[ale] Sort of OT: College Majors

[Jeff Hubbs]

I remember one time back in da day at GT overhearing one of my fellow EE
compatriots lamenting to the graduate assistant in Physics lab about how
miserable he was and his grades sucking, etc. and I remember that the
grad assistant said something that struck me as wise, even at the time. 
He said that he wasn't enjoying school either until he switched majors
(to Physics, in his case) and that there is no sense in going through
school miserable and that anything you do differently that will help you
enjoy it will help you in the end.  

Personally, I enjoyed EE tremendously and I wound up vectoring into
software engineering and IT as a natural result of the way my interests
developed.  In my case, I was miserable for emotional and [anti]social
reasons, which in turn made the schoolwork seem more like a beating at
the time.  I'm sure that if I had been approaching the schoolwork from a
better place in that regard, I probably wouldn't have perceived it as
such.  

I guess what I'm saying is, leave any preconceived notions you might
have for major at the door and hang with students and faculty of the
various schools while you're going through the freshman drudgery and
maybe after a year or two you will find yourself naturally gravitating
someplace.  

I think a lot of people go in thinking that major X is the road to
success even if they have no natural drive or talent in the field and
they never stop to refactor themselves.  

Jeff

On Mon, 2004-11-15 at 22:04, John P. Healey wrote:
> No matter what major you pick, you will have to deal with some idiots.  CompSci
> is a field where a person's (in)competence usually becomes apparent rather
> quickly.  The truly incompetent will either drop out, fail out, or wise up.
> 
> While 2 years of relearning material may be dull, you could always use that
> time to raise your gpa and prepare for the next two years.
> 
> 
> 5265762e204a6f686e6e79204865616c6579
> 
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