Is CS not meant for beginners or do I have severe ADHD?
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You'd have six months to catch up on your schooling while learning the ropes. If you think that is "jumping from one thing to another", then yes, you should just throw in the towel. I think you're allergic to work.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it. ― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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It is. Because of my odd sleep patterns and my being monolingual I wind up talking to lots of british folks online and pick up some britishisms in the process. "you lot" "uni" "can't be arsed" etc
Real programmers use butterflies
Lol, I'm not british. My english grammar and spelling is terrible. But I use british words because in Europe british english is dominant in all textbooks for english classes. When you learn english as a foreigner you allways listen to the tapes recorded by Britts and you have no choice to learn american english. Than you watch some Youtube-videos and you learn some american english, and than som australian english and you end up mixing words from every dialect without knowing the difference.
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Well, I'm not from US. I can't tell you where I'm from because of privacy ;) If you're a hacker you can check it yourself though :cool:. Actually my degree can be translated to Software Engineering but after 3 years I can continue and be master of Computer Science (Which I already know I won't :-D ).
It's as if they want you to be able to check off a bunch of boxes
I have the same feeling. I just study for the exams but still am not good at anything, because there is no time to deep dive in what we learn...
What size is your cohort?
We are about 110, and I don't see anyone dropping out. It seems like everyone doing well besides me :laugh: I'm happy for them but it makes me feel extremly dumb. But maybe I'm wrong? I never meet my classmates because of COVID-19 so I can't tell how they actually do.
But I have to wonder if they're trying to weed out a ton of folks
Yeah, I think you are right about it. This is exactly what I think. They want to get rid of us who are beginners and unexperienced and focus on grinding only the real diamonds of programming. Well, I can't blame them, but they should have different requirements before they take in people, because "college" ;P costs and someone can end up with a huge loan and wasted time. I'm lucky that I at least enjoy what I do even if I fail to deliver. I feel sorry for those who are total beginners. Anyhow thank's for comfort. I already thought about retaking the courses but in my country you have to fail on many exams to do that. I failed only one exam in each course and have second chance to retake them, so I have to continue. You would probably say: So it's not that bad. What's the problem? Well, I don't feel like I have strong fundaments to continue with more advanced stuff, because I didn't learn my basics well. I have a feeling that everything gonna collapse soon like a house of card when the harder stuffs come. Anyway, thanks for reading my whining post. I feel a little bit better. I will give it another try... I probably come back whining after about a month and it goes on a loop for two and a half years :laugh: Moderators better block me already :laugh:
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Well, I'm not from US. I can't tell you where I'm from because of privacy ;) If you're a hacker you can check it yourself though :cool:. Actually my degree can be translated to Software Engineering but after 3 years I can continue and be master of Computer Science (Which I already know I won't :-D ).
It's as if they want you to be able to check off a bunch of boxes
I have the same feeling. I just study for the exams but still am not good at anything, because there is no time to deep dive in what we learn...
What size is your cohort?
We are about 110, and I don't see anyone dropping out. It seems like everyone doing well besides me :laugh: I'm happy for them but it makes me feel extremly dumb. But maybe I'm wrong? I never meet my classmates because of COVID-19 so I can't tell how they actually do.
But I have to wonder if they're trying to weed out a ton of folks
Yeah, I think you are right about it. This is exactly what I think. They want to get rid of us who are beginners and unexperienced and focus on grinding only the real diamonds of programming. Well, I can't blame them, but they should have different requirements before they take in people, because "college" ;P costs and someone can end up with a huge loan and wasted time. I'm lucky that I at least enjoy what I do even if I fail to deliver. I feel sorry for those who are total beginners. Anyhow thank's for comfort. I already thought about retaking the courses but in my country you have to fail on many exams to do that. I failed only one exam in each course and have second chance to retake them, so I have to continue. You would probably say: So it's not that bad. What's the problem? Well, I don't feel like I have strong fundaments to continue with more advanced stuff, because I didn't learn my basics well. I have a feeling that everything gonna collapse soon like a house of card when the harder stuffs come. Anyway, thanks for reading my whining post. I feel a little bit better. I will give it another try... I probably come back whining after about a month and it goes on a loop for two and a half years :laugh: Moderators better block me already :laugh:
Member 14971499 wrote:
They want to get rid of us who are beginners and unexperienced and focus on grinding only the real diamonds of programming.
