[ale] guess I am screw, eh?

[Joseph A. Knapka]

Cade Thacker wrote:
> 
> Considering that I am one week into my BS of CS at Georgia Tech, I guess I
> am screwed because of this article. Why oh why did they not published this
> thing a week earlier. ;)
> 
> http://newsfactor.com/perl/story/19136.html
> 
> Is the CS degree(any reputable college) still relevant for the masses? We
> will always need people to create compilers and OS stuff, but how many do
> we need? You don't really need a CS degree to be a medioce(sp?) Java
> programmer(just look at some of my co-workers ;). In thinking about this,
> is it kinda like lawyers? We always say we have too many lawyers, but
> schools are still pumping them out en mass.

You can always change your major - I changed mine on average once
every nine months (and still graduated in four years). Personally,
I think that a degree in some other discipline, along with some
exposure to CS, is better than a CS degree; for much the same
reason that a degree in a real discipline, plus some teaching
experience, makes for a better teacher than a teaching degree
does.

Computers are tools. Figure out what you want to *do* with
the tool, and then major in that. It may be that what you
want to do is figure out how to build better tools, in which
case the CS degree is probably the right thing. But in
general, IMO deciding on a major in the first year of
college is a mistake for most people (you may be an
exception).

Cheers,

-- Joe
  "I'd rather chew my leg off than maintain Java code, which
   sucks, 'cause I have a lot of Java code to maintain and
   the leg surgery is starting to get expensive." - Me

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