Wanting to learn
Posted by King_Shai7@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 4 comments
Hey so a couple months ago my friend told me about how he got into coding and it seemed interesting to me. I want to go to school come spring but i don’t know what field i should go for and what i should start learning now as a beginner. Computer Science, Computer Networking Specialization Microsoft or Cisco,or Computer programming? Help me out with options below please i’m new. But i do learn fast
Bee892@reddit
Naturally, making the right decision is all about knowing the differences between all of the fields. Here are some common fields, the things they focus on, and how they relate to one another:
Note: I'm not an expert on all of these fields. I have a Software Engineering degree and started as a Computer Science major. If anyone else here has different perspectives on some of these fields, I'd welcome some corrections or additions.
Computer Science
This is kind of the granddaddy of the other fields. A common mistake people make is that Computer Science = programming. This is not necessarily true. There are a lot of degrees that give you tons of programming experience. Computer Science is exactly what the name suggests; it's the science of computers. Computer Science dives deep into computational theory, how computers "think," the language (or rather languages) computers speak in, complex algorithms, logical data processing, and other topics that dig deep into computer operations. This is a great degree if you enjoy mathematics because modern computers are just extremely complex calculators. Interest in math and logical equations/expressions can carry you far here.
I'm also going to note here that pretty much EVERY SINGLE FIELD from here on out covers a lot of similar topics and identical coursework to Computer Science. The descriptions I'm providing are where the programs diverge. They all share a ton of concepts.
Software Engineering
Software Engineering degrees are becoming more and more abundant, but the schools you're interested in may not have a Software Engineering program. Once again, the key is in the name; this field is about the engineering/creation of software. Software Engineering isn't as heavy on mathematics and theory. Instead, it's an engineering degree that focuses more on the practical skills that make someone a competent programmer on a software development team. Topics that are covered in this sort of degree that are not covered or are to a lesser degree in other fields are software design, architecture, documentation, diagrams, evolution, project management, and a small amount of business. Here, you'll really get a full picture on the development of software from ideation all the way through release.
Information Technology and Information Systems
IT and IS are all about how humans use technology and computers for efficiency and furthering society. It's also an important part of ongoing software. How do you support software long-term? What are technological solutions for a given problem? How do you integrate new technology into a business? How do you integrate the right technology into a business? How does customer service play into all of this. This is less programming intensive than some of the other degrees because this is all about how we use technology, not necessarily how to build technology. Some other topics include data management and system security.
Cyber Security
This is an extremely important field where you get in-depth knowledge on how to identify, fix, and avoid computational vulnerabilities. Software is made very imperfectly, and there are billions of people using it all around the world for all kinds of purposes. Cyber Security specialists have to have vast knowledge on what parts of programs are susceptible to hacking attempts. With that said, there's a focus on counteracting specific types of cyber attacks. Many of these attacks come over the internet, so a lot of time is spent on understanding how people over the internet can exploit vulnerabilities in code. Ultimately, this is all in the hopes of learning from past mistakes and using that knowledge to PREVENT cyber attacks.
Data Science and Data Analysis
Thanks to the internet, we live in a world of data. Data is collected, stored, analyzed, and otherwise used at all times of the day. Data scientists focus on backend information storing and manipulation. You'll spend many a day using SQL and other querying languages to build databases. However, you also get very detailed knowledge on how this data is managed. Designs of databases, long-term database support, how data is used in our world, and how data can aid people and businesses are necessary topics. You'll likely be introduced to plenty of statistics and business-related courses as well that teach you how to interpret data.
Computer Engineering
This one's a bit of a bonus. It's different from the others because it's a field focused on hardware instead of software. This gets into the architecture of computers. This is much more related to Electrical Engineering than these other fields. This field also isn't very focused on programming. You may get some extra knowledge into binary and assembly language, allowing you to get a better idea of how computers interpret electrical impulses into information. How do different components of a computer interact on a hardware level? This is the focus of Computer Engineering
I hope this was helpful.
King_Shai7@reddit (OP)
Very helpful thank you for responding i really appreciate the help i will be looking into this more .
laurencio_0426@reddit
Go for Information technology (IT) then expand your knowledge and keep practicing. Goodluck!
Designer_Currency455@reddit
Hmm weird that your school has so many I guess. Mine just had computer science, applied computer science which was the same basically without math so I took that, and electrical engineering has a lot of programming too especially if you like it and want to take more