I'm graduating with a CS degree but I don't feel like I know how to program

I believe that there are two ways to get good at anything, "push" and "pull".

Push: You learn from books, classes, mentors, and studying examples, then apply what you have learned.

Pull: You have a problem that you must solve, then you learn what you need, any way you can, to build the solution.

I suppose there are pros and cons of each method, and I imagine that many people here have used some of both.

For the record, I am 100% Pull. I have absolutely no formal training. It took me 2 years to find my first job and then I was thrown into the deep end. It was simultaneously frustrating and exhilarating. There were so many times I didn't know what to do or didn't have enough "tools" in my box. So I had to figure it out and find sources of learning. But I always did. Any when I got that first thing working and then saw my customer's eyes light up, I was hooked.

Your CS degree may make you think that you're a "push" learner, but may I suggest that you adopt a "pull" approach. Forget what you think you know and find a job or a project or someone who has a real need. Then build what you need. You a several advantages over me: (a) It shouldn't take you long to find that job/demand/customer. Just keep looking. (b) You already have tools in your tool box, maybe not the right ones for the job, but you have something. And (c) It's easier than ever to adopt a "pull" approach. Help is everywhere.

You may feel frustrated, but I don't think you have a problem at all. You're in a great (and very normal) situation. Just adjust you attitude, find something to build, and do it.

This touches on several issues.

1. Should college teach you to program?

This is a philosophical question about whether a CS degree should be educational or vocational. The general consensus seems to be that it should be the former not the latter. It should give you the theoretical foundation that you can apply to almost anything.

Therefore, college won't necessarily teach you any programming beyond what you need to read examples and do assignments, which may not be particularly deep.

2. Do you like to program?

Frankly, every good programmer I know started programming long before they went to college or at least programmed outside of college for their enjoyment.

If you haven't done that and don't do that then I really have to question if you're in the right profession.

3. Programming vs Being a Programmer.

Being a programmer as a job for which you are paid is different to programming. It involves many other skills such as design, reviews, dealing with people, writing documentation, supporting applications and so on. This is not something taught in school (nor could it be really).

I view the first 2-3 years of your work life as an apprenticeship of sorts. You've got the basic theory, now you have to go out into the real world and make yourself useful to somebody.

Many companies have graduate programs and the like. I think it's fairly important to start off somewhere that's good, meaning they'll teach you something (rather than simply crushing you, which, sadly, is more the norm).

If you can put in 2-3 years at, say, Google, Facebook or Apple after doing a good CS course, you'll have gotten yourself off to a very good start.

I think there is huge value in trying to become what has been called a "full stack programmer". In the maning of: try to understand how computer systems work by understanding how each part of the stack works. Don't try to completely understand every subtle detail of every part - try to understand it like you understand how a combustion engine works.

My list would be:

  - basic electronic concepts, ie. transistors, XOR / NAND, bit shifters, adders
  - assembly language
  - hardware layout: CPU, registers, main memory, MMU, interrupts
  - operating systems: hardware interface, multi processing, file systems
  - networking: packet networks, ethernet, TCP/IP (sliding window, congestion control)
  - low level programming: C with fopen & co, sockets, structs, system calls
  - compiler construction (this is important!), parsers, translators, programming language implementation and virtual machines
  - algorithms: complexity theory, automata, CFGs, common data structures (heaps, maps, trees)
  - discrete mathematics, statistics

I think if you can explain all of these in at least a sort-of, hand wavy way, then you're on a good path to become an excellent programmer. I also think that is what a good CS degree should teach you. Try to explain to yourself in a children's story way what actually happens when you click your mouse button. If you don't know something, look it up.

How refreshing. When I graduated I thought I knew it all.

"I see websites like Stack Overflow and search engines like Google and don't know where I'd even begin to write something like that."

In response I'll quote part of the best paragraph PG's ever written:

"I've always been fascinated by comb-overs, especially the extreme sort that make a man look as if he's wearing a beret made of his own hair. How does the comber-over not see how odd he looks? The answer is that he got to look that way incrementally. What began as combing his hair a little carefully over a thin patch has gradually, over 20 years, grown into a monstrosity. Gradualness is very powerful. And that power can be used for constructive purposes too: just as you can trick yourself into looking like a freak, you can trick yourself into creating something so grand that you would never have dared to plan such a thing. Indeed, this is just how most good software gets created. You start by writing a stripped-down kernel (how hard can it be?) and gradually it grows into a complete operating system." -- http://paulgraham.com/essay.html (His best essay IMO.)

The reality is that no one knows how to do any professional job when they graduate from college. What we learn in college is mostly how to learn and how to problem solve. The problems we solve in college, whether stumbling through our first sorting algorithms or writing a paper about the role of Prussian nationalism in the 1800s, are not tied at all to the problems we have to solve professionally. And that's okay. When it comes to being a practitioner, whether producing commercial software products or writing analyst reports on public companies, the job itself is the best training. What you have to bring to the table is the curiousity and ability to learn and problem solve that get you up the learning curve quickly, and the professionalism that makes you a reliable and welcome colleague.

