I Dropped Computer Science at CMU: Here's Why

when i started as a freshman at carnegie mellon i wanted to double major in computer science but three years later i dropped all my cs classes and i couldn't be happier today i want to share with you why i dropped cs at cmu some disclaimers first i never got into cmu's cs program in the first place i just decided to drop all of my upper level cs classes so i could never declare a double major but i did drop my double major in statistics and machine learning and i dropped my minor in software engineering both of which i was on track to finish and also graduate on time in addition to my information systems major when you hear that i dropped my cs double major you might think i'm dumb or i'm just an exception but i'm here to tell you no that's not true ever since my freshman year i've seen a lot of people who want to double major in computer science here in fact i had a lot of friends who wanted to do the same i actually had a lot of friends who actually declared the double major like freshman year or sophomore year but now three years later only 1 out of 10 of my friends actually stayed as a cs double major everybody else quit or just got a cs minor and i feel like there's a reason to that eventually i come up with three clues why people like me quit cs major and in my opinion it really just comes down to three things the hype the stress and the return in investment so let me explain a little bit first is the hype which has to do with the prestige of cmu's cs program if you go on to see any kind of computer science ranking in the us cmu is always at the top and there's no doubt cmu has a fantastic computer science program so a lot of people think they can just come here with any kind of major and then get a double major in computer science without having to get into this scs school and that's actually doable because anyone can get a double major in cs and cmu as long as you get the good grades and take the required classes so that seems like a no-brainer right you can come in as any kind of major and just take a double major in cs and say you study computer science at cmu but i think a lot of people in high school don't really realize that college is no longer high school where you always get a's and cmu cs classes are on a different level of difficulty once you start at cmu all the hype about getting into a top computer science program is gone and you will realize that oh crap i actually have to study now and if you've never had any experience with computer science you will soon realize that cmu's cs classes are really really hard when i take cs classes here i constantly see people getting wrecked in all kinds of classes including intro classes in my sophomore year i was a teaching assistant for 15 110 which is an intro to cs course that not a single cs major takes because everyone gets placed out using their apcs credit while i was a teaching assistant i saw a lot of people come to this class with no experience and at the end of the semester they decided that they don't want to pursue cs anymore because cs here is kind of soul crushing if you are not remotely good at it this is true especially in upper level classes where you will soon see a lot of people who are really good at computer science even for someone like me who's mildly good at cs at start it is really hard to see that so many people are so much better at you and can coach so much faster plus the difficulty levels of some of the classes rise drastically after the intro level especially in classes like discrete math and the functional programming which i feel like are literally like touching the ceiling of my intelligence like every day i go to class and i would feel like that i'm like intellectually challenged because i have no idea how to do anything that they were talking about and every day i go home and i look at the homework and i feel super because i have no idea even where to start so i remember for some classes especially for discrete math i literally lived in office hours because otherwise there's no way for me to figure out how to do the homework and difficulty level is just a part of it the workload sometimes can be also insane because for someone like me who has to go to office hours and talk to friends to actually do the homework and study a lot for exams i think for an average week while i was taking cs classes here i spent at least 50 hours a week just to study and when it comes to midterm seasons or finals that would ramp up to at least 60 hours so at the end of the day the excitement for cs and the hype for the prestige really fade away really quickly and once you actually start studying you might start to realize that cs might not be the best thing for you and that's totally okay that's why a lot of us quit speaking of workload we have to talk about the second reason which is stress if you go on the cmu reddit you'll probably see a lot of people talking about how stressful cs at cmu is and that's really true i think it comes down to quite a few different reasons and one of those reasons is that some of us actually loved coding i remember as a freshman i personally really enjoyed learning about computer science like to me seeing my code work actually feels like magic it was something that i didn't know someone studied as a major and it was just like something totally new that made me really excited and felt really cool so i spent hours and hours studying and coding in freshman year sometimes i would spend 20 to 30 hours a week just to study something i'm interested or start building a coding project on my own and as time went on i started taking more cs and statistics classes at some point i even declared a double major in statistics and machine learning in addition to my primary information systems major and i was actually 100 on track to finish that double major in four years but at that time i didn't know that kind of work style was not sustainable so i got severely burnt out not only because i had a very heavy double major workload but coveted also didn't help in sophomore year because we not only got kicked out of campus but everything got remote and it was not any easier for me to cope with kovit so slowly through sophomore year i started developing anxiety that was the result of studying at least 60 hours a week going to office hours every single week and stressing about exams every single month i remember during my sophomore year i never ever had a free weekend i would spend every weekend doing homework