It still sounds to me like you might not be studying the right stuff. If your classes remind you of a tedious treadmill leading toward the Blub Factory you need better classes.
Or a better major. Perhaps you're making the mistake of letting your chosen career dictate your choice of classes. The universal secret to school is: Take the best classes you can find, from the best people, regardless of subject. If the local comp sci offerings remind you of Javaschool, do something else. I have lots and lots of colleagues who can attest that you don't need a major in comp sci, or even a single class, to spend your career working on software.
The best bang for the buck in college is the stuff that you can't get anywhere else. Stuff that requires expensive facilities or hardware, for example. Take lab courses -- unlike programming, these are things that are hard to self-study. Biology, physics, chemistry, electronics, mechanical engineering, even art and design (which I suspect is best done with physical materials and a live teacher). Or be a productive dilettante: As I said above, find the best professors in the university and take their courses, regardless of the field. I discovered linguistics that way, and it turns out that intro-level linguistics is a really nice thing to know if you're going to work with languages all the time.
If I were to go back I'd probably still take a lot of physics and electronics, which is what I did before, but I'd also be all over the biology and biochemistry. Molecular biology is the ultimate machine language. And I wouldn't neglect statistics: Study as much stats as you can stand.
Of course, nontechnical subjects are also important, because they make you write essays. You'd be surprised how useful a skill essay-writing can be. I had a minor in history, and I don't regret it.
U Dub has one of the best Comp. Sci. departments in the nation, especially when it comes to Operating Systems. I would sell half my soul to be 18 and going to UW.
Well, you are you, I am myself, and the OP is the OP. Everyone has different tastes!
The good news is that if the OP finds that he doesn't enjoy comp sci, at least he'll know that it isn't because the local department is objectively terrible.
>Or a better major. Perhaps you're making the mistake of letting your chosen career dictate your choice of classes. The universal secret to school is: Take the best classes you can find, from the best people, regardless of subject.
I think this is great advice. If I had the opportunity to do college now I would probably try to major in my second (or third!) career choice. Having mobility in where you could have a career could turn out important.
It still sounds to me like you might not be studying the right stuff. If your classes remind you of a tedious treadmill leading toward the Blub Factory you need better classes.
Or a better major. Perhaps you're making the mistake of letting your chosen career dictate your choice of classes. The universal secret to school is: Take the best classes you can find, from the best people, regardless of subject. If the local comp sci offerings remind you of Javaschool, do something else. I have lots and lots of colleagues who can attest that you don't need a major in comp sci, or even a single class, to spend your career working on software.
The best bang for the buck in college is the stuff that you can't get anywhere else. Stuff that requires expensive facilities or hardware, for example. Take lab courses -- unlike programming, these are things that are hard to self-study. Biology, physics, chemistry, electronics, mechanical engineering, even art and design (which I suspect is best done with physical materials and a live teacher). Or be a productive dilettante: As I said above, find the best professors in the university and take their courses, regardless of the field. I discovered linguistics that way, and it turns out that intro-level linguistics is a really nice thing to know if you're going to work with languages all the time.
If I were to go back I'd probably still take a lot of physics and electronics, which is what I did before, but I'd also be all over the biology and biochemistry. Molecular biology is the ultimate machine language. And I wouldn't neglect statistics: Study as much stats as you can stand.
Of course, nontechnical subjects are also important, because they make you write essays. You'd be surprised how useful a skill essay-writing can be. I had a minor in history, and I don't regret it.