Sorry... but that is bullsh1t. Get rid of many... yes. But keep the real diamonds of programming... totally wrong. Being able to pass exams in the university has nothing to do with being a good programmer. I know a lot of very good programmers who have no studies and are self taught. And I had a lot of co-students that were passing the exams even with good marks but then couldn't do anything useful in the real world. I had myself a lot of problems at the beginning of my studies because I had the feeling of not learning enough. Then I was afraid of the exams because I pushed myself down like you. Somewhen I just realized that to pass the exams I didn't need to know all the stuff properly. So I changed my mindset. I focused in passing the exams and learned later what I thought it was more important for me. Besides from all the academic content that I learned during the studies I have only needed a small part in my professional life. The most important things I learned where actually "passive" or "non academic" skills, like how to use logic to find the root of a problem, how to learn by myself, how to discriminate relevant from non relevant information in a text and things like that. Once I started working in the automation, I had to almost start over, because it was mostly new stuff I had not seen during studies. One of the most important things you have to understand is... the degree will only be useful for your very first job. Afterwards experience and successfull projects are more important than what you studied. TL;DR: Learn how to pass the exams and get the degree, get your first job, then learn what you need in your job while look for a better job that fits better what you like.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Hi again developers X| I study my first semester of computer science, and I like programming and computers but I feel like evrything is going too fast. We are jumping from one subject to another and we learn everything at once. We started to learn java in september and now we are jumping into PHP and databases, Swing, JavaFX, UML and professional software enginnering arcituctures, algorithms and propositional logic. I hardly managed to learn basic Java concepts and practice them and I already have to build Java Swing applications, manage databases and know common algorithms and on top of that train up my propositional logic-skills. I simple don't have time for that even if I would like to. I watch the lectures online (Because of COVID-19 we have online classes), but I don't learn anything from them that is requiered to pass the exams. If you want to pass the exams the school books and lectures aren't enough. You have to learn from other sources. After reading 1000 pages of a book I realize that I only learn a tiny bit of what I have to know to survive. I feel like I only study, from morning to evening but yet don't manage to learn what I have to know in order to pass exams. And now I wonder... Is Computer Science only meant for people who are already programmers and who know everything about computers, or maybe I have severe ADHD? Because I can't focus on so many tasks and subjects at once. It takes much effort for me to focus on one thing and then I have to jump to another and another... When I focus on one subject and one thing, I usually do well, and I pass my exams, but if I have to do many tasks, study for many exams I can't do it... If I would teach myself programming at home I could go up to this level and I think I could do well, because I really have intrest and motivation, but because of my CS I don't really want to do it anymore. I wonder how people who never wrote any code in their life manage to pass these exams. I feel like people who didn't have any prior knowledge about programming when they started these courses do better than me. I don't know if it make sense to continue, becase my loan is geting higher and higher and I'm... getting dumber and dumber haha :laugh:
The problem is that CS is a complicated field, which a massive variety of subfields: in terms of languages alone there are dozens that are in common use in the real world, and each of those is used with different aims in mind, with different parts of the frameworks available being used depending on the task. Just in terms of environments under which an application will run, there are four main contenders: Windows, Web, iPhone, Android: and each of them uses a different framework (or frameworks - there are many different ones in each environment!. Some environments traditionally enforce a specific language: Java for Android, Objective C for Apple, HTML / Javascript plus a backend language for web based. So there is a huge amount to learn: the course doesn't know what you are going to be good at or interested in so it has to - initially at least - give you an overview of everything so that you know that it exists even if you can't really code in it (and trust me on this, almost nobody leaves a degree course in CS being able to code well in any language, much as their exam results may beg to differ!) And there's the rub: out in the real world, you have to keep switching about - you can't just focus on one thing for a long period of time, because everyone else is waiting for that bit so their bits can work. And you have to keep on learning, all the time - new ideas, new methods, new frameworks, new languages ... it never ends! It takes a specific mindset to do this, not that many people have it, and as far as I know it can't be taught - it has to be learned and that's a big difference! I'd suggest talking to your tutor, and seeing what he can suggest or do to help - if nothing else this will be a problem he has met before and he knows you better than we do.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Greg Utas wrote:
Your profile says you're in the US but you call it university rather than college?!
