10 Reasons to Become a Computer Science Major

Published by on January 9th, 2012

1. Practice on your own

To get started, all you need is a computer with internet access, which you likely already have if you’re a college student. You don’t need to work with anybody or practice on anybody. You can start projects and build up valuable experience on your own time.

2. Logical thinking

Computer science is all about thinking logically. Enough practice in the field can move you to make more rational decisions in day-to-day life.

3. Varied environments

Some computer science majors choose to work at small startup companies, which offer fun, fast-paced environments. Others enjoy great perks in a more corporate setting. Whichever style of work you prefer, it won’t be hard to find a job you enjoy.

4. Transferable skills

Let’s say you work at a software company for a few years and want to move on to somewhere else. You’ve just spent all those years learning the same languages that are used at thousands of other companies. Going from job to job isn’t the huge switch that it is in more human-oriented businesses.

5. Rapid innovation

A few years ago, software was primarily built as desktop applications. A couple years later, the web was the way to go. Nowadays, companies are focusing more on mobile and social applications. With all of these changes comes new skills and new ways of thinking. It’s difficult to get bored when you have to constantly learn something new to stay relevant.

6. Solve your own problems

Don’t like the way a certain problem is being solved? Build a new solution. The problems that technology can’t solve are becoming fewer and fewer. It just takes the right mind with the right skills to implement it. That person could be you.

7. Build products

In many careers, it’s difficult to show off your accomplishments to people outside the office. With a career on computer science, chances are good that you’ll work on a widely-distributable product that you can show to friends and potential employers.

8. Start a business

There are an infinite number of problems that technology can solve, and most of them aren’t hard to implement with less than half a dozen talented individuals. Build something useful, and you could very well make some extra cash or even turn it into your full-time job.

9. High pay

There’s no denying the fact that computer science majors have it pretty well off. While I believe money isn’t the key to happiness, being able to pay off student loans shortly after college is a definite plus.

10. Program or be programmed

We’re at the mercy of computers these days. As they get easier to use, less people understand how they actually work. Does relying on a system you have no control over sound like a good idea to you?

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The danger of multitasking

Published by on January 5th, 2012

I have a lot of stuff to do. I’m taking a full load of classes, working a couple jobs, serving on a few exec boards, and I have obligations to my friends. People are always contacting me via email, Facebook, and text message giving me new tasks every day. So it makes sense to always stay connected and tackle multiple tasks at once, right?

Wrong!

I went along with this mindset for most of last year. You could often find me in the library with Facebook and Gmail open at the same time even while doing homework that didn’t require the internet. Sometimes an email would come that required me to do a little research before I could respond. So I always took a break from my task and did whatever was mentioned in the email. I was tackling my homework and communications at once.

Then I realized something. Simple tasks were taking forever. Whenever I went back to my original task, I would spend a few minutes getting reacquainted with what I was doing. This definitely wasn’t productive. Sometimes I spent more time thinking about how much I had to do than I spent actually doing anything. So I starting using a new system that worked quite a bit better than multitasking. Here are a few things I’ve learned…

Never do two things at once. Whenever I’m going to do something, I determine how much I want to get done in that session. Then I cut myself off from communication until it’s done. The only exception is texts and phone calls, depending how urgent they are.

Communicate in between tasks. I only communicate after I’m done with a task. That way, nothing irrelevant will take away my focus from what I’m doing. If someone urgently needs me, they probably have my phone number.

List and prioritize tasks. When I think of something I need to do, I add it to the list. When someone asks me to do something, I add it to the list. I use a web application called Toodledo, which allows me to assign a due date and priority to each task. When it’s time to be productive, I look at my “hotlist”, which is a dynamically generated list of my most important tasks at that moment. Something of low priority that’s due tomorrow will have roughly the same weight as something of high priority that’s due in three days.

Don’t fight distractions. Whenever I tried to be productive, I always ended up on YouTube or some other procrastination destination. So I tried to cut myself off from all these distractions. And you know what? That didn’t do a damn thing. With such easy access to the internet, I always wound up somewhere that killed my productivity. So instead of fighting it, I now make time for it. When I’m stuck on a problem or my focus is totally gone, I’ll give myself 15 minutes to distract myself. Often I’ll find myself more focused after taking these short breaks.

All of these tips take some getting used to. If there’s one takeaway from this post, it’s that trying to do multiple things at once is rarely good for productivity. If you don’t believe me, take it from a man who knows much more than I do…

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Goodbye 2011

Published by on December 31st, 2011

Some years have had really big moments. Moments that hugely influenced my life, for better or worse, and suddenly changed who I am and how I see the world. Leaving a school that I hated going to for 10 years (2006). My dad’s death (2008). Going to college (2010).

Which brings us to 2011, a year with so many life-changing moments, I barely know where to begin. I’ll attempt to go through this year’s biggest moments and bring you up to speed on how I got to where I am today.

