I hate C++! Changing majors advice?

[FAST6191]

Some thoughts although the standard disclaimer that I neither know a great deal about c? or have studied computers for any other reason than I wanted to on my own time scale.

I have however seen many people in similar positions and this is what I observed.

Money: I have no doubt at all that you can earn the silly money via computers, it is however unrighteously hard to do nowadays. If you have learned something then it is not money wasted.
On the other hand if you truly do not want to do it then it is an awful lot of money and more importantly time to essentially be wasting especially when you have not really earned any yet.

Parents: I saw so many people do things for their parents (or what they perceived their parents wanted) and it never worked out. Truly it was ahead of laziness, stupidity and partying as a cause of failure.

The course: I hate health and safety and just behind that comes business management. The thing was it enabled me to do the other stuff (this is one of those "pay the piper" situations).
Alas while choice may be available at undergrad level it does not really appear until after (or at the very least final semester, final year). C++ may not be all that useful but it is a good building block.

The teacher: others have mentioned it, we all have bad ones (I will take the words of others on the assignment) and no doubt they make things boring and seemingly pointless.

The assignment. Regardless of what anyone wants to claim C of any form is a high level language with a lot of peculiarities, take it back to low level and do some ASM for a few days:
http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AoA/index.html
It is my experience that assembly is not usually taught as anything other than an aid which is not all that good in my opinion. I also know that any trouble in any intellectual pursuit that I or anyone I have cared to discuss such things with has endured has been helped by bringing it back to basics.

"for the rest of my life": I have met a grand total of 6 people who knew what they wanted to do. 3 of those had this happen at 35 or thereabouts. Also as others have mentioned it is not as though computing locks you in to something.

Regarding switching: if you started on computing then there is probably something in it, have you considered electronics, robotics, something very high level in computing (I would say eschew web design in favour of website creation), AI, maths, you mentioned design so how about CAD or one of the myriad sub specialities of one of those.

 

[eric_4_life]

Well I'm a high school student in grade 10 and we've learned REALbasic programming laguage (I don't how different it is from C++, but anyway) I'm doing pretty good and I've things an impossible cpu for tic-tac-toe (along with the game) and things like pong, but that's just to say that it's doable with enough effort a practice. If you actually practice programming, rather than just studying it, then maybe you'll get the hang of it and pass your course. Once you get you're diploma for the class, then it will pay off when trying to get a computer oriented job later on. Just thing ahead.

 

[Elrinth]

c++ is the shit... learn it and you'll never regret you've done so... I had this really awesome yet very basic c/c++ book which made things so easy for me. it didn't really go into object oriented programming... so I'm one of those ppl who've had trouble with it later since I wasn't school into it since the beginning. but the book I had made things so easy for me.

today I code c# almost entierly. there's asp.net for my work and xna in my spare time. you still need to understand the part about pointers, memory allocation and similar even if you're coding in c# which doesn't really use the pointers or references in craze like c/c++ does. c++ is faster than c#, but c# is just so much more a breeze to code

 

[Joe88]

I know what you mean
I got an A+ in my first C++ class and it was easy
now im like wtf with the second class and can barely pass


also taking/took :

assembly,
html/javascript,
c#/xna,
c++ (intro),
c++ (avd),
java

 

[cracker]

I'm with jph and others that share the same thoughts... Stick it out and hopefully something will click. Every new thing you learn in a language feels strange and mysterious at first but after you work with it a while the intimidation wears off. Classing and subclassing are the worst of C++ so if you can wrap your head around that everything else is easy in comparison. Text books are always boring. Get your hands on some code examples that are interesting and read them through. Analyze them to see if you can get a better understanding of it. Then alter the code to your needs. This is the best method of learning a programming language IMO. Staring at static text on a page doesn't work for a lot of people.

 

[Costello]

today I code c# almost entierly. there's asp.net for my work and xna in my spare time. you still need to understand the part about pointers, memory allocation and similar even if you're coding in c# which doesn't really use the pointers or references in craze like c/c++ does. c++ is faster than c#, but c# is just so much more a breeze to code

my friend

you do know that I teach .NET technologies (including XNA) for a living?

