Why I Study Computer Science.

Описание: Why do I study computer science? Whenever I say to people that I study computer science, 80% of the time, people think that I am just doing this to follow a trend or because it leads to jobs that pay well. I acknowledge that, to my biggest dismay, this is the case for a lot of people studying this discipline; my love and purpose for studying the science of computers and technology are rooted in things that are much more meaningful than these.

My passion for technology started during my childhood, during evenings when I would watch my dad play strategy games like Age of Empires on his work laptop. Having fun while trying to understand the intricacies and complexities of what was happening before my eyes was an activity that I never got tired of. After some time, when my grandfather offered me a PSP console, it felt like a whole new world opened up at the palm of my hands. As I grew up, I asked myself what it took to create these games that I spent so much time playing. When my brothers and I finally got access to a home desktop and internet, I used online resources to teach myself how to make and code up games. Even though I did not finish all the games I created, programming them got me to think about other things a computer could do. And then I realized that almost everything in our day-to-day involves computers. The world is run by computers. With this new perspective and the growing love for problem-solving, I set my sights on the idea of learning Computer Science. And there is no better place to study Computer Science than the United States. So I made it my goal to go to college in the US.

When I finally got here and started truly studying this domain, the challenge of re-learning how to think logically and algorithmically, coupled with the academic rigor, kept me interested in the field. I loved learning it, but I did not know exactly what I wanted to do with my major in CS. It was not until I interned at Google in California during my sophomore year that I realized what I wanted to do for the rest of my life: using my love for problem-solving to build technology for the good of the largest number of people. Through this internship, I also realized how much it takes to create things that actually make a difference and positively impact people’s lives. Through hours of working on my project and scouring through Google’s whole codebase, I realized how little I knew and how much more I had to progress before I got good enough to build consequential technology. Building things like these is not something within the reach of anybody.

With a renewed and confirmed purpose in what I was learning, I came back to campus after a short and well-needed break with the objective of truly mastering the fundamentals and concepts I got to learn in and outside class. But the cool thing about CS, as in many things in life, is that: the more you learn, the more you realize that there is a lot you don’t know yet. The ceiling for growth is almost unbounded, so even a lifetime is not enough to learn everything.

The other cool stuff about learning CS is that, if you like solving problems, it essentially offers you frameworks and paradigms to think and potentially solve the problem you have at hand. There is something very peaceful about the moment when you are sitting at your computer, trying to solve that one problem you have. I will let Craig Federighi, Senior VP of Apple, tell it better: [section video]. CS allows you to answer questions like: Is this problem actually solvable? If it is solvable, what is the most efficient way to solve this? How do you know this is the most efficient way? How do you know what is solvable by a computer and what is not? Is this problem even worth solving? And if it is not solvable, what else can we do about it?

Lastly, when people think about people studying CS, people don’t realize that it’s not just about computers. It’s also about users and about people. To me, my journey in CS has been a deeply human experience. I made profound and genuine connections with people, with friends, users, students, and strangers. …

All this to say that there is much more to CS than just a trend or a high-paying job. If you are going into CS because of any of these two things, maybe reconsider. However, at least for me, learning CS is a profoundly fulfilling journey for those who truly find meaning in it.

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