The 'U' in MSU (where I graduated from) doesn't stand for 'College'! And I'm in the states!
Oh yes, lots of "U"s in university names, but hardly anyone calls it that!
Robust Services Core | Software Techniques for Lemmings | Articles
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. -
Lol, I'm not british. My english grammar and spelling is terrible. But I use british words because in Europe british english is dominant in all textbooks for english classes. When you learn english as a foreigner you allways listen to the tapes recorded by Britts and you have no choice to learn american english. Than you watch some Youtube-videos and you learn some american english, and than som australian english and you end up mixing words from every dialect without knowing the difference.
British-American Dictionary[^] They should add other English-speaking countries too. Canadian is closer to American but sometimes follows British. There there'd be the English used in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, India...the first two probably qualify as a different dialect! Off the top of my hand, a couple of Canadian ones that usually puzzle Americans are - eavestrough = US gutter (sometimes used here too, but usually means where water runs along the curb/kerb) - soother = US pacifier
Robust Services Core | Software Techniques for Lemmings | Articles
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. -
Well, I'm not from US. I can't tell you where I'm from because of privacy ;) If you're a hacker you can check it yourself though :cool:. Actually my degree can be translated to Software Engineering but after 3 years I can continue and be master of Computer Science (Which I already know I won't :-D ).
It's as if they want you to be able to check off a bunch of boxes
I have the same feeling. I just study for the exams but still am not good at anything, because there is no time to deep dive in what we learn...
What size is your cohort?
We are about 110, and I don't see anyone dropping out. It seems like everyone doing well besides me :laugh: I'm happy for them but it makes me feel extremly dumb. But maybe I'm wrong? I never meet my classmates because of COVID-19 so I can't tell how they actually do.
But I have to wonder if they're trying to weed out a ton of folks
Yeah, I think you are right about it. This is exactly what I think. They want to get rid of us who are beginners and unexperienced and focus on grinding only the real diamonds of programming. Well, I can't blame them, but they should have different requirements before they take in people, because "college" ;P costs and someone can end up with a huge loan and wasted time. I'm lucky that I at least enjoy what I do even if I fail to deliver. I feel sorry for those who are total beginners. Anyhow thank's for comfort. I already thought about retaking the courses but in my country you have to fail on many exams to do that. I failed only one exam in each course and have second chance to retake them, so I have to continue. You would probably say: So it's not that bad. What's the problem? Well, I don't feel like I have strong fundaments to continue with more advanced stuff, because I didn't learn my basics well. I have a feeling that everything gonna collapse soon like a house of card when the harder stuffs come. Anyway, thanks for reading my whining post. I feel a little bit better. I will give it another try... I probably come back whining after about a month and it goes on a loop for two and a half years :laugh: Moderators better block me already :laugh:
Member 14971499 wrote:
They want to get rid of us who are beginners and unexperienced and focus on grinding only the real diamonds of programming.
