interested in CS wrote:
How hard is computer science? I think I am of just average intelligence. I am one year done with college and am in finance but to be realistic I haven't really learned any material the past school year. I think I need to switch, as finance doesn't interest me.
Computers and technology do fascinate me, however I am not even a person who reads tech blogs or understands what languages and coding is. Should I still give CS a shot or am I a bit too behind compared to all the current college kids and high schoolers with vast knowledge of the subject?
Is it fairly easy to get a job in the field or its competitive? And is truly understanding the actual material difficult? The topic intrigues me however I wonder how enjoyable and what the actual profession is like.
There's no harm in trying. I didn't take any CS classes in high school and started in college. It was scary at first, but I found out I had a natural affinity for it, and I excelled.
Take an intro level CS course. Worst case scenario you learn a programming language and get some basic knowledge that you can use as a backup if you don't find something in your field. Best case scenario you find a new field to study. CS takes a lot of work, but I think most people are capable of doing it.
I'm not sure how to measure affinity for CS as a whole ahead of time, but as far as programming goes, it's kind of like explaining how to do something to a really, really stupid person who will do exactly what you say (extremely quickly), but nothing more and nothing less. You need to be able to dissect a big problem and come up with an exact solution that can be automated.
Getting a job in the field seems to be relatively easy. I had an internship after my sophomore and junior years of college and got a full-time offer going into my senior year. I'm working as a software engineer now, which is more related to programming than computer science. It's decent. I like what I do, solving problems on a daily basis. I pretty much make my own hours as long as I get my stuff done. It gets stressful sometimes, but it's not really hard so to speak. And everyone around me is really bright. I still plan on going back to school though, since I'd much rather focus on one big problem than a bunch of smaller ones fed to me by some business-people and motivated by money.