Ask HN: Not taking maths(MPC) in college, what do you think?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=650653

by dollarz • 17 years ago

4 4 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I've completed high school studies and interested to learn programming, web developing/designing.

Now instead MPC(maths,phy,che), I'm thinking of taking some easy subject in college. Because we get less free time when we take MPC.

So, I wanna take easy subjects and spend more time for learning computer things.

What do you think? Am I doing correct? Is it helpful for my future?

mahmud• 17 years ago

The easier you work in school, the harder you will work in the real world, if at all.

Challenge yourself; you don't have to be a math wiz, look into other subjects and try everything until you find that one field that you want to study so passionately that you couldn't wait for someone else to teach you.

With respect to the "industry", you can get a lot done with little to no math and make a decent living, specially if your social skills are good and end up in sales, marketing or project management.

rms• 17 years ago

Is MPC a major, or the classes you take in your first year as a prerequisite for computer science? My advice is to major in computer science. If you don't need to take chemistry or physics to major in computer science, more power to you.

cjg• 17 years ago

My advice is to do the subjects that you will enjoy the most, rather than those which you think will be easiest or better for a career.

mechanical_fish• 17 years ago

Study difficult things in college. Practice working on things that are too hard for you. If what you want is "free time to learn computer things", why are you spending time and money to go to college?

Try to keep in mind that, as a high school student, there's a good chance that you don't really have any idea what real-world math, physics, or chemistry are all about. [1] College is like a new world. Stretch a little. Explore. Don't be like my friend who got an entire bachelor's degree in English after being discouraged from studying science. Turns out she didn't really enjoy English that much. After graduation she moped around for several years. Then she decided she might go back to school to try pre-med. And an amazing thing happened: She took some physics classes and turned out to love them and to be really good at them. The chem and biology went smoothly as well, and off she went to become (last I heard) an aspiring neurologist.

Try challenging yourself. You might like it more than you think. Take at least the introductory courses in a bunch of fields. I think it's malpractice to leave college without at least trying to get through: A couple of biology courses (a general course and a molecular course), math through calculus, first-year chem (aka "basic applied quantum mechanics"), and at least enough physics to understand basic electronics. (An actual course in electronics would not hurt, if you can find a good one.)

If your school has even one linguistics course with a half-decent lecturer, take that; if not, at least read Pinker's The Language Instinct. An anthropology course is a good idea. Studying foreign languages can be fun. I kind of wish I'd found time for that music theory course. I never studied economics and that was probably a mistake.

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[1] I mean, sometimes you get lucky in high school and get to take classes from amazing, inspired teachers with a great grasp of the state of the art. But often you don't.

Ask HN: Not taking maths(MPC) in college, what do you think?

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