CS Major at UTSC?

[newqwerty]

Hey. I'm going into 3rd year this fall at UTSC. I am currently in Co-op biochemistry major but i need another major for my degree. I was considering CS and I am wondering if it really is a really difficult major. I have no computer science experience, except for knowing a minimal amount of HTML from doing CS101 at UW (I transferred to UTSC in second year). I want to know what I am getting into, what kind of work is required, what kind of skills do I need, if this is a good idea or not, etc. Please reply ASAP. Thanks

[Tony]

if you have no idea what this major is about, why would you want to enroll in it?

[newqwerty]

well i consider myself better than the average computer user, but i just dont have experience in actual programming. I want to know about it so I can make a decision, thats why I am asking. Do you have any advice?

[ProgrammingFun]

I would say that you should look into some basic comuter science and programming and see if you like it before deciding. I wrote a few very simplistic tutorials here which you can read if you want.

But seriously, you should do some research as Tony hinted. You need to know if you'll actually be interested before enrolling.
In terms of jobs and stuff, it's a good thing to get into IMO.

[yoursecretninja]

I organically fell into this field; but I think if I were foreign to the field and looking to discover if I liked it, I would try the following:

1) Choose a problem. Calculating the series of Fibonacci number is a good one.
2) Choose a language. I'd recommend a scripting language like Ruby or Python so you don't need to spend much time setting up an environment.
3) Using only your brain and the documentation for the language you chose try to solve your chosen problem.

If you give up, you probably won't enjoy CS.
If you come up with an adequate solution but don't care, you probably won't enjoy CS.

If you come up with an adequate solution, were excited about it, and enjoyed the process of getting there, you may enjoy CS.
If you kept going, by say optimizing your solution or moving on to other problems, you should probably enjoy CS.

[newqwerty]

yoursecretninja @ Thu Apr 12, 2012 1:29 pm wrote:

I organically fell into this field; but I think if I were foreign to the field and looking to discover if I liked it, I would try the following:

1) Choose a problem. Calculating the series of Fibonacci number is a good one.
2) Choose a language. I'd recommend a scripting language like Ruby or Python so you don't need to spend much time setting up an environment.
3) Using only your brain and the documentation for the language you chose try to solve your chosen problem.

If you give up, you probably won't enjoy CS.
If you come up with an adequate solution but don't care, you probably won't enjoy CS.

If you come up with an adequate solution, were excited about it, and enjoyed the process of getting there, you may enjoy CS.
If you kept going, by say optimizing your solution or moving on to other problems, you should probably enjoy CS.

I dont know python or ruby? is there anything else I can use to do this test? (excel, html?)

[ProgrammingFun]

newqwerty @ Thu Apr 12, 2012 2:50 pm wrote:

I dont know python or ruby? is there anything else I can use to do this test? (excel, html?)

No, excel and html do not count and the latter would not work for such problems either.
You will have to get into a language and learn it to decide if you're interested in CompSci as a major since this will help you out a lot.

He recommended Python/Ruby because they are probably some of the easiest languages to learn.

[newqwerty]

thanks for all the help. i will use this to make my decision