How To Launch Your Career In Computer Science While You're Still In High Schoo
Source: Ben Y. Zhao
(Photo by Lauren DeCicca)
Do you have any tips for prospective CS students in high school? originally appeared on Quora: the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.
Answer by Ben Y. Zhao, Professor of Computer Science, on Quora:
When in high school and preparing for a career in computer science, a few things come to mind that might be helpful.
First, you need to make sure that you can get into the major. That is an increasingly nontrivial challenge. If you get into elite schools like the Ivies or Stanford/Duke/MIT, you shouldn’t have a problem choosing your own major. But at many public universities, it is increasingly hard to get into CS because of the sheer demand by incoming undergrads. You need to make sure that your application is strong enough to get into the CS major if the school separates admission by major (as do most of the UCs, including UCSB).
Second, it helps to be curious about technology. CS is one of those fields with numerous sub-areas that can cater to different types of students: math-oriented (theory, crypto or scientific computing), practical (systems, networking, DB/data mining), or hands on (architecture, systems). No matter what, it helps to have a strong curiosity about technology driving your desire to learn. That’s something that will help you when the going gets tough, e.g. help you grind through courses outside of your research interests.
Third, almost all of the general advice regarding college applies, e.g. be open-minded, eager to learn, work your ass off to get the most out of every moment in college, etc. Out of these general pieces of advice, I’d perhaps emphasize one: that it is okay to fail, and that failure teaches us resilience and how to take risks. I gave a keynote at the Mobisys 2016 Ph.D. Forum on this topic, using anecdotes from my personal experience to prove the point. One of these days I might put the slides up.
Recommended by Forbes
Finally, I think having prior experience with technology, computers, and programming will help in general. It can certainly make some intro CS classes a bit easier to deal with. But it’s unlikely to make a difference in the long run, which is why I don’t rate this factor higher. This is also something that is unfairly skewed away from groups that are less represented in CS and technology majors, e.g. women, minorities. But I know firsthand that female students and minority students have as good a chance as any at succeeding in CS, despite their perceived disadvantage at often being exposed to the area later on in life.
| }
|