Let’s start at the beginning. January 2011. My friends were awesome and I was halfway through freshman year at my dream school. Life was already pretty good. But the ball hadn’t started rolling yet…

Then I got a bid from the Delta Chi fraternity. Boom. First life-changing moment, and we’re only at the first week of January. To this day, my brothers are always there for me and continue to lead me to new opportunities.

A couple months later, I received an email from a brother letting everyone know about a job opening where he worked. I almost deleted that email. I had enough money saved up that I didn’t really need a job at that point. I figured I could hold out until the summer, where I had already committed to a cashier position at the pool in my hometown. But that little voice inside my head told me to reply to that email, so I did. That decision changed my life more than I will ever know.

Fast forward to May. I’m happily working at a research lab with two of my good friends. The hours are flexible and the work is enjoyable. I quickly become comfortable with the lab and start making new friends. And the ball’s only halfway down the hill.

Late May. I meet someone at work that I don’t recognize. We talk for a few minutes and I find out he used to work in my seat and he was enrolled in the same major as me. Now he’s the CEO of a company he started in college. He offers me summer work at his startup. I hesitantly accept. If only I knew how important how important that decision would become… (Do you sense a reoccurring theme here?)

June. Big milestone right here: I quit my cashier job at my hometown pool and decided to continue working at the research lab and the startup company. Instead if driving 5 minutes to work, I’m on a train 2.5 hours each way. And you know what? It was totally worth it.

September. One day I’m in Mountain View inside the world headquarters of Google and the next day I’m in Palo Alto having breakfast with a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He convinces me to switch my major to computer science. I can’t thank him enough for that. He guided me head-on into my true passion.

November. I get involved with another startup. This time a non-profit.

Which brings me to today. I am now working for a handful of people who are some of the best mentors I could ever ask for. I got my foot in the door in Silicon Valley. I’m now studying my passion. And most importantly, I have friends that help me out as much as I help them.

Now you may notice that quite a few details are missing from this story. Those will be topics for future blog posts. There was just too much awesome packed into one normal-sized year.

Hello 2012 :)

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My Former Self

Published by on August 22nd, 2011

Something very peculiar just happened. Something that invoked a feeling so strange that I don’t know if I’ll be able to properly put it into words. So here I am, lying in bed in the dead of night, trying to capture this moment on my phone, because I feel like changing my position might make it slip away.

It happened shortly after I went to bed. I got a text from a friend, and replied with something about how I can’t do anything tonight because I have to go to work tomorrow. Then, just for the hell of it, I decided to Google Image myself. I was just curious to see which photos were attached to my name on the web. Most of them were profile pics from Facebook or frame grabs of YouTube videos. But there was one picture that I was drawn to.

It was a picture of me from the summer before my freshman year of high school. And I was mesmerized by it. Sure, I’ve seen old pictures of myself before. But none of them have ever made me stop and think for this long. This one was different. I lied in bed for about five minutes staring into the eyes of my 14-year-old self and thinking about what he didn’t know.

He had never had a job before. He had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. He had no idea he would spend the next four years of his life doing bullshit high school busywork before going off to an amazing place called Northwestern University. He had no idea what the world was like, having lived his entire life in the bubble of a Catholic school.

And yet, he seemed perfectly content at this moment. He had nothing to worry about yet. Stress wasn’t a real thing yet. There were no deadlines to meet and no bills to pay. He was just living in the moment with no worries. Carpe diem.

But I don’t think that’s what it was. Whenever I think back to the time before high school, I remember how unhappy I usually was. Ignorance was certainly not bliss. Neither was the ridiculously strict discipline and lack of personal freedom I endured for the first 14 years of my life.

No, the whole “no worries” argument definitely wasn’t what made this moment in time 5 years ago so special. After all, I’m much happier now than I was back then. I now have two jobs with deadlines to meet, but it’s mostly stuff I’m passionate about. I have to do much more work in school now, but I’m actually learning from it instead of merely enduring it. Stress is a very real thing now, but it’s that stress that lights a fire under my ass and inspires me to push the limits of what I’m capable of.

So why was I so happy in this 5-year-old photo?

The answer comes not from looking at myself, but the person standing next to me – my best friend from when I was very young, who remains my best friend to this day despite our share of differences over the years. Then I think about the man who took the picture – a man who changed more lives than he’ll ever know.

And then it dawned on me. I wasn’t happy because of what I didn’t know and what I didn’t have to do. I was happy because of the people surrounding me. People who care about me and don’t judge me for who I am.

This surreal self-reflecting experience reminded me of an episode of The Office. Branch manager Michael Scott is trying to sell paper to a potential customer, and says something along the lines of “our larger competitors can offer you better prices, but we can offer you better people.” I totally get that now.

If that 14-year-old boy from the photo could see into the future, I’m sure he’d give me a thumbs up for continuing to surround myself with amazing people.