That's pretty much the conclusion I came to during my first year of computer science. IMO, high school counselors are either full of sh1t, ignorant, or complicit, or a combination of all three. They kept telling us kids while in high school that college/university were really hard to get into. Just as a scare tactic to keep us in check and study hard. Yeah, study hard, but don't lie to kids as for the reasons. From my perspective? No, it's NOT hard to get yourself accepted. At least back in my day, when coding still wasn't so mainstream (not that it is today, but bear with me) they knew people were joining because they had heard it "paid well", even if they didn't have the discipline or motivation and really didn't belong in that field. Don't learn something because "it pays well", that's a *terrible* reason to do it. But that doesn't matter; they'll accept practically anyone, and during the first year, they'll throw everything at you to drive you to quit and provide you with no support. Why? To maximize profits. Universities are run like businesses; the more people they can cram in during the first year, the more money they make. You quit, they get to keep that money. It's pure gravy. For subsequent years, it gets harder and harder to get qualified people to teach the material, so the smaller the classes, the fewer teachers they need on payroll, and the more manageable the teacher's workload. It's now decades later, and nobody's managed to convince me otherwise. *That* is the lesson I learned right after high school, and that lesson is NOT taught when you need it the most. Back to your situation: Make of that what you will. Just don't be surprised if you feel like they're trying to weed you out. They are.
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It is. Because of my odd sleep patterns and my being monolingual I wind up talking to lots of british folks online and pick up some britishisms in the process. "you lot" "uni" "can't be arsed" etc
Real programmers use butterflies
*lol* "can't be arsed".... I'd love to hear that in an American accent... Though I have yet to hear an American say "Ask me bollocks" (regardless of how they swing... pun intended)
Who the f*** is General Failure, and why is he reading my harddisk?
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Hi again developers X| I study my first semester of computer science, and I like programming and computers but I feel like evrything is going too fast. We are jumping from one subject to another and we learn everything at once. We started to learn java in september and now we are jumping into PHP and databases, Swing, JavaFX, UML and professional software enginnering arcituctures, algorithms and propositional logic. I hardly managed to learn basic Java concepts and practice them and I already have to build Java Swing applications, manage databases and know common algorithms and on top of that train up my propositional logic-skills. I simple don't have time for that even if I would like to. I watch the lectures online (Because of COVID-19 we have online classes), but I don't learn anything from them that is requiered to pass the exams. If you want to pass the exams the school books and lectures aren't enough. You have to learn from other sources. After reading 1000 pages of a book I realize that I only learn a tiny bit of what I have to know to survive. I feel like I only study, from morning to evening but yet don't manage to learn what I have to know in order to pass exams. And now I wonder... Is Computer Science only meant for people who are already programmers and who know everything about computers, or maybe I have severe ADHD? Because I can't focus on so many tasks and subjects at once. It takes much effort for me to focus on one thing and then I have to jump to another and another... When I focus on one subject and one thing, I usually do well, and I pass my exams, but if I have to do many tasks, study for many exams I can't do it... If I would teach myself programming at home I could go up to this level and I think I could do well, because I really have intrest and motivation, but because of my CS I don't really want to do it anymore. I wonder how people who never wrote any code in their life manage to pass these exams. I feel like people who didn't have any prior knowledge about programming when they started these courses do better than me. I don't know if it make sense to continue, becase my loan is geting higher and higher and I'm... getting dumber and dumber haha :laugh:
Member 14971499 wrote:
If you want to pass the exams the school books and lectures aren't enough. You have to learn from other sources.