 

[WildWon]

Sci: A piece of advice. If you're not enjoying your class at all this year, push through this semester, if it doesn't work, sit down and talk with your folks. Don't be whiny or anything, be very adult. Explain to them that its not the right path, and you realized this early on in the semester, but you REALLY tried to make it work. People change majors half regularly. If you don't like it, and struggle through, but it doesn't get better, its not you giving up. And hopefully your mom will understand that.

Go into this in a very mature/responsible nature, and things will work out better than expected. Unless your parents are butt-bags (you know, a bag full of butts... its not a good thing), then they'll just be butt-bags no matter how you bring it up.

Just hoping they aren't.

 

[Smef]

Haha, you sound exactly like me. I started out as a math and computer science major. After Katrina my school shut down the engineering school and I had to switch majors, which I was ok with doing. I ended up graduating in philosophy, taking all of the digital media courses I could (including and independent study). I used my C++ programming experience to learn actionscripting for flash and do some pretty advanced stuff with it. I'm now teaching photoshop, flash, and illustrator.

People always say: The way to be happy with your career is to find something you love to do and then get people to pay you to do it for them!

 

[WildWon]

Haha, you sound exactly like me. I started out as a math and computer science major. After Katrina my school shut down the engineering school and I had to switch majors, which I was ok with doing. I ended up graduating in philosophy, taking all of the digital media courses I could (including and independent study) and am now teaching photoshop, flash, illustrator, and web design. You've got to do what you love!

Man, that sounds like a great future for me to follow as well (sans Katriana >_>). I started college as a CompSci major. Xmas eve, after my 1st semester, i get a letter saying "Yea... don't come back." Apparently they don't like students that end a semester with a 0.68 gpa. Hmm, who'da thunk it?

So, i took some other classes, went to a community college where i started graphic design classes and took a ton of GenEd courses. Still haven't graduated, only need a few credits for an elementary ed degree, but thats not what i want (i'm a few credits from THAT degree, because of the random classes i've completed at different times.) But Philosophy would be a blast. I've considered going back and taking a few philo. classes.

And, through getting my foot in the door as a desk jockey (dealing with sales reps etc) i've been working 3 years as a graphic designer, making ads, for Clipper Magazine (or Savvy Shopper, depending on where you live in the US).

I'd love a REAL graphic design job. Almost have tons of work experience though, so i'll be keeping an eye open for those

 

[omatic]

I'm a 4th year Comp. Science student, and I know what you're going through. In my first year, I had a C programming course that was killing me in the end, but it's absolutely worth it to stick with it until you're absolutely sure that you don't want to program as part of your living. This stuff is supposed to be hard, that way programmers can feel like they're better than everyone else.

Some tips that have helped me out:

- Write out some pseudocode (sentence-based explanation of what the code will do) and then fill in the blanks the best you can.

- Don't work for more than an hour at a time. If you're already frustrated, working for long periods w/o break will lead to less productivity. Take a 10-min breather between hours.

- Look for related code snippets online (preferably one loaded w/ comments).

- Build in increments, and test often. Don't try and cobble together the program all at once. In this program, you might consider building the text / console reader first, test, then the display, test, then
file storing, test, etc.

I'm available for some general questions if you need help, but I'm very rusty in C++ right now, so syntax isn't my strongest point.

 

[Foxle]

I'd ask yourself "Do I hate C++, or do I hate coding in general?" If you just hate C++, then stick with it and eventually you'll move onto something else... or get used to it. If you hate coding in general, then yeah, it's time to find a new major.

Looking over that assignment of yours, it looks like you've got the classic stereotypical CS teacher, who gives you really complicated and difficult programs that in retrospect are really simple if only they explained them better.

 

[Smef]

Wild Won, what exactly are you doing now, and how did you get into it? I just graduated and it's been tough finding an actual design job. This teaching this was the closest I could come, but it all may be because of the economy. Most jobs I've seen are looking for people with 3-5 years of corporate experience, and aren't really entry level.

 

[science]

Thanks guys, I think I will talk to my parents about it, but wont be dropping this course (since I already paid and they would kill me). My teacher is really bad, I can't understand him or read his writing at all. He isn't that great with English, so maybe its just him. I did bad in math first semester because I also had a teacher who I couldn't understand, and I'm probably getting about a 90% in my math course now.

Thanks again for all the advice, I will be taking all of it! I have to study for my math midterm tomorrow, so I'll try and do that program all tomorrow night. Bleh!