might have made.

Thanks very much for replying. I know it's stupid (as you can see from my previous posts I haven't even decided whether I am passionate enough about computer science), but for some reasons I became a bit worried as I read my application status page more carefuly. I am worried still, and probably will be until I find out what is going on, but considerably less now thanks to your reply.
By the way, if highschool courses aren't important when you are admitted to your first year (provided you have not yet chosen your major at that stage) and aren't important when adding a program, in what ways they are important?