studying or going to office hours and i never realized that i would actually start developing mental problems the moment of realization for me was right before a research meeting in sophomore year i had a panic attack out of nowhere and i felt really scared and out of control because i never ever had that kind of feeling before and i couldn't believe that i would start developing mental problems but that moment was when i realized that oh i need to take care of myself better i didn't know what i would have done if i didn't have a friend with me at the time because i was literally not being able to move or like speak to anyone and my heart rate was like super high and that was a terrible feeling but the worst thing is like that was not the only panic attack i had sophomore year that was only the beginning throughout the year i had multiple panic attacks and i had one of the worst panic attacks during a cs midterm and i totally felt that exam i could not even read the paper nothing was registering in my head and whenever i type my hand wouldn't stop shaking and that felt absolutely terrible so sophomore summer i did some reflection and going to junior year i thought to myself i had to take a break or just give up on cs but a part of me wanted to just try it again because again i enjoy coding so stupid like me i took the phd level into machine learning class and i dropped it in two weeks that course assumed that i already knew everything where i had no idea what to do so i switched to the undergraduate intro to ml class and surprisingly i thought i liked ai but i did not like that class at all it turns out machine learning is just math like there's nothing fancy about it not only was i not good at it but i also did not enjoy that class and taking harder technical classes did not make my mental health any better in junior year so at that time i said to myself i should at least take a break from computer science if not dropping it completely but in junior year something else also happened i got better internships and that leads to my third reason which is return in investment by junior year i already took the alco classes and i have enough software knowledge to do internships my biggest barrier back then was not like technical knowledge but lead coding because i was not able to solve any coding problems i realized that when i felt my first facebook interview which was all about lead coding not only was i not able to do the hacker rank but i also took way too much time in the interviews that the interviewer basically cut me off it was really disheartening to realize that no matter how much cs i study if i don't practice interviewing i would never ever get better i'm not saying that upper level cs classes are useless that's not true but a huge reason why i study cs is that i want a really good career and really good job and i don't feel like learning any of the like super obscure search algorithms can help me do better in my job or even get a better job i know i enjoy coding but i am not passionate about computer science heck the only thing i'm passionate about is probably like anime but anime doesn't really make a living and also i thought as long as i can do my job and keep learning i don't think there's any point to take upper level classes that i don't want to take at that point i felt confident that i can learn anything in cs whether in school or outside of school so there was no reason for me to take super hard classes that make me stress over homework or grades plus i was already having anxiety problems at the time i didn't need to make it any worse so in junior year i chose to spend more time studying lead code and prepping for interviews instead of taking harder cs classes because i felt like that was a better return in investment some people might say that upper level cs classes like operating systems will make you a better engineer and i actually agree 100 i think it's important to understand the more difficult concept of computer science so you can understand the inner working of your code but for me i just can no longer force myself to take something i don't like anymore or taking classes that will stress me out when i actually need to learn new computer science topics which i think i would definitely need in jobs i'll just self study like i always do do i regret not getting the full experience of cs at cmu by taking all of the cs courses yes i would say a little bit but i think my investment in interviewing skills has also paid off since i got into companies like apple and amazon and i feel like if i were taking more time taking the more difficult cs classes like advanced algorithms instead of actually studying for the interviews i would never be able to be aware i am having like big name internships and a really good job lined up so i don't regret my choice to drop the cs double major at this point i think you understand what i'm saying but computer science major should be open for everyone but i don't think a computer science major is for everyone to get if a cs major does not align with your goals you should really validate your choices and think again why you are getting this major at all if your goal is like me just to get a job or get internships it might be better for you to focus on your skills instead of having an actual major on your resume if your goal is not to study computer science to the deepest level i would say there's no shame to not graduate with the cs major as long as you study something you like and that's exactly why i decided to drop my double major in cs at cmu i hope this video can help you decide whether you want to study cs at cmu or literally any other college if you want to watch some of my other stuff you can find it somewhere here on the screen if you want to learn more about cmu like our orientation program or you want to see stuff about my new grad life in software engineering you can find the links somewhere on the screen and if you're enjoying this video don't forget to leave a like and leave a comment down below and i'll see you next time bye

Channel: chuniphil

Views: 162,013

Keywords: Phil Huang, phil2d, Carnegie Mellon University, computer science, software engineering, dropped CS, change major, college life, stress, mental health, panic attack, return on investment ROI, tech internship, tech job, tech industry, leetcode, studying CS, hype, college prestige, CMU, No.1 CS program

Id: ykC3vb9K8a8

Length: 11min 26sec (686 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 24 2022