<p>Hi all,
I just graduated from a top-10 school with a BS in computer science and I am supposed to go to a top-4 school next year for a PhD. But I think this is a bad idea because I really do not like to program. Every time I write code it’s like dragging my feet. Also I am kind of bad at it. I applied for internships at six software companies this year and got rejected from all of them. That was one of the things that made me not like programming.</p>
<p>I thought about doing my PhD in theoretical computer science. I am much better at math than programming. But I think that is a bad idea too because I did a research project in math and I had no idea what to do the whole time, and that was depressing.</p>
<p>So now I am thinking about deferring my admission and going to work somewhere. But I don’t know what sort of job to look for. It should probably be a career that I’d be happy doing for the rest of my life in the event that I don’t want to do a PhD.</p>
<p>The jobs I’ve had that weren’t programming related were:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Tour guide: I loved this job. I loved walking around the beautiful campus and speaking to eager prefrosh about what made my school so wonderful. I think I love public speaking in general.</p></li>
<li><p>SAT tutor: I loved this job at first, but I kind of gave up on one of the people I was tutoring. So maybe I would be a bad teacher.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Why would you possibly spend four years in a PhD program in a subject that you don’t like? How did you get accepted into a PhD program if you weren’t interested or good at computer science? If you can’t get an internship in CS from a top school, how can you get accepted into a PhD program? </p>
<p>Why are you in this field, and pursuing four years of higher education if you don’t actually like it? I’m just trying to understand why you are doing this.</p>
<p>Get a job with your degree and see what you like before considering any more schooling. There are opportunities in technical education, testing,<br>
wbriting and project management that you could try on for size.</p>
<p>Consider software sales, etc or go for a business MBA type degree, or marketing research, analytics, statistics type degree.</p>
<p>How does one graduate from a top 10 CS program without figuring out by week 3 of freshman year they don’t like to write code? I’ve been doing it for 3 decades and still love it… </p>
<p>Getting a CS job at this point may be a very bad idea if you get hired at a place where top 10 school is assumed to be top coder. Of course, that is not the case, but most people assume it is.</p>
<p>Also, can you quantify ‘hate it’ and ‘kind of bad at it’?</p>
<p>Sales sounds like a real possibilty if you liked being a tour guide. You could at least do it until you get a better handle on what direction you should take. If you don’t have summer internships on your resume it’s going to be hard to get hired - and really, who needs a kind of bad programmer?</p>
<p>I did not realize I wanted to be a computer science major until the end of junior year. Prior to this I was a math major, but I wanted to get out because math research was depressing and I wasn’t that interested in the material. When I switched, the only CS classes I had taken were data structures and theory of computation. I thought data structures were really interesting and useful, and the class didn’t require a lot of coding (the TAs wrote most of our programs and we’d have to fill in five lines here and there).</p>
<p>Senior year I took three programming classes at once. One of them required me to solve the Netflix challenge in C++, and I couldn’t get any of my algorithms to work. I got an A- in that class, but would have failed if not for my partner. The other classes also went pretty badly, and this was around the time I failed all those interviews so I was really depressed about stuff.</p>
<p>My GPA that term was a 3.1. As a math major I had a 3.9. I took the rest of my CS requirements in theoretical computer science.</p>
<p>So that’s when I decided I hated programming. Now every time there’s a bug in my code I get depressed about it instead of trying to fix it. Or I dick around on the Internet for a while and try to forget my problems. This makes me a terrible engineer because I don’t actually get anything done.</p>
<p>I’m getting a PhD because I have a lot of publications and it seemed easier than getting a software job. Grad schools didn’t see how badly I did senior year and they based their admission on my performance as a math major.</p>
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<p>That would be interesting but I would be terrible at it. Where do I sign up?</p>
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<p>That would be interesting too, at least for a year or a summer. Thanks for the suggestions guys!</p>
<p>Are you paying for this masters/phd program?</p>
<p>I’d suggest getting a job somewhere, having income, and having the company pay for your advanced degree for you.</p>
<p>I’ve seen other CS majors who have graduated that hate coding as well. One loves networking and works in the network department at the college we graduated from. Another wants to be in a support role (was a CS/IS dual major).</p>
<p>On a side note, you seem really easily depressed. Take a few deep breaths and remember you’re young and have time to figure it out.</p>
<p>What is the MS program like? Do you take classes of your choosing? Perhaps you can explore other aspects of CS. I know my son entered grad school with one mindset, but shifted direction.</p>
<p>Can you talk to a career counselor? Try taking vocational tests thru your college career center. Is it possible to delay matriculating, and work for awhile? As Fendergirl wrote, you seem depressed about starting school and confused about what direction to take.</p>
<p>If you look into IT, you’ll find that there are positions in support/helpdesk, sales, business analysis, project management, product management, training etc. They have little or no involvement with programming. I am sure anyone of these would pay you more than being a tour guy. On the strength of math major alone you would be able to apply for some of them. The only thing is, make sure the PhD let you defer for a year so if you decide to go on to PhD, you don’t have to apply all over again.</p>
<p>Anybody would hate programming if they overloaded on programming courses as their first exposure to it. It also seems impossible that one could graduate from a top ten school, and have taken almost all of their comp sci classes in their senior year. Seems really unlikely, but maybe what you are saying is that this is a top ten school, but not a top ten in comp sci. You would have had a far more demanding and extensive program, and there is no way you could get it all accomplished in your senior year.</p>
<p>So really, I think you just went at this major all wrong. It would be hard to figure out what you really think about programming, plus how can you even know much at this point? The LAST thing you need to do is go for a PhD, four years learning about something you might hate. It just seems that you really need to spend some time thinking long and hard about what makes you happy, and what you might be interested in.</p>
<p>Yeah I don’t remember what we were ranked for CS. We might be #11 or something. But our CS program is very flexible and theory focused, so pretty much all my math classes counted for some CS elective or breadth requirement.</p>
<p>Career counselor is a good idea, thanks. I should check if I can still access career services. </p>
<p>I haven’t looked into the MS program, but apparently if I am in the PhD program for a while I can fill out a form to get a masters.</p>
<p>Also I just talked to my dad about this and he “strongly objects.” But he is pretty dead set on me becoming a professor and he is probably afraid that if I defer admission, I’ll never come back.</p>
<p>^^You should never commit to a lifelong profession of becoming a professor just because your dad wants you to do it. Only if it’s your passion. Nothing worse than a professor who doesn’t want to be there…for both the students and the professor. Do YOU want to do that?</p>
<p>I don’t really want to be a professor. It sounds really stressful and you have to make a lot of compromises between your professional and personal life, and that’s if you’re successful. I wouldn’t mind teaching at a community college though. Well maybe I would hate it after a while but I don’t know that.</p>
<p>OP- I worked as a programmer for 17 years. Depending on where you work you most likely will not spend all your time coding. I know I didn’t. You talk to people about what they need and then figure out how to code it for them. I spend a lot of time in meetings and on the phone with people. When you finish a project that someone wants and it helps them do their job it can be very satisfying. I would try and find a job as a programmer and see how it goes. It’s really not like a programming class in school.</p>
<p>If you are good in math, what about finance, actuarial science, accounting? Another hot area now is Big Data -analyzing data for various business. You could also go into consulting if you are good with people. I am in tech and we have a hard time recruiting people who are good at doing presentation and work well with clients. My daughter graduated with math and econ degrees. She is working in finance.</p>
<p>I work in IT, and we work with a lot of vendors and their staff to implement new software and enhancements. If you enjoy working with people (a lot of IT people are NOT good with people) you might enjoy working in a position like that. I’m in Higher Education, another area that does a lot of software implementation is health care.</p>