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Thread: What courses in university should I take?

  1. #1
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    What courses in university should I take?

    I'm starting college in a week, I'm just taking a business administration course.
    It's only a two year degree, and I was thinking that afterwards I would like to take some classes in university.

    Lately I've been learning to write in python, c++, and java (JUST started learning), and I was wondering what kind of courses I should be looking for to get into computer programming?
    What kind of pre-requisites are there?

    Anybody here a professional programmer? What did you take

    I thought about posting this in programming talk, but i figured this is more about university than help with programming

  2. #2
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    Re: What courses in university should I take?

    Take a "Computer Science" degree sheet from whatever university your thinking about going to and see whats on it. Their pretty copy/paste type degrees. The only thing your going to really have to pick out for yourself is the electives.
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  3. #3
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    Re: What courses in university should I take?

    1) math math math math math
    2) play around with humanities stuff in your spare time if you feel like it
    3) build the future
    4) ???
    5) profit
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    Re: What courses in university should I take?

    From the people I know in ECE (electrical and computer engineering) and Comp Sci, math would be a good place to start. Picking up a humanity would be good too, but the best thing to do really would be looking up a few schools that interest you and finding out what they want.

  5. #5
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    Re: What courses in university should I take?

    Computer science is basically applied mathematics. If you really want to get into programming (e.g. game programming or application programming), you probably want software engineering.

    That's how things are at my university anyway.

  6. #6
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    Re: What courses in university should I take?

    Quote Originally Posted by earthpigg View Post
    1) math math math math math
    2) play around with humanities stuff in your spare time if you feel like it
    3) build the future
    4) ???
    5) profit
    Yeah, lots of mathematics and perhaps some philosophy courses (keep it analytic of course).

    They really complement each other.

  7. #7
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    Re: What courses in university should I take?

    If math doesn't totally excite you, pass on the CS or CE degree. Every CS dept has a countless array of student bodies strewn all over the place that couldn't cut the math. I'd suggest walking into the college bookstore, head straight to the math section, pick up a calculus book, and if it doesn't give you goosebumps for all the right reasons, look into another major.

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    Re: What courses in university should I take?

    I would suggest seeing a professional careers councillor as well as taking advice here. They will be able to give you a more detailed assessment of your abilities and needs.
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  9. #9
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    Re: What courses in university should I take?

    Quote Originally Posted by kamaboko View Post
    If math doesn't totally excite you, pass on the CS or CE degree. Every CS dept has a countless array of student bodies strewn all over the place that couldn't cut the math. I'd suggest walking into the college bookstore, head straight to the math section, pick up a calculus book, and if it doesn't give you goosebumps for all the right reasons, look into another major.
    Eh, I don't know about that; math is definitely important, but except in a few areas, calculus is probably irrelevant; I would think it's courses like symbolic logic (which may be math and/or philosophy), discrete math, set theory that are probably the most important. Linear Algebra is another good one (although you will probably find it boring as hell). Any pure mathematical course is probably somewhat helpful (in making you think the right way), but don't despair if you aren't good at a few of them. If you can take a course in Numerical Analysis (the art of efficient number crunching on a computer) or Algorithms, jump at it.

    Now, my guess would be that you would have to take calculus, but being excited about it isn't a prerequisite to passing it. If you can't pass calculus, then I would rethink a career in programming, but not if it just doesn't particularly appeal to you. As long as you keep out of scientific programming and 3D graphics there aren't many areas where you'll have to use it (off the top of my head, can't think of any at all).

    And I don't think not being excited about calculus would be good evidence that you won't like programming. A lot of programmers are also math lovers, but there are definitely programmers who are not all that excited about calculus. As a final note, most math textbooks are very boring and very dense and reading it one time through might not give you a grasp of everything and will likely not be fun. So whether you like reading a textbook is probably not all that good of an indicator of whether you will like calculus.

    Of course, if you *do* like math, then that is all the better!
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  10. #10
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    Re: What courses in university should I take?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zorgoth View Post
    And I don't think not being excited about calculus would be good evidence that you won't like programming. A lot of programmers are also math lovers, but there are definitely programmers who are not all that excited about calculus.
    I'm just saying of the people that I know who got washed out of the CE/CS programs, it was math, and in particular, calculus, that spelled the beginning of the end. They didn't enjoy it, much less enjoy the struggle through it. Those that did get through actually had a history of enjoying math and it had always been their strongest academic subject.

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