Sunday, February 4, 2018

Computer Science (じょうほうかがく, 计算机科学)

The world is always changing around us, and so are the disciplines and abilities that people learn in order to get a job. When I was small I thought I wanted to be a sports star, then a businessman, then a lawyer because I thought I was good at social studies and history and knowledge. Turns out, though, that there are inherent flaws to my line of thinking about jobs: 1.) that a lot of people want to be all those things (sports), or 2.) it's too general of a discipline and there's really not a solidified curriculum to teach (business), or 3.) I might just not be good enough at it. The jobs market is what it sounds like, a market with supply and demand on both sides for workers and the employers, and as a worker one has to find the place where there's a lot of demand and not as much supply.

Recently I've had a surge of interest in computer science. I've heard a lot (a large portion from MJ) about these new "computer languages" like Python or C++, and as someone who's studied a lot of human languages, I'd like to get in to how these computer languages work. Most people, if I'm not mistaken, want to do something that's easy. It's natural: the easy things require less energy, cause less stress, allows you to focus on other things that you like to do. Well, computer science does not seem easy. There's a lot of mathematical concepts and stretching of the brain that simple jobs do not require. I like easy tasks too, but sometimes easy tasks aren't that gratifying: washing the dishes is not that gratifying, the dishes don't fight back. Driving a car is not that gratifying, walking to work is not that gratifying. Being able to learn a language to almost-fluent proficiency IS gratifying, not to mention has real-life implications (as well has, hopefully pays pretty well), and that's why I'm seriously considering studying computer science.

There are few other disciplines in the world that are as "hot" and high in terms of real-life implications right now than computer science. The whole world is moving towards being digitized and run on computers, and computers science teaches the language that those computers use to communicate to each other. Plus not that high of the population understands the language (well, outside of Silicon Valley and "digital boot camp" and the technological firms. That seems like a recipe for high demand, low supply for me. My neighbor who recently graduated college told me he recently started a coding boot camp, and he's not the only one to do it: everyone from finance majors, lawyers, doctors, government agencies, and others are using it. They say that English may one day be the language of the future: it might also be computer science. Get coding!


Fantasize on,

Robert Yan 

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