I won't comment on your situation, others have done that - but this quote is so true, yet so little understood. Even at school (I'm thinking 'A' levels in UK) it applies. Yet too many youngsters think that if they just do the minimum (turn up at lectures and read through the booklist) they'll pass with flying colours. There may be subjects where that's true, but in general doing well involves a lot more than that. Ironically, it was the route I took - doing the minimum to check the boxes, and I completely wrecked my A-levels (resulting in D, E and O grades instead of the A, B, B I needed for my preferred uni course) and managed to scrape a 2:2 at Uni when with some application I'd have got a good 2:1. Fortunately exam grades are not the be-all and end-all and I rate my career as pretty successful. :)
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Hi again developers X| I study my first semester of computer science, and I like programming and computers but I feel like evrything is going too fast. We are jumping from one subject to another and we learn everything at once. We started to learn java in september and now we are jumping into PHP and databases, Swing, JavaFX, UML and professional software enginnering arcituctures, algorithms and propositional logic. I hardly managed to learn basic Java concepts and practice them and I already have to build Java Swing applications, manage databases and know common algorithms and on top of that train up my propositional logic-skills. I simple don't have time for that even if I would like to. I watch the lectures online (Because of COVID-19 we have online classes), but I don't learn anything from them that is requiered to pass the exams. If you want to pass the exams the school books and lectures aren't enough. You have to learn from other sources. After reading 1000 pages of a book I realize that I only learn a tiny bit of what I have to know to survive. I feel like I only study, from morning to evening but yet don't manage to learn what I have to know in order to pass exams. And now I wonder... Is Computer Science only meant for people who are already programmers and who know everything about computers, or maybe I have severe ADHD? Because I can't focus on so many tasks and subjects at once. It takes much effort for me to focus on one thing and then I have to jump to another and another... When I focus on one subject and one thing, I usually do well, and I pass my exams, but if I have to do many tasks, study for many exams I can't do it... If I would teach myself programming at home I could go up to this level and I think I could do well, because I really have intrest and motivation, but because of my CS I don't really want to do it anymore. I wonder how people who never wrote any code in their life manage to pass these exams. I feel like people who didn't have any prior knowledge about programming when they started these courses do better than me. I don't know if it make sense to continue, becase my loan is geting higher and higher and I'm... getting dumber and dumber haha :laugh:
You are sweating the small stuff. Concentrate on what it takes to pass the exams and ultimately get the degree. When you get your first job, you'll likely find that it has nothing in common with college exercises or exams. Buckle down and get through it. My story: At 20, I was a struggling CS student...not particularly struggling with the CS classes, but with all the other required 'culture' classes...that and an inflexible computer lab schedule and an inadequate number of terminals when it was open. That combined with a lack of funds at the time brought my first college try to a halt. I got a pretty good factory job and did that for 10 years. In the late 90's, I'd put back enough money to go live in a shack on my grandparent's farm and attend the local college, this time as a CIS major. I was a much better student the second time graduating at the top of my class and landing a job before graduation. 20 years on an I'm a co-owner of that company. :) While I don't regret any of my choices, I would advise you to tough it out and get through it, otherwise, you may find yourself on a factory floor. From experience, it's much nicer (and lucrative) getting paid to use your head than your back...just my 2 cents. :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"
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Hi again developers X| I study my first semester of computer science, and I like programming and computers but I feel like evrything is going too fast. We are jumping from one subject to another and we learn everything at once. We started to learn java in september and now we are jumping into PHP and databases, Swing, JavaFX, UML and professional software enginnering arcituctures, algorithms and propositional logic. I hardly managed to learn basic Java concepts and practice them and I already have to build Java Swing applications, manage databases and know common algorithms and on top of that train up my propositional logic-skills. I simple don't have time for that even if I would like to. I watch the lectures online (Because of COVID-19 we have online classes), but I don't learn anything from them that is requiered to pass the exams. If you want to pass the exams the school books and lectures aren't enough. You have to learn from other sources. After reading 1000 pages of a book I realize that I only learn a tiny bit of what I have to know to survive. I feel like I only study, from morning to evening but yet don't manage to learn what I have to know in order to pass exams. And now I wonder... Is Computer Science only meant for people who are already programmers and who know everything about computers, or maybe I have severe ADHD? Because I can't focus on so many tasks and subjects at once. It takes much effort for me to focus on one thing and then I have to jump to another and another... When I focus on one subject and one thing, I usually do well, and I pass my exams, but if I have to do many tasks, study for many exams I can't do it... If I would teach myself programming at home I could go up to this level and I think I could do well, because I really have intrest and motivation, but because of my CS I don't really want to do it anymore. I wonder how people who never wrote any code in their life manage to pass these exams. I feel like people who didn't have any prior knowledge about programming when they started these courses do better than me. I don't know if it make sense to continue, becase my loan is geting higher and higher and I'm... getting dumber and dumber haha :laugh:
