[ale] Sort of OT: College Majors

[J.M. Taylor]

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004, Geoffrey wrote:

> Parker McGee wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> > that I've enjoyed so much for the past two years that I've practically
> > taught myself 2+ years of college material.  I don't mean to brag,
> > that's just how it goes.  I think I can teach myself the rest of the
> > things I would be able to learn in that degree in another two years.

I had 5 years of programming experience (and a decade with general
self-taught computer things) behind me when I decided to go back to
school.  I (and my employers) consider myself a good, possibly a very good
programmer who takes the initiative to learn the underlying concepts in
anything I do.  I have written some exceedingly complex systems and
designed and implemented large applications by myself and in tiny teams.

Guess what? That programming 102 class (I did skip 101) -- taught
me stuff I never knew.  And data structures taught me some fascinating 
stuff, some of which has proven useful in my real world job.

Here's what I would advise: your first year at least in any college is
going to be taken up with core classes and things that guide you towards
your degree, prereqs for real classes.  It doesn't matter who you are, you
have to take these courses or test out of them.  The first 2 years of
physics, maths, CS courses are all more or less the same for any of the
degrees you mentioned and a host of others that you might be interested
in.  Once you've been in for awhile, make up your mind.  If you decide to
switch to basket weaving, your maths & sciences will still work for your
core so it's not like you have to decide now or be forever doomed.  
Universities have "Undeclared" majors and advisors for a reason - very few
people know what they want out of a university education until they've
been in the system for awhile.

Good luck and congrats on getting accepted to Tech.