Computer Science Advice for Students from Professor Hamzeh Roumani

well what's special about computer science I see it as really unique I know every professor says this about his or her discipline but computer science is definitely not boring a science that changes literally every minute a science that infiltrates every other science it changes the way business works it changes the way society works so I used to think physics is that science but quickly is changing I dare say it's the mathematics of the 21st century it's really unique and I guess the best way to sum it up is to say you will never be bored if you are in this field I guess most important thing is to expose some fallacies about this field many people believe computer science is about programming it's not about programming indeed 80 to 85 percent of my students leave and don't work with programs they work with people they're business analysts they discuss problems they try to solve problems and they delegate the issue of writing code to somebody else it's not about programming also another misconception that you have to be excellent in math to do computer science well it's not the math that is taught in high schools we use logic and math known as discrete math has nothing to do with calculus and mathematics in its continuous form does not really apply to computer science it's the notion of logical thinking that's crucial so if you're in high school and if you like to capture things precisely articulate them precisely and be logical in the way you connect the dots you're an excellent candidate so my advice is come in with the love of that if you don't like this thing this thing this analytical way of thinking and logical way then this is not your field but if it is then definitely come in and all what we look for is somebody who can see the big picture and is fascinated by the landscape by how much this field is affecting everything around us if you like that I don't see a problem general advice for students in universities whether it's in computer science or anything else is really to learn how to interact with each other to make connections whether it's with a professor whether it's with a friend but really the way you interact and you communicate what is it that you do and the other person does this is what it's really all about it's the ability to actively engage in the learning process do not expect to sit back and say okay teach me it's really highly interactive and yes the professor plays a role but the student plays a bigger role once you have your degree in computer science the sky's the limit in what you can do as you all know computer science is permeating each and every field around us so finding a job is easy unlike other other professions and fields and case in point is the global recession we are in our graduates faced little little difficulty finding jobs graduates from New York University in particular go typically either to the IBM lab here or to the financial industry or or in Waterloo Durham to research in motion and the kind of jobs they get have to do with lying between the technical people who write code and the business and the user of the of the technology network infrastructure actual development web development mobile development really it's it's quite easy to find a job the hottest things these days perhaps is data mining mobile mobile computation where you can program your BlackBerry or I phone or what have you and have computing everywhere some of our students like the field and like to continue into a master or a ph.d program doing work in things like vision research as I said databases and data mining and things like that

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Views: 265,603

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Keywords: studentawards, student, Hamze Roumani, computer science, computer, engineering, York University, economic, analysis, environment, discussion, economy, commentary

Id: qFH9gVvHqWg

Length: 4min 56sec (296 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 16 2010