You're forgetting the third possibility, it could be both. ;P
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Hi again developers X| I study my first semester of computer science, and I like programming and computers but I feel like evrything is going too fast. We are jumping from one subject to another and we learn everything at once. We started to learn java in september and now we are jumping into PHP and databases, Swing, JavaFX, UML and professional software enginnering arcituctures, algorithms and propositional logic. I hardly managed to learn basic Java concepts and practice them and I already have to build Java Swing applications, manage databases and know common algorithms and on top of that train up my propositional logic-skills. I simple don't have time for that even if I would like to. I watch the lectures online (Because of COVID-19 we have online classes), but I don't learn anything from them that is requiered to pass the exams. If you want to pass the exams the school books and lectures aren't enough. You have to learn from other sources. After reading 1000 pages of a book I realize that I only learn a tiny bit of what I have to know to survive. I feel like I only study, from morning to evening but yet don't manage to learn what I have to know in order to pass exams. And now I wonder... Is Computer Science only meant for people who are already programmers and who know everything about computers, or maybe I have severe ADHD? Because I can't focus on so many tasks and subjects at once. It takes much effort for me to focus on one thing and then I have to jump to another and another... When I focus on one subject and one thing, I usually do well, and I pass my exams, but if I have to do many tasks, study for many exams I can't do it... If I would teach myself programming at home I could go up to this level and I think I could do well, because I really have intrest and motivation, but because of my CS I don't really want to do it anymore. I wonder how people who never wrote any code in their life manage to pass these exams. I feel like people who didn't have any prior knowledge about programming when they started these courses do better than me. I don't know if it make sense to continue, becase my loan is geting higher and higher and I'm... getting dumber and dumber haha :laugh:
I think it helps to have Asperger's syndrome. I can focus on my studies in spite of distractions, especially when doing something that requires little thinking. When I was in college, I worked multiple jobs earning money to cover my living and tuition costs, including working in a Xerox room, research assistant, in a candy store assembling the Sunday newspapers, and "private service." (As a member of a private service crew, I and my coworkers would provide service staff for private parties, doing such jobs as walking around with trays of drinks or canapes, setting the table for dinner, serving dinner and cleaning up afterward, tending a small bar and all of the other small jobs required to serve 20 to 50 guests in a private residence.) In addition, I worked as a female graduate student's personal servant and typist in exchange for tutoring in math. All of these jobs were part time and I had to keep a calendar to keep my work hours organized (Thank you DayTimer!! I am still a customer today, even though I am now retired.)
It also takes an organized and efficient way of thinking, rapidly breaking down any problem – academic, personal, just plain living – into small pieces that are quickly solvable. with the wide realm of technologies and the speed of technological innovation in computer science, you need to be able to rapidly learn new skills and paradigms.
Computer science is not for everyone. It is a tough, rapidly changing, demanding discipline that requires constant reading and learning.
See OriginalGriff's reply. There are some good suggestions there.
__________________ Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that there are some things I just can’t keep up with, the determination to keep up with the things I must keep up with, and the wisdom to find a good RSS feed from someone who keeps up with what I’d like to, but just don’t have the damn bandwidth to handle right now. © 2009, Rex Hammock
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Hi again developers X| I study my first semester of computer science, and I like programming and computers but I feel like evrything is going too fast. We are jumping from one subject to another and we learn everything at once. We started to learn java in september and now we are jumping into PHP and databases, Swing, JavaFX, UML and professional software enginnering arcituctures, algorithms and propositional logic. I hardly managed to learn basic Java concepts and practice them and I already have to build Java Swing applications, manage databases and know common algorithms and on top of that train up my propositional logic-skills. I simple don't have time for that even if I would like to. I watch the lectures online (Because of COVID-19 we have online classes), but I don't learn anything from them that is requiered to pass the exams. If you want to pass the exams the school books