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The Book of Mormon – a surprising stroke of genius

Published by on August 15th, 2011

I’m in love… with a musical. The most unexpected, obscene, blasphemous, sweet, heartwarming, clever, and hilarious musical I’ve ever listened to. That’s right… I haven’t even seen this show yet, but the broadway cast recording is enough to inspire me to blog about it.

It’s called The Book of Mormon, and I find the story fascinating – not just the show’s plot, but the story surrounding the production. For one, it’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s first venture into the world of musical theatre – two men who spent their entire career in animated television and film. A meeting between these two South Park show-runners and Avenue Q composer Robert Lopez inspired them to write a Broadway musical after the three of them discovered their mutual fascination with Mormonism. After seven years in the making, The Book of Mormon debuted in March 2011 to rave reviews from The New York Times, Washington Post, and countless other high-profile critics.

What I find most fascinating is the overwhelmingly positive response to the show. It’s a show that addresses issues such as AIDS, poverty, loss of faith, and a scrotum infested with maggots. A show that tears apart the very idea of organized religion without any attempt at subtlety. And yet, people adore this taboo-riddled production. Tickets are sold out for months, with scalpers selling premium seats for as much as $900. Some are saying that this show is going to revitalize broadway – a world currently churning out mostly adaptations and revivals. In fact, Mormon is one of the only original shows this season.

Its success comes from the way Parker and Stone handle this difficult and depressing subject matter. They don’t have the characters wallow in sadness or try to dampen the fact of their unfortunate situation. Instead, they embrace their issues in some of the most catchy, upbeat songs to ever come out of Broadway. Ben Brantley of the New York Times claims that the show achieves “nothing short of a miracle”. And I have to agree. The songs have the most incredible energy. I’ve never felt so happy before while listening to a musical. These are the kinds of songs that inspire you to sing and dance out of sheer joy. Trey and Matt manage to offend everyone with any sort of religious belief, but in such a beautiful way that it leaves everyone satisfied. As Jon Stewart points out, the show makes a mockery of religion while at the same time celebrating it, and sends everyone out of the theatre on a good note. I’d go as far as to call this the feel-good musical of the past few decades.

Want to hear what all the fuss is about? Head over to Facebook and listen to the entire soundtrack for free. I encourage everyone – no matter your opinion towards musical theatre or organized religion – to go listen at least through the first four songs. That should be enough to let you know if you’ll want to listen to the remainder of the album. And if you get a chance to see this on Broadway… I’ll be incredibly jealous.

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So I have a blog now….

Published by on July 5th, 2011

After years of procrastinating, I’m finally starting a blog. Why am I starting a blog? Couple reasons.

To clear my head. At this point in my life, I have a bunch of thoughts bouncing around in my head. Sure, I could tell them to my friends, but I’d rather share them with the world (well, whoever cares enough to read this). Who knows? Maybe this will start some good ol’ internet discussions. Or maybe it will turn into me fighting trolls. Either way, I want to get my thoughts out there.

To become a better writer. The vast majority of writing I’ve ever done in my life has been for school. And 90% of that writing has been on topics I could care less about. I don’t feel like I’ll ever become a good writer if all the writing I do starts at 3am after throwing back a couple energy drinks in order to meet a deadline. I want to write about something I care about for a change. So I decided to start a blog dedicated to the things I care about.

Self reflection. I’ve always liked the thought of writing in a diary, although I’ve never gotten around to doing it. There’s something soothing about the act of thinking about yourself, your beliefs, your day, your lifestyle, etc. and writing it down. Consider part of this blog to be my personal diary. I’m looking forward to this time when I can let all distractions pass by and just reflect on myself and the things I care about.

Transparent online identity. A lot of people I admire to have strong online identities. Not people I know personally, but people in the industry I want to enter someday. There are some people who I feel like I almost know personally simply from their strong online identities. I feel like it’s almost a requirement to be successful in the tech industry, so why not get a little head start?

A little cash. No, I don’t expect to become rich off this little blog. But as a college student, I’ll do anything to earn a little extra cash. Even if I only make $20 in the lifetime of this blog, that’s better than nothing.

Time management. I have horrible time management skills. I always procrastinate on everything. EVERYTHING! So I’m making a goal for myself. I’m going to try to spend an hour a day on this blog. One baby step in developing some decent time management skills.

Employment. Throughout this blog, I’ll be writing about topics I’m knowledgable about. This blog will be part of my website, which I’ll be putting on my résumé. Hopefully this will slightly increase my chances of getting hired by giving future employers a glimpse as to who I am and what I can do. And if someone decides not to hire me after reading this blog, I probably wouldn’t have fit well at that job in the first place.

Spread the wealth. I’m always figuring out new ways to do things. And when I can’t figure out how to do something, a Google search almost always returns dozens of blog posts that solve my problem. I’d like to contribute to that; to be one of those people who indirectly helps someone else.

That’s about it. I’m not sure if anyone will read this, but even if I’m writing to an empty audience, I feel like I’ll get a lot of personal benefit out of writing this blog.

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© Sean Gransee
CyberChimps