Your Computer Science Education

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Your Computer Science Education

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paul s-306273 SSChampion Points: 10730 More actions · Answer 1

We used Algol on punched cards to write programs in Algol for Operational Research algorithms.

That was great.

Shame most people these days don't have a good grounding.

JKB Ten Centuries Points: 1148 More actions · Answer 2

I have a degree in Maths & Stats and when I first started to use SQL Server you could smell my fear!

Like others have stated, it's the drive to learn and an inquisitive mind that helps in your career path.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736494 More actions · Answer 3

JKB wrote:

I have a degree in Maths & Stats and when I first started to use SQL Server you could smell my fear! Like others have stated, it's the drive to learn and an inquisitive mind that helps in your career path.

I think that drive helps anyone in any career path. Always look to learn, try, do more.

below86 SSChampion Points: 11538 More actions · Answer 4

I have a Bachelor of Science degree from a community college. It was an 18 month program, no breaks for summer. It mainly focused on computer languages, COBOL, CICS, Assembler, a couple other I forget now. We had to take some accounting courses and writing courses to help with writing memo's. 😉

There was a database course but writing the code within COBOL.

I decided this was the best for me since I didn't have to waste time and money on courses that wouldn't be needed in the work force. I knew I may start out at a lower salary than someone with a 4 year degree, but I figured i would gain ground with experience and raises over my 2+ years in the work force to offset the difference.

I guess I feel I've learned and evolved as the work has taken me over the 30+ years.

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we travel not to escape life but for life not to escape us
Don't fear failure, fear regret.

Rod at work SSC-Dedicated Points: 34017 More actions · Answer 5

paul s-306273 wrote:

We used Algol on punched cards to write programs in Algol for Operational Research algorithms.
That was great.
Shame most people these days don't have a good grounding.

Paul your comment about it being a shame that people don't have a good grounding reminded me of an incident many years ago. I was working in the private sector. We had hired a couple of guys from the local university who had recently completed a 4-year degree in Computer Science. They were both good and went on to be great employees. But they told me that they felt their CS degree had left them unprepared for the world of work. They hadn't been taught how to listen to customers, to gather requirements and comprehend what the users wanted. All their schooling the professors would explicitly give homework assignments with details. But when they went to the user to find out what they wanted, the user never said anything about construct a hash table to help with the presentation. Instead, the user would say, "I need a report of each machine's output summarized, per machine, by the date range I specify." They were lost, but they did learn how to listen to the users and derive what was being asked for so they could produce the report.

Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

KerryH SSChasing Mays Points: 632 More actions · Answer 6

I found college courses outside the CS degree program useful, particularly those in the business realm. A course in Logistics was highly beneficial, as well as statistics which helped with determining sample sizes for testing purposes to develop proof of concept and acceptable amounts of exceptions. But my college co-op experience was the most beneficial, practicable application of what was being taught.

For non-administration types of activities, the more you understand the business and its process and data the more valuable you are to the business. I find myself performing a great deal of data analytics when developing code and knowing the business is invaluable for that, data analytics also helps you learn the business. There are many examples of experienced CS people telling the business how their business processes work because it is the CS people who can delve into the code; the business can then focus on enhancing the business processes thru manual practices or requests for code modification. Just knowing how to write code itself provides little value; taking the language of businesspeople and turning it into code is what's needed.

skeleton567 SSCertifiable Points: 5875 More actions · Answer 7

Hey, folks, I don't recall where I saw this a few days ago, but saved it.

This was very literally me back in 1969. Not sure I could even have found the switch back then.

aptitude

Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )