school for computers

[killaDZA]

I'm gonna be starting community college very soon. I want to go to school for physics but that is a long time between school and career. My question is about what kind of different computer courses are available. I figure probably a lot of you had some kind of schooling in that area. Anyway, I'm more interested in the hardware aspect, I THINK, but if you guys could just tell me how the subject gets split up (e.g.. difference between computer science and computer info systems) that be very helpful. Also, what is your personal job title and what does your day to day job entail? stuff like that, thanks DZA

[creatureofthecave]

Im not necessarily going to a college but i am going to a tech institute (washburn institute of technology) for computer repair and networking and we started out learning the hardware then how to set up and manage desktop Operating systems, mainly windows seven and some 8.1 after that would be going over the different network OS such as windows 2012 r2 and Linux based servers and that's the computer repair course the networking course is setting up networks and programming routers. dont know if this helps or not

[shujin]

here in canada there is no more than 4 option :

1. you learn everything by yourself and try to find a job then just climb the stair (really difficult)

2. you do informatic engineer to after do a specialisation in university this will bring you to repairing different machine and or build computer in a simple store

3. if you're interested in software you do a technique in that and then you can work right after for ubisoft or other "I don't want to go there please" company

4. you do what I'm doing very large science so you can study in an other contry and become engineer (this is the best option IMO cause you can change idea during 4 year before the choice became irreversible also you have tons of knowledge on everything)

 

small advice don't be afraid that it will be a long time for study just enjoy the time you spend studying and choose the career you'll prefer no matter the time it take you. normally you'll keep this job for 40+ year so don't choose the easy way you might regret it

[DollarPCJunior]

here in canada there is no more than 4 option :

1. you learn everything by yourself and try to find a job then just climb the stair (really difficult)

2. you do informatic engineer to after do a specialisation in university this will bring you to repairing different machine and or build computer in a simple store

3. if you're interested in software you do a technique in that and then you can work right after for ubisoft or other "I don't want to go there please" company

4. you do what I'm doing very large science so you can study in an other contry and become engineer (this is the best option IMO cause you can change idea during 4 year before the choice became irreversible also you have tons of knowledge on everything)

 

small advice don't be afraid that it will be a long time for study just enjoy the time you spend studying and choose the career you'll prefer no matter the time it take you. normally you'll keep this job for 40+ year so don't choose the easy way you might regret it

^^^^

THAT 

[kkpatel87]

I'm gonna be starting community college very soon. I want to go to school for physics but that is a long time between school and career. My question is about what kind of different computer courses are available. I figure probably a lot of you had some kind of schooling in that area. Anyway, I'm more interested in the hardware aspect, I THINK, but if you guys could just tell me how the subject gets split up (e.g.. difference between computer science and computer info systems) that be very helpful. Also, what is your personal job title and what does your day to day job entail? stuff like that, thanks DZA

 

There are several major toplevel branches:

1. Computer Engineering (CE) - Developement of Hardware
2. Computer Science (CS) - Developement of Software
3. Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) - Application of CE and CS to solve simulations, data analysis, HPC, etc.

I went to school at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and we had all three branches available as a major. My recommendation, if you are more hardware inclined, is to look at CE courses. These are usually intermingled with electrical engineering course because its all the same.

 

I am an Aerospace Applications Engineer with a degree in Aerospace Engineering so my education was a little bit of everything and the same applies to my job. My day to day involves a lot of cross-disciplinary design with aircraft and spacecraft structures and systems. The portion of my job that would be considered CE/CSE is when we develop computer systems for control, monitoring, etc.

[SteveGrabowski]

A typical CS/CE curriculum starts with these three semester long courses:

 

1. Intro to Programming -- Just learn how to write and debug simple 100-500 line programs.

2. Intermediate Programming -- This usually integrates data structures like linked lists, stacks, queues, priority queues, binary search trees, hash tables, and the like.

3. Computer Organization -- Here you start learning the hardware. You usually do some assembly programming and learn a bit about how data is represented in memory, how the CPU does arithmetic, how a program executes, instruction sets, how the CPU uses a stack to support functions, how it pipelines instructions, how caches work, maybe even a bit about threads and multicores.

 

With those out of the way then you can start focusing more on computer architecture, signal processing, analog and digital circuits, and the like if you want to study hardware, or software engineering, user interfaces, AI, computer graphics, and the like if you want to do software, or algorithms, data structures, automata if you want to do theoretical work. There will still be quite a bit of overlap in your studies whichever you choose though.

[killaDZA]

awesome info. So in your guys opinion....I'm looking to learn a trade basically. I want to be able to work and make decent money while I pursue an advanced degree in (astro)physics. But not really feeling hvac or something. Maybe electrician. But rather get something computer related. How many years of school for these kind of jobs?

[creatureofthecave]

awesome info. So in your guys opinion....I'm looking to learn a trade basically. I want to be able to work and make decent money while I pursue an advanced degree in (astro)physics. But not really feeling hvac or something. Maybe electrician. But rather get something computer related. How many years of school for these kind of jobs?

 the course im in is a 2 year program