Has anyone here graduated with a degree in CS? How was your experience

I haven't graduated in CS, but I'm slowly learning it myself, course by course and I have some friends who studied CS in college.

What I can tell you is that if you don't like the field you'll most likely drop out. If you just fell for the CS meme and went for it just because it's well paid then you're not going to have a good time and most likely you'll drop in the first year. If you are passionate about it, or if it simply seems interesting to you then you won't have as hard a time. It will still require a lot of study and effort but you'll find some amount of pleasure in it and you most likely won't drop out. It doesn't matter that you don't know shit about it yet, that's what college is for, to teach you.

>>17499491
Did you go in with little knowledge about the subject?
How was your time there?

>>17499451

where is CS a 3 year program?

In terms of difficulty of program:

Electrical or Chemical Engineering > Other Engineering > CS > Physical Sciences > Everything else

In most colleges, Calc I or Physics I are "weeder courses" - to weed out the weaklings. Any degree program that doesn't have both is a bullshit degree that literal mouthbreathers can handle. That's where you'll find the highest concentration of SJWs and imbeciles.

Even if you finish a CS degree, you won't necessarily get hired doing programming work at a top tier company. I've been interviewing and hiring programmers for 15 years - and I can only extend an offer to a fraction of the people I meet (I'm at a top company), even though all of them have degrees and have been vetted a bit before I talk to them.

That said, you can have a great career and great life at a non-top-tier company. But to work anywhere, you do have to be able to do the job.

I've met plenty of people with CS degrees that literally could not write the code for problems you are absolutely required to know forwards and backwards as part of a CS degree program - think binary search algorithm.

A good CS program can take you from "knows nothing, but intelligent and motivated" to "can get hired at a top company". I know several people that had that experience (although it was years ago...)

Having some knowledge going into the degree program will help you, but it is not required. Just expect to spend as much time as you can learning as much as you can from the people with more experience than you. But note that these kids who come into college with programming experience are often egotistical super nerds; listen to what they tell you, but double check it yourself later.

t. finished CS+Math double major 16 years ago. Been in the industry my entire career.

>>17499639
I actually did physics in high school and got a 70 (rarely studied)
Also the only math classes are linear algebra and stats

In your experience with CS did you go into college with minimal information and come out a great programmer?

>>17499507
I meant I haven't gone to a CS college at all, I have a degree in finances, but I decided I absolutely hate it and started learning CS.

Still, I started with a free CS50 course from harvard( they recorded the lectures and gave you all the material you need and the exercises they made the students do. I was doing pretty much everything a student there was doing, except I didn't receive any feedback), I had no prior knowledge of CS before it. I didn't even know what the CPU does or how to write a "Hello, world" program in any language. I can tell you it's definitely do-able, even without receiving help or feedback. Sometimes I would get stuck for hours thinking about how I should put an algorithm into code or why my code isn't working, but I always figured it out eventually. This problem will be a lot easier to handle in an academic setting since you'll have teachers and colleagues to ask.

>>17499639
not him, but you won't come out a great programmer after the college no matter how well you do. You'll just have learned a basis.

>>17499451
I did. My college is known to be one of the hardest in my country, it's a post-soviet country though so that doesn't tell you much.

During last year I somehow got into automation and as it turns out the intersection between solid CS knowledge and a little bit of something else (in my case EE and ME) is sought after. My point is, don't shy away from things that are not pure CS, it gives you valuable experience, there are many guys who know just how to program, but knowing how to program and also for example economics gives you a goddamn advantage.

As far as learning programming goes, the only thing I can really tell you (although that goes without saying) is to program more and read less. Reading books and tutorials is nice and all, but you just have to sit through it. Whenever reading a programming book, do the exercises. All of them.

Also if your college allows it, I would advice you to try to learn a wide variety of languages. It's nice to think that knowing for example just C# is enough (and it might very well be for some time), but knowing assembly, functional programming and some more low-level stuff gives you a much better insight. So don't be afraid of hardware and low-level stuff. It's more useful than you might think.

I can't really think of much else. Feel free to ask.

>>17499728
>actually did physics in high school and got a 70 (rarely studied)

I passed a physics AP test in HS even though I did not try very hard in HS.

College, calculus based physics was substantially more difficult for me - and for many of the kids that dropped out.

>Also the only math classes are linear algebra and stats

There are often "business stats" and "engineering stats" classes, the latter being more difficult.

>In your experience with CS did you go into college with minimal information and come out a great programmer?

I went into college having been programming since I was a kid, and having already worked in the IT industry in highschool.

I didn't come out a "Great programmer".

In my case, college greatly enhanced my knowledge in modern computer architecture, OOP design, and algorithms.

But, I would have been hireable with the skills I had prior to doing college at all, if I had just had a diploma in-hand.

(but not at a top-tier company)

How old is too old to forge a successful career with a CS degree?

>>17499801
>How old is too old to forge a successful career with a CS degree?

Totally depends on the kind of organizations that are hiring in your area.

Young internet companies often have severe age bias.

Banks/insurance companies tend to not care how old you are