Seeking advice on changing major

NeoDymium
Thu, 18 Jul 2013 13:49:13 +0000

1)Location. I want to live in NJ,PA,DE,NY area. I know there are many plants in these mid Atlantic region but CS probably has more opening and opportunities in this region. My first internship location was in Louisiana(3 months) and South Carolina(3 months) and the second offers assignment location is in Texas. I really dont wanna go to those areas again.

NJ/DE are pretty big on ChemE. If your internships are in petroleum, that explains why you’re going there.



2. I think I liked writing small programs like bank account creation or creating small games or building snowman using java MORE than solving heat flow, thermodynamics problem. I didnt say i hate those heat transfer problems but i like programming more.

Anyone can make simple games like that. Not only does it get boring quite quickly, but it’s also a very simple task that anyone can do. There are far too many programmers with that kind of low-level knowledge. Knowing how to make programs for a more technical purpose will serve you much better.



3)I can graduate 6 months earlier if I do CS because I took many math courses and I will have a math minor without taking any extra math courses.

Unless you have a good reason, there’s no point in graduating early. A semester of paying debts is not really that important because if you make more money, it will balance out pretty easily.



4. I have been doing research in this whole week and i have found that generally CS grads are happier. I saw some posts here in CC that people aren’t satisfied with their ChemE degree.

Now that’s not really something you can measure. Anything specific that makes you worried?



5)I dont like hands on work. I like to work in a office setting with a lot of coffee and exercising my brain. I saw process engineers often have to go to plant and monitor the processes and production. Sometimes they ahve to draw P&ID(very boring thing) and pipe sizing and calculation. When I remember these things, i feel like its not my field.

Of course real work in one field is going to be less enjoyable than low-level learning exercises in another. When you start working on a real project, CS is 5% design, 5% writing, and 90% sitting around and being frustrated that your code doesn’t work (also known as debugging).



6)Last one might sound illogical and dumb. But, I have come from a country which is often blamed to take many CS jobs from this country. In fact, I saw many of my native people working as a software developer, SE, DBA etc. So I think i will be successful like them also.

Usually foreigners take jobs by working long hours for mediocre pay. If you’re a US citizen, you’d be well-served not to follow in their footsteps.