How do i know computer science is a good fit for me?

Please allow me to give you a general answer. No matter what field you try you can't know if it will be a good fit for the long term. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try it, just be open to the possibility - probability - that you won't be doing the same thing for the rest of your life.

I went to school for it. I had a long history of being a computer nerd. It started with like 13 year old me learning how to boot into safe mode to remove malware because I got viruses from looking at porn. Later I saved up like two years to build a gaming computer in middle school. Was always good at math and logic puzzles. Honestly, the math and logic puzzles thing is probably the best indicator if you'll be good. There's very little science to a standard computer science education.

Speaking for a friend who went into that field:

He went to college, got his degree. got a job starting at more money than I'll ever make as a teacher and HATED IT!!!!! Hated it! regretted his decision. Actually got into sales for his company which he hated a little less.

Meanwhile, I'm underpaid, routinely criticized because someone's kid gets a 0 when they don't do the work or doesn't get a 100 on a test that they didn't study for but I LOVE IT!!!

I LOVE my job, I love my students. I love 99% of the parents and have gotten along with all but one administrator that I've worked for/with (and he got fired after one year because he sucked at his job).

I'm retiring in 1 month and, in retirement, I'll be substitute teaching at the school I'm retiring from and I'm excited about it.

It's hit or miss- find something you love and go after it.

My son took video game design. He doesn't do that, he's a software developer, but he says to tell my students that if they want to go into that field History better be their favorite subject. LOL

Do you mind saying what State you taught in ?

How many years did you teach ?

I'm startled you only had one administrator you did not like. {but glad for you}

Similar to the FartKing, I had a long history of being a computer nerd as a child, but didn't have fancy things like windows and safe mode back then. We had to tweak our autoexec.bat and config.sys to make games work, use line numbers in qbasic and, if we're lucky, got 2 hours to download a single image at 2400bps without a parent picking up the phone - and I hated CS and dropped out.

Way too much theory for me at the time, I just wanted to make stuff happen.

Ended up in an IT field, not a FAANG, but work closely with a couple of them on cutting edge stuff and love it.

These days my older self spends time studying more CS related theory on my own and although I wish I learned it when i was younger and smarter, wouldn't change a thing.

Don't feel like you need a formal CS degree to make it as a SWE, SRE or whatever adjacent field - but never stop side projects/home labbing, learning new stuff and make sure to truly understand RFC1925

Good luck

If you haven't done any CS that #1 thing is an affinity for logic. You don't have to be good at math, but some part of mathematic thinking should be somewhat enjoyable for you. Computer science and math are the only two fields where your decisions can be made on 100% pure logic.

There becomes a crossroads for math/cs/physics students in college as the skills that made a student successful in math in high school may not be the same as later. A lot of it comes from whether you like building things up from scratch using logic, or are really more attached to math for the predictable procedures that are used. Both have their place in CS but the former will usually enjoy the upper level CS and math more.

I was a math and physics major in college and got a job software engineering out of college two years ago. I am now in the process of leaving my job. It is a great gig - easy hours, freedom, good pay, but ultimately it was just a bit too isolating for me. I am a bit too young to spend my whole working life alone in front of a computer screen, if it isn't what I really want to do. M

I studied philosophy in college, but ended up working in software development. I sometimes think about going back to school for formal CS education but I'm not sure how much that would really advance my career at this point. I think you'll know whether or not its a good fit if/when you take some classes (taking an intro class certainly can't hurt if you're still undecided on a major) or start working in the field.

If you find math easy. If you are much more introvert than extrovert. If you enjoy solving problems on your own.

If you answer no to any of those it is not for you.

If you can't write well, and you aren't interested in the hard sciences or law or business, and you'd like to enter a field that offers opportunity and eventually decent income that you can easily do even once your body starts to fall apart, then being a programmer is right for you.

ALL jobs suck, so find one that sucks the least.

Funny, I was sort of the opposite. I had a very liberal CS education. So it was almost all theory, which I enjoyed. I learned next to zero practical skills, but I could do traveling salesman or towers of hanoi 100 different ways with a blindfold on.

To OP, definitely consider what type of program your school offers. My school also offered a more "practical" CS track where you used more en vogue software. If you want a job as a developer ASAP, then that's likely the better route. However, you may not get to take as many electives or get to learn from the kooky tenured professors that teach one algorithms class per semester — those were my favorite.

I ended up falling more into product design and product management. I can talk the talk with developers just enough to understand what's going on and do basic troubleshooting.

This is something I see with a lot of my students. You come in loving the tech fields because the answers are clear and you've always been good at them. But a little ways in you find that it is much more than following formulas. Finding joy in logical thinking is key.

I have no idea what the curriculum looks like at your school, but I would say most of my students have a pretty good idea whether or not they like CS after the first major class. However, there is a bigger jump in concepts when you get through CS I and CS II and into courses like Algorithms and things like that. I feel like that is the point many leave the major and just get the minor, or quit altogether.

But if you are curious about it, just go for it. If it is not for you, then you'll learn that. And you also won't wake up in 10 years thinking, gee, I could have been a great programmer. Instead you'll be like, oh yeah, I tried CS and totally didn't like it.

I was an undeclared engineering major. My freshman year I had a class where we solved math problems using the C programming language. I thought it was pretty cool and I picked it up quickly. I decided to go down the computer engineering path with a focus on software, now I'm a software developer approaching 10 years in my career. I enjoy it enough, I'm glad this is my career. I'll say you have to be good at teaching yourself stuff. Technology is constantly changing. The languages/frameworks/tools you use today will probably be very different a few years down the road and you have to keep up with it and keep learning new things, and you're not going to have a teacher there teaching it to you.

There's no future in technology! Join the Neo-Luddite Revolution!!!

Software development is a competitive career field if your aim is to make big bucks doing work that is intellectually stimulating. You'll be spending every weekend of your 20s and 30s "upskilling" to try and create job security for yourself. When you have a job, you still have to compete against your coworkers to try and get assigned the best projects or not be in the bottom 15% of performers who get managed out.

this is honestly about right. Was curious about programming and technology at a very young age. By the time I graduated, I had worked on a few open source projects. Similar to most jobs, work is more about solving problems or innovation off an existing creation. The cons, kinda competitive and competition amongst nerds gets complicated. Pulling all nighters in your 20’s wont seem fair. Some managers are slave drivers, really depends for whom or what projects you end up working on. I would say take a class or buy a book and see if you enjoy it

Damn dude, basically same story for me. I’m not even good at the languages specifically (don’t know every little facet, learn what I need as I go) but pretty good at solving problems logically and getting stuff done. Math was always my favorite, pure logic.

It pays well but it gets a bit dry. Just fixing bugs and pushing out new stuff, blah blah. Change jobs every 3 years or so. Get paid very well. It’s not bad, but you also don’t talk to people much and you’re not gonna have clout or a huge social network like other jobs have.

It works like this… if you find any CS classes hard at a university, then you won’t be good at being a software engineer.

Hard as in you genuinely don’t understand what you are supposed to be learning. Not hard as in there being a lot of work.