touma.akagi
Senior Don Juan
I went to a CS-focused college and thought it was the perfect fit for me - 3 year program, nice events at school, and people who graduate make big money... but I had to withdraw because of my grades.
I just had a tough time learning Java. Had I known it would be a problem, I would've studied it in high school. The tough thing is, that even the school's advertising made it seem like no prior experience was necessary. So many students like me came in with no prior experience. In first quarter, we had a final project - and I just didn't know enough to make enough contribution. I contributed one class to the project, which didn't even get used. The final project was to make a "console-based" (text based) version of Monopoly in Java. I failed both that class and the initial Algebra class, so I had to retake them both the next quarter.
Quarter 2 went better. I passed the CS class, we had a different teacher and I did learn better. I failed Algebra again, but only because I missed two grades for showing up a bit late. Had I missed one less day, I would've passed. But this quarter we had a particular class that was indeed nastier for me, and it was a Networking class - we learned about IP addresses and Cisco Packet Tracer. I heard from students in the class that Packet Tracer was a bad piece of software. While I believe it, and it doesn't surprise me, I just couldn't do much of the assignments because I did what I was told in the class, it didn't work, I'd go to the student coaching, and just wouldn't be able to get it. Granted, the coaches didn't hand anyone a solution, but they didn't exactly help me either.
In my 3rd quarter, I took the next Java class up. OK, I'm calling these Java classes even though the teachers said "this isn't a Java class," but let's be real: they're ****ing Java classes, for all practical purposes. Sure, the concepts learned within can be applied to multiple languages, but knowledge of Java still would've helped, as I stated. Things seemed to go well for a while, but the road block came with my student grader. She was a girl in my same class (of total students, set to graduate in 2020) who had taken the class the previous quarter. And the problem with her was this: My teacher often set many assignment grades to be hit-or-miss, and so I'd get a 0 on an assignment that I submitted. If you get a 0 before the due date, you get to fix it. My coach/grader often times wouldn't regrade my assignments when I re-submitted them. As a result, many of my grades stayed 0 when they should've been well over 60. It didn't help that not only was I doing poorly in that quarter's math class, I failed the Networking class again. So by the last two weeks of the quarter, I just knew I was going to fail. So I ended up withdrawing from the school, and by extension, moving out of the student-sponsored housing. It was a real pain in the ass, I decided to find a new place to live because moving back across the country to my Dad's house (which won't belong to us anyway in a few months) was neither an appealing option nor one that made sense.
The college was also a sausage fest. There was only about 1 girl for every 20 of us guys there. I legit got no action the entire time I was there, and I hardly even had time for it anyway.
The degree I chose was more business focused, so I want to pursue finance, etc after going to gen eds at community college for two years.
Am I just not cut out for CS stuff, or was I just not taught it well? I understood at least Java half the time, hell, it was even fun sometimes, but really the pacing of the classes was at a mile a minute and overwhelming. That, and the other schools in my area have equally good CS programs and were less expensive than the one I was at. So that begs the question: could I actually do CS/programming? Did I just go to the wrong school? Or should I just cut my losses? People I graduated high school with are going to finish their second year this Spring, and I have de facto nothing - almost none of my gen ed credits from the previous school will transfer, so when I do start school this Spring or Summer it's going to be a fresh start.
I just had a tough time learning Java. Had I known it would be a problem, I would've studied it in high school. The tough thing is, that even the school's advertising made it seem like no prior experience was necessary. So many students like me came in with no prior experience. In first quarter, we had a final project - and I just didn't know enough to make enough contribution. I contributed one class to the project, which didn't even get used. The final project was to make a "console-based" (text based) version of Monopoly in Java. I failed both that class and the initial Algebra class, so I had to retake them both the next quarter.
Quarter 2 went better. I passed the CS class, we had a different teacher and I did learn better. I failed Algebra again, but only because I missed two grades for showing up a bit late. Had I missed one less day, I would've passed. But this quarter we had a particular class that was indeed nastier for me, and it was a Networking class - we learned about IP addresses and Cisco Packet Tracer. I heard from students in the class that Packet Tracer was a bad piece of software. While I believe it, and it doesn't surprise me, I just couldn't do much of the assignments because I did what I was told in the class, it didn't work, I'd go to the student coaching, and just wouldn't be able to get it. Granted, the coaches didn't hand anyone a solution, but they didn't exactly help me either.
In my 3rd quarter, I took the next Java class up. OK, I'm calling these Java classes even though the teachers said "this isn't a Java class," but let's be real: they're ****ing Java classes, for all practical purposes. Sure, the concepts learned within can be applied to multiple languages, but knowledge of Java still would've helped, as I stated. Things seemed to go well for a while, but the road block came with my student grader. She was a girl in my same class (of total students, set to graduate in 2020) who had taken the class the previous quarter. And the problem with her was this: My teacher often set many assignment grades to be hit-or-miss, and so I'd get a 0 on an assignment that I submitted. If you get a 0 before the due date, you get to fix it. My coach/grader often times wouldn't regrade my assignments when I re-submitted them. As a result, many of my grades stayed 0 when they should've been well over 60. It didn't help that not only was I doing poorly in that quarter's math class, I failed the Networking class again. So by the last two weeks of the quarter, I just knew I was going to fail. So I ended up withdrawing from the school, and by extension, moving out of the student-sponsored housing. It was a real pain in the ass, I decided to find a new place to live because moving back across the country to my Dad's house (which won't belong to us anyway in a few months) was neither an appealing option nor one that made sense.
The college was also a sausage fest. There was only about 1 girl for every 20 of us guys there. I legit got no action the entire time I was there, and I hardly even had time for it anyway.
The degree I chose was more business focused, so I want to pursue finance, etc after going to gen eds at community college for two years.
Am I just not cut out for CS stuff, or was I just not taught it well? I understood at least Java half the time, hell, it was even fun sometimes, but really the pacing of the classes was at a mile a minute and overwhelming. That, and the other schools in my area have equally good CS programs and were less expensive than the one I was at. So that begs the question: could I actually do CS/programming? Did I just go to the wrong school? Or should I just cut my losses? People I graduated high school with are going to finish their second year this Spring, and I have de facto nothing - almost none of my gen ed credits from the previous school will transfer, so when I do start school this Spring or Summer it's going to be a fresh start.
