This isn’t a question from a specific reader, but one I get from college students from time to time when I’m out at the bars. People read that my current job title is Webmaster, and that I’ve done both ASP.NET and PHP programming. In college I majored in Computer Science/Math for my BA at Rhodes, and Mathematical Sciences with all 34 hours in Computer Science for my MS at the University of Memphis. So, people ask me, “Is computer science/information technology still a good major?”
My answer is a qualified yes. However, I’m going to break the answer into a multi-part post, and since I’m a poker player you have to suffer through one of my poker analogies to get to the answer.
Okay, here’s the analogy: In Texas Hold’em, you get dealt two cards of your own, and you work with those and the five community cards on the board to make a hand. If one of your cards is an Ace, and an Ace shows up on the board, you have a pair of Aces. Not a bad start, which is how I view majoring in computer science or information technology in 2010. Not a bad start.
Here’s the thing, though. If your other starting card is a King, giving you AK, you have a premium starting hand. Why? Because if somebody else also has a pair of Aces, your King kicker will give you the better hand. A starting hand like A7, on the other hand, is not terrible but it’s not premium, because that 7 is not a great kicker. It will lose to anyone holding A-8, A-9, A-10, A-J, A-Q, or A-K.
So, here’s my point: Computer science/IT is not a bad place to start if you want to major in it, but you better have a good kicker to go with it.
What’s my idea of a good kicker? Well, I’ll give you a day or two to ponder it, and then post my thoughts in Part 2. I’ll give you a hint though: Not the usual side areas of interest to most computer science students. For example, I have a background in math, but in 2010 I would not consider math a premium kicker.
More to come…