I strongly second both of these points will provide some more color:
> 1. Don't assume your CS classes will always be easy.
Easy or quick. Some of my worst college experiences involved putting off CS work that, while still easy, had sneaky edge-cases that took many hours to cover. Don't be lazy with your CS projects and you will be in a comfortable place.
> 2. Try to double major or minor in something completely unrelated to CS and math
Sage advice. I know a few CS/SE majors who minored in psych. Each, without exception, left college with an understanding of what drives office politics and dynamics that surpassed their peers. Computers are easy in that they work in objective ways. It is hard to overstate how valuable a diverse education can be once you are in the real world dealing with real (read: flawed) humans.
I think there is selection bias in number two here. I am really skeptical that taking psychology classes really would help many people's interpersonal skills, at least not very much.
I would be more inclined to believe that the kind of person who is interested in signing up for psych classes is already more interested in understanding how other people think in a way that naturally benefits them socially.
No, that's not what they meant. What they mean roughly is that if you were a college student who were interested in signing up for classes in psych, you probably already have some interest in it (and related things), and that interest is what helps you become better (at understanding human dynamics etC). It's not a causal link, just highly correlated.
Yeah exactly. I had no issues in getting top marks for courses that covered things I had worked with before going into uni, but as I lacked a formal education, I had a very advanced skill level in specific areas but lacked the primers to other very relevant areas. This meant I either flunked my classes totally or I got an A without doing any work.
Dropping out, mental issues and life happened, I'm now back at the Uni and now I understand how to do the work. In my advanced programming class of 400 people, I managed to score in the top 1% solely because I put in almost double the required hours and tried to expand and extend every task and homework we were given. For the first time, I also feel like my grade was actually earned and I might not actually be totally dogshit at programming after all.
> Easy or quick. Some of my worst college experiences involved putting off CS work that, while still easy, had sneaky edge-cases that took many hours to cover.
This still burns me at my actual job, more than a decade later. Stupid edge cases.
> 1. Don't assume your CS classes will always be easy.
Easy or quick. Some of my worst college experiences involved putting off CS work that, while still easy, had sneaky edge-cases that took many hours to cover. Don't be lazy with your CS projects and you will be in a comfortable place.
> 2. Try to double major or minor in something completely unrelated to CS and math
Sage advice. I know a few CS/SE majors who minored in psych. Each, without exception, left college with an understanding of what drives office politics and dynamics that surpassed their peers. Computers are easy in that they work in objective ways. It is hard to overstate how valuable a diverse education can be once you are in the real world dealing with real (read: flawed) humans.