Im sure all of you are already Computer Programmers. Im going to College right now and Im not really sure what Im needing to do. I dont know what to major in, and Im not really sure what classes I need to be taking, and I was wondering you guys could possibly help me with this. Im geting my BA for this as well. After wards Ill be moving to Santa Monica. So im sure theyre are plenty of jobs that need a CP.

Thank you very much
to those who reply back.

If you don't know what you want to major in or what classes to be taking, why are you in college? You should have figured that out before you enrolled.

What type of programming do you want to do? Computer Science is the traditional path of programmers but it's not the only one. CS teaches a lot of the theory of programming. Sure, you may get to program in a couple of languages (more if you're lucky), but the emphasis is on the theory of programming, e.g. algorithm design, sorting methods, database structure, etc.

Most people who program "professionally" spend their time writing business applications. And many of these people will never use the knowledge they gained in a CS curriculum. Many business applications don't require much knowledge to make them work. For example, CS degrees usually require higher calculus classes while most business applications don't need anything more than algebra to function.

Software Engineering is a more "practical" field for programmers. It's supposed to focus on more enhancing the reliability and maintainability of software. I interpret it the difference between the two as: a CS major can write a program to access a database while a SE can write it so you don't run out of memory doing it. That's horribly simplified but reading www.wtf.com may give you an idea of how bad some programmers can be.

There are other fields that include programming to different extremes. Computer Engineering (my degree) had several programming classes but the emphasis was on hardware and software design, not just software. Information Systems degrees may offer some programming but the focus is more on a system of computers, such as at an enterprise level.

Wikipedia has a good description of the CS field, along w/ specializations within it. It also has a section for general computer programming, which may also give you some information.

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I enrolled into college because I need an education, and I only asked this question becuase I thought you guys would help me. Dont be a ****ing dicks to me. I just said im taking CS my first yr. Im going for c++ and all that good stuff. I already figured it out. I was just wanting to see if anyone else had any otehr opionions.

I didnt mean to be rude, sorry about that. Was just about in a bad mood; Im going to be majoring aSoftware Engineer.

Im looking at the Wikipedia, and thank you very much.