Similarly, I did not graduate with a CS degree, have been programming since 5th grade and yet feel I cannot program 'professionally' for a big firm that is loaded with CS geeks while I'm just an amateur programming for 13 years.

In this case, a lot of it is what you tell your brain.

Being an undergraduate in a large public university gives you all sorts of great opportunities, like rooming with a painter (art studio/anthro double major). Among the many jewels I've borrowed from our conversations, one I particularly treasure is the notion of praxis.

Praxis (as I understand it) is simply the harmonious blending of practice and theory into action. As I'm beginning the exit trajectory from undergrad and into the "real world" (whatever that is), I've been reflecting on my education in the art of programming. I've realized that praxis has been the only substantial educational tool I've had.

Knuth says it best. “If you find that you're spending almost all your time on theory, start turning some attention to practical things; it will improve your theories. If you find that you're spending almost all your time on practice, start turning some attention to theoretical things; it will improve your practice.”

This is based on the experience of getting my CS degree 10+ years ago. I'm not going to prefix every sentance with IMHO.

Of course you don't know how to program, because most computer science programs suck. They teach how to code, the basic stuff like variables, if statements, loops, etc. You probably had a course in data structures and algorithms where you learned how to code your own lists and then how to sort them. You probably learned about object oriented programming with tons of examples about how a dog is a type of animal or maybe a foo is a type of bar. You probably wrote a ton of little one off programs to count the words in a file, calculate fibonaci sequences, fling disks around the towers of hanoi, or calculate interest rates.

Probably by the time you were deep into your data structures class you started zoning out, because heck, you can get by just fine with arrays. Same for algorithms, why are they making all this stuff so complicated, I can do most of this with just if and while. You never had to write a program more than a few hundred lines long, so object oriented programming just seems like confusing overkill. So do functions for that matter since you never had to do the same thing more than once in your program.

The problem is, you were taught all that shit in a vacuum and nobody ever told you how to put it all together. Since the programs you were working on were so simple, you never ran into the problems that those techniques were meant to solve. You were taught tons of theory, but nobody ever sold you on it. You have no idea how to apply all that stuff you learned. When and why to use each little bit of theory.

Maybe you tried to bootstrap yourself, start writing your own real programs. Maybe you had some success, most likely you got bored or frustrated and collapsed a few days later under the cruft of your own code base because you had no idea how to structure a real program.

Of course your professors will tell you that what you really need to learn wasn't the job of the university. They are there to educate, not help you get a job. I can understand their point of view to an extent, but what would you say about an english major who just got their BA and doesn't know how to write more than a 2 page paper. Theory & knowledge are just giant pile of bullshit to a person without a proper impetus to apply it in a non trivial application.

I realize there are some awesome colleges out there that are probably nothing like this. Given what I still see out of the junior developers I work with, I would say they are still the exception rather than rule.

I'm graduating with a EE degree but I don't feel like I know how to solder.

I'm graduating with a ME degree but I don't feel like I know how to weld.

Do you bicycle?

Do you remember learning how to ride?

Knowing rigid-body mechanics, the theory of angular momentum, gyroscopic effect, etc. isn't going to keep your ass in that seat. Contrariwise, by trying and falling many times you learned how to balance yourself atop an unstable structure of wheels and frame when you were five years old.

Programming is the same. To feel confident in your ability to program, you simply have to do it. A lot. And you will write a lot of crappy, crappy code. Just keep doing it.

Previous post/discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1345281

I remember feeling the same thing in college... I expected CS to be a vocational program that would teach me how to write the applications I used on Windows every day. By Senior year, when not a single "real world" application was written, I finally realized it was all about teaching good theory and practice, and the practical stuff I'd need to pick up on my own.

This topic hit home for me because I am graduating this year with a CS degree. As many of you have pointed out, a CS degree doesn't teach you how to program. I think it does give you a base of knowledge that you can then build upon to become a great coder.

I would say that 30% of my programming skill and knowledge comes from what I learned in class, while 70% comes from reading, watching lectures online, having friends critique my code, looking at open source projects, etc. But without that initial, introductory training from my CS department I would never have been in a position to understand those other topics.

Personally I would love to see a community effort to put together a free, open source "bridge the gap" curriculum for new college grads. It would focus mostly on coding best practices, code reviews, the importance of tests, engineering work flows, version control, staging servers, etc. In particular I think it should focus on real-world codebases as opposed to the one-off programs you constantly write in academia. Sure you can learn most of this stuff at your first job, but I think there are a ton of people out there who would love to learn this stuff, but they don't really know what they need to learn or where to start.

I learned extremely few industry-applicable skills in a prestigious