and lectures aren't enough. You have to learn from other sources. After reading 1000 pages of a book I realize that I only learn a tiny bit of what I have to know to survive. I feel like I only study, from morning to evening but yet don't manage to learn what I have to know in order to pass exams. And now I wonder... Is Computer Science only meant for people who are already programmers and who know everything about computers, or maybe I have severe ADHD? Because I can't focus on so many tasks and subjects at once. It takes much effort for me to focus on one thing and then I have to jump to another and another... When I focus on one subject and one thing, I usually do well, and I pass my exams, but if I have to do many tasks, study for many exams I can't do it... If I would teach myself programming at home I could go up to this level and I think I could do well, because I really have intrest and motivation, but because of my CS I don't really want to do it anymore. I wonder how people who never wrote any code in their life manage to pass these exams. I feel like people who didn't have any prior knowledge about programming when they started these courses do better than me. I don't know if it make sense to continue, becase my loan is geting higher and higher and I'm... getting dumber and dumber haha :laugh:
fyi: I started programming after age 40, and within five years was an about-box credited co-author of a best-selling consumer software program. First, how do you know you have ADHD ? Second, your description of your "basic CS course" is so absurd that I think you are making it up. Other: Nature speaks the language of mathematics. In my experience, multi-lingual students have an advantage in learning CS. Finally, quit making elaborate excuses for your lack of motivation, and/or laziness ... and: Assess whether you have the aptitude for computer science. If you have the aptitude, find a course or school where the introductory content is focused on algorithms and programming in one language. Above all, find something to invest in that challenges you, that motivates you to grow. Time's a wastin'
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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You are sweating the small stuff. Concentrate on what it takes to pass the exams and ultimately get the degree. When you get your first job, you'll likely find that it has nothing in common with college exercises or exams. Buckle down and get through it. My story: At 20, I was a struggling CS student...not particularly struggling with the CS classes, but with all the other required 'culture' classes...that and an inflexible computer lab schedule and an inadequate number of terminals when it was open. That combined with a lack of funds at the time brought my first college try to a halt. I got a pretty good factory job and did that for 10 years. In the late 90's, I'd put back enough money to go live in a shack on my grandparent's farm and attend the local college, this time as a CIS major. I was a much better student the second time graduating at the top of my class and landing a job before graduation. 20 years on an I'm a co-owner of that company. :) While I don't regret any of my choices, I would advise you to tough it out and get through it, otherwise, you may find yourself on a factory floor. From experience, it's much nicer (and lucrative) getting paid to use your head than your back...just my 2 cents. :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"
enjoyed your post :thumbsup:
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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The problem is that CS is a complicated field, which a massive variety of subfields: in terms of languages alone there are dozens that are in common use in the real world, and each of those is used with different aims in mind, with different parts of the frameworks available being used depending on the task. Just in terms of environments under which an application will run, there are four main contenders: Windows, Web, iPhone, Android: and each of them uses a different framework (or frameworks - there are many different ones in each environment!. Some environments traditionally enforce a specific language: Java for Android, Objective C for Apple, HTML / Javascript plus a backend language for web based. So there is a huge amount to learn: the course doesn't know what you are going to be good at or interested in so it has to - initially at least - give you an overview of everything so that you know that it exists even if you can't really code in it (and trust me on this, almost nobody leaves a degree course in CS being able to code well in any language, much as their exam results may beg to differ!) And there's the rub: out in the real world, you have to keep switching about - you can't just focus on one thing for a long period of time, because everyone else is waiting for that bit so their bits can work. And you have to keep on learning, all the time - new ideas, new methods, new frameworks, new languages ... it never ends! It takes a specific mindset to do this, not that many people have it, and as far as I know it can't be taught - it has to be learned and that's a big difference! I'd suggest talking to your tutor, and seeing what he can suggest or do to help - if nothing else this will be a problem he has met before and he knows you better than we do.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
Amen ! :thumbsup:
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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British-American Dictionary[^] They should add other English-speaking countries too. Canadian is closer to American but sometimes follows British. There there'd be the English used in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, India...the first two probably qualify as a different dialect! Off the top of my hand, a couple of Canadian ones that usually puzzle Americans are - eavestrough = US gutter (sometimes used here too, but usually means where water runs along the curb/kerb) - soother = US pacifier
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The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. -
Hi again developers X| I study my first semester of computer science, and I like programming and computers but I feel like evrything is going too fast. We are jumping from one subject to another and we learn everything at once. We started to learn java in september and now we are jumping into PHP and databases, Swing, JavaFX, UML and professional software enginnering arcituctures, algorithms and propositional logic. I hardly managed to learn basic Java concepts and practice them and I already have to build Java Swing applications, manage databases and know common algorithms and on top of that train up my propositional logic-skills. I simple don't have time for that even if I would like to. I watch the lectures online (Because of COVID-19 we have online classes), but I don't learn anything from them that is requiered to pass the exams. If you want to pass the exams the school books and lectures aren't enough. You have to learn from other sources. After reading 1000 pages of a book I realize that I only learn a tiny bit of what I have to know to survive. I feel like I only study, from morning to evening but yet don't manage to learn what I have to know in order to pass exams. And now I wonder... Is Computer Science only meant for people who are already programmers and who know everything about computers, or maybe I have severe ADHD? Because I can't focus on so many tasks and subjects at once. It takes much effort for me to focus on one thing and then I have to jump to another and another... When I focus on one subject and one thing, I usually do well, and I pass my exams, but if I have to do many tasks, study for many exams I can't do it... If I would teach myself programming at home I could go up to this level and I think I could do well, because I really have intrest and motivation, but because of my CS I don't really want to do it anymore. I wonder how people who never wrote any code in their life manage to pass these exams. I feel like people who didn't have any prior knowledge about programming when they started these courses do better than me. I don't know if it make sense to continue, becase my loan is geting higher and higher and I'm... getting dumber and dumber haha :laugh:
My first weeks at university were also overwhelming. I simply could not follow courses, in part because I had no good study habits. I even failed my first exam. This did not stopped me from finishing the 5 year course on time, with fairly decent grades. It is normal that you feel "dumb", although I doubt that you are. Double down on the effort, pick up good study efforts and evaluate again in a few months. If you come to the conclusion that it is not for you, change. There is no shame in it. The student loan can be daunting, but again relax. Nobody is going to cut-off your head or put you in prison for failing to pay it. Yes, it is a big deal, but not a life and death kind of thing.
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...and then, of course, you have the individual English regional dialects... :) Whey, man, divn't drop ya dottle on the proggie mat o the gapher'll kick yi oot....:)
Leo56 wrote:
Whey, man, divn't drop ya dottle on the proggie mat o the gapher'll kick yi oot.
American regional dialects also exist. Most aren't quite as incomprehensible to the outsider as that...
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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The problem is that CS is a complicated field, which a massive variety of subfields: in terms of languages alone there are dozens that are in common use in the real world, and each of those is used with different aims in mind, with different parts of the frameworks available being used depending on the task. Just in terms of environments under which an application will run, there are four main contenders: Windows, Web, iPhone, Android: and each of them uses a different framework (or frameworks - there are many different ones in each environment!. Some environments traditionally enforce a specific language: Java for Android, Objective C for Apple, HTML / Javascript plus a backend language for web based. So there is a huge amount to learn: the course doesn't know what you are going to be good at or interested in so it has to - initially at least - give you an overview of everything so that you know that it exists even if you can't really code in it (and trust me on this, almost nobody leaves a degree course in CS being able to code well in any language, much as their exam results may beg to differ!) And there's the rub: out in the real world, you have to keep switching about - you can't just focus on one thing for a long period of time, because everyone else is waiting for that bit so their bits can work. And you have to keep on learning, all the time - new ideas, new methods, new frameworks, new languages ... it never ends! It takes a specific mindset to do this, not that many people have it, and as far as I know it can't be taught - it has to be learned and that's a big difference! I'd suggest talking to your tutor, and seeing what he can suggest or do to help - if nothing else this will be a problem he has met before and he knows you better than we do.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
I would take issue with your usage of CS. CS IMO is the study of computing in the abstract - algorithms, complexity theory, etc. In order to apply CS in the "real world", we use computer languages, operating systems, etc. The difference is analogous to that between physics and electronics.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
