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Will Macleod
Courses Plus Student 18,780 PointsComputing courses in University fit for my current 'track'
Hi everyone, sorry in advance for the off topic coding specific question but I thought there would be no better place to ask than here.
Firstly, I must tell you that I have hardly any programming experience and that I am new to the game.
I have high ambitions to become a scripter in the back end of things, hence why I have just started learning PHP and will then go on to learn Ruby.
I also have high ambitions to go to university and I want to continue what I'm doing here on Treehouse in university! I believe and have been told that university is a great experience mainly for the social/team working aspect which is a crucial skill to develop if you want to be in this industry.
Now I am just concerned on what type of degree to take that will be specific to my 'track' that I am intending on going down because it all just doesn't make sense because this field is so broad and I don't want to end up wasting my time.
I've seen loads of different courses varying from information systems to even IT. But I honestly want to go into the business/commercial side of this industry with the use of my back end skills that will develop in the future.
So my question is; what courses/degree's are specific to my 'track' or goal on become a back end scripter in the business/commercial world?
Thank you so much in advance and any input on this would be greatly appreciated.
1 Answer
David Brouillette
2,530 PointsFirst off, it's great to see you have such a desire to continue learning what you're learning. That's a great sign.
I want to address the differences between Information Systems (IT) and Computer Science (CS). In IT, you use programs to solve business processes. One such example is setting up a network between all employee computers. In CS, you make the programs that are used by others. One such example is creating a website with HTML and CSS that uses Javascript to run (or GET.. hehe) PHP files on a server that returns information from a database. (Quick note: This is only a general idea of each field and both are much, Much, MUCH deeper and richer than this).
If you're interested in the programming side of things, I would recommend looking in the direction of Computer Science. There you'll not only learn how to code, but best practices for coding, how to work on a program with others, and much more related to the creation of software.
Now, you mentioned that you want to go into the business/commercial side of the industry. In that case, I would consider looking at either IT or CS majors(depending on your interest) as well as a Business major or minor. Having that background in business will put you one step ahead of the CS majors that have a great concept, but no idea how to actually make it thrive commercially.
Overall, you've got a lot of research to do :) You would be doing yourself a favor if you could state exactly what you wanted to do in a sentence or two. If you can do that, then you have a good idea of what your path looks like. To get there, I would recommend looking at job postings from all over (All the way from Google job postings to your local grocery store that is looking for someone to make a website for them) and seeing which jobs interest you ("HEY! I would LOVE to do that for a living!!"). Then look at the requirements/experience needed for the job. Then start researching those requirements and seeing which way that points you.
Iulia Kraiter
858 PointsIulia Kraiter
858 PointsHello David,
I watched a TED talk recently that where the speaker said that computer science is more than just coding. I hope you don't mind that I picked on you to asnwer this question, but what are some of the topics that are in the computer science field. I remember seeing a picture in a computer science book one or two years ago with dots and curves that represented connections in a computer, and the chapter or section title was about how to create algorithms. The picture with the connections formed a shape, I don't remember what it was but it was a nice shape to look at. I flipped through a couple of other pages and saw there were more connections represented with other shapes. Could you go a little into the topics of computer science, and also what algorithms are used for? If anyone else can help with this question, it would also be an appreciated eye opener.
Thank you,
Iulia