The Long and Short on….

Why a Computer Science Degree Matters

I will be the first to admit that I absolutely despise the state of higher education. The concept is fundamentally flawed, and I am not thrilled to have spent 4 years (and only 4, thankfully) working towards a piece of paper that “proves my skills”. In my opinion, it does not do that in most cases. I can learn more material, more relevant material and learn it faster on my own. Everything I use on a daily basis has been essentially self-taught, with the exceptional skill having been augmented by a university course.

While programming an embedded system the past couple of weeks for a competition maintenance got harder and dependencies grew.I have come to realize that my degree in terms of evaluating skill is just a flimsy piece of paper that I spent an exorbitant amount of money on, I could have shown projects I have worked on that demonstrated much better what I am capable of. However, in terms of insight and theoretical understanding, it is an invaluable experience; that piece of paper represents to me that CS isn’t just coding (although you should be good at it), it’s coding smarter with a deeper understanding of how to approach a problem at the most basic level. For the first time in three years I have actually thought that maybe it was all worth it.

Computer science or computing science (abbreviated CS or CompSci) is the scientific
and practical approach to computation and its applications (implementation). A computer scientist specializes in the theory of computation and the design of computational systems.

Its subfields can be divided into a variety of theoretical and practical disciplines. Some theoretical fields, such as; computational complexity theory (which explores the basic properties of computational problems), are highly abstract, whilst fields such as computer graphics emphasize real-world applications. Still other fields focus on the challenges in implementing computation. For example, programming language theory considers various approaches to the description of computation, whilst the study of computer programming itself investigates various aspects of the use of programming language and complex systems. Human-computer interaction considers the challenges in making computers and computations useful, usable, and universally accessible to humans.

The world’s first Computer Science Degree Program, the Cambridge Diploma in Computer Science,
began at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory in 1953. The first computer science degree program in the United States was formed at Purdue University in 1962.Since practical computers became available, many applications of computing have become distinct areas of study in their own right.In Ghana,  Data Link University College an affiliate to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in its own right is making tremendous impact toward the education of undergraduates to obtaining a Degree in Computer Science. It happens to be the First Premiere university in the Tema; an industrial city.

Computers are ubiquitous in modern life. They offer us portals to information and entertainment, and they handle the complex tasks needed to keep many facets of modern society running smoothly. Chances are, there is not a single person in Daizys’ readership whose day-to-day existence doesn’t rely on computers in one manner or another. Despite this, very few people know how computers actually do the things that they do. How does one go from what is really nothing more than a collection—a very large collection, mind you—of switches to the things we see powering the modern world?

As a discipline, computer science spans a range of topics from theoretical studies of algorithms and the limits of computation to the practical issues of implementing computing systems in hardware and software. CSAB, formerly called Computing Sciences Accreditation Board – which is made up of representatives of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the IEEE Computer Society(IEEE-CS) – identifies four areas that it considers crucial to the discipline of computer science:

• Theory of Computation,

• Algorithms and Data Structures,

• Programming Methodology and Languages, and

• Computer Elements and Architecture.

In addition to these four areas, CSAB also identifies fields such as:

• Software Engineering,

• Artificial Intelligence,

• Computer Networking and Communication,

• Database systems,

• Parallel computation,

• Distributed computation,

• Computer-Human Interaction,

• Computer Graphics,

• Operating Systems, and

• Numerical and Symbolic Computation as being important areas of computer science.

Links:

http://www.arstechnica.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book:Computer_science

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informatics_%28academic_field%29

http://blog.jaredshort.com/