Asking for advice, please share

I am 21 years old and I have a 3.2/4.0 GPA. I’m a 3rd year student at a university trying to get my bachelor’s degree for Computer Science. Before you guys read more into detail, I wanted to summarize my journey as a university student.

When I went to college as a 18 year old, I was lost. I started as a Biology major because I thought I wanted to do something in the medical field, but the classes I took weren’t hard or anything, I just didn’t enjoy it. I ended up being a biology major for a year and a half.

I then became a general studies student and stumbled across computer science. Throughout my life, I’ve always been into tech. When I was in highschool, I would always like to play with computers and build some of them with my friends. So I decided to give computer science a try. I knew little to nothing about programming at all.

I’ve taken courses like: intro to Java, 1 and 2, assembly language, data structures, and computer systems so far. All classes have taught me taught me a lot and have been challenging of course. But I am trying to get my bachelor’s degree and I don’t know if I have the passion/effort to finish my degree. The assignments that are given to me, I would just try to do it and get it over with. I don’t have much interest in the classes they offer. I have 1 year left starting this spring to finish 30 more hours. But those 30 hours consist of the last computer science classes. (which are hard)

Being a computer science major for only 1 year and a half, I stumbled across a web developer. I feel like the classes here and degree wouldn’t actually help me with web development. (My university doesn’t offer any classes under web development). I kept researching about what they do and what many skills and languages they have to learn. Only recently, I’ve been looking at HTML and CSS for now. By being self motivated, I went ahead and went to many free learning websites to learn HTML and CSS for a month. I feel very passionate about it and have read many articles/guides to help me become one.

I just need some advice on how should I continue. I’ve had thoughts on dropping out of college to pursue being a web developer. A part of me wants to finish my degree since I only have a year left, but what would I need this degree for if I want to be a web developer? The other part of me just wants to drop college and then pursue my studies for web development.

For those who have taken their time to read this, thank you so much for your advice and comments.

Many thanks,
Ryan

You have 1 year left… suck it up and finish your CS degree. :slight_smile:

I know you’re still young, but believe me, that piece of paper saying you finished college will come in handy in many aspects/areas of your life that you can’t even imagine right now.

Also, wouldn’t hurt to have that CS degree in your back pocket when you start applying for web dev jobs. Gives you an edge over other applicants, if everything is equal as is. That CS degree may also open some doors for you in the future (Machine Learning, AI, blockchain, who knows?)

Many many many decades ago, I stayed in college to finish my engineering degree. But my love/passion during that time was computer programming. I almost quit college when a big well-known international company wanted to hire me to do CAD (Computer Aided Design) and pay big money (it was very new at that time, very few people know it)… but my parents prevented me. So I just studied programming on my own time. But that engineering degree has served me/helped me get other kinds of job/work – more like a backup/insurance policy. And that CAD knowledge also came in handy to get my foot in the door to get a job, which I then parlay into a Computer Network Administrator job, then into programming, then into running my own biz and quitting that dayjob. And even as a web dev, when meeting with clients they find out you have an engineering degree, and know other stuff… it just kinda gives them some piece of mind they’re hiring the right guy for their project. It’s like they see you in a different light – not just some web developer.

So finish your college/degree! :slight_smile:

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As someone with a CS degree from a program that only had 1 (not very good) web development course and who is currently a developer working in web technologies, I STRONGLY advise finishing your CS degree. Just because your courses aren’t in JavaScript/etc does NOT mean that what you are learning (especially your upper-level algorithms courses) is not extremely useful in both getting and doing your job.

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Thank you so much for your feedback! I think after I finish my degree then I’ll fully invest my time into web development. For now, I’ll just use my free time to learn on my own.

Hi Ryan,
Wow, third year with a 3.2 average and ONLY 1 year left. Stop and think about this for a moment… Be proud of that, realize that you had the great opportunity to figure that out. 90% of the world does not get that chance. Despite your concerns, you are very valuable WITH that piece of paper than without it! Think of all the ‘Poetry’ majors graduating throughout the world. At least you will have something really valuable to fall back on.

That being said I have another story.
My friend went to law school and while there he was told,

The first year the scare you to death,
The second year the work you to death,
And the third year they BORE you to death.

I thought to myself that was the same with my 4 year college career. The first year you worry about your major. The second and third years you get into your work. Then MY last year I was bored and thought of all the other cool things I wanted to do. But when I graduated I was able to go back to those ‘cool ideas’ that I had previously.

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Ryan I just wanted to say that I deeply value your honesty in sharing this with people that you barely know.
You seem like someone who is in search of answers, regardless of whether or not you agree with them which is awesome!

I can tell from your post that you are very driven and self motivated.
I tell people this all the time when they ask me about my thoughts on higher education.
It can’t hurt you.

Seriously.
No matter what you do no one is going to look at your degree and say, “Man Ryan, you would be a great candidate for this position but we really want someone without a college degree.”

It just isn’t going to happen!
So I would say, though I know we don’t know each other, from one college student to another, finish the race you started.

You may never use your degree but you will communicate to potential employers that you are someone that finishes what they start.
It can’t hurt you man.

And who knows, maybe you’ll pick up a skill that proves invaluable down the road.
The light at the end of the tunnel is already in sight man.
You got this.
And good luck to you, no matter what you decide.

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HEY! We have feelings, you know.

So many feelings, actually,

Here’s a sonnet I wrote about that…

* gets dragged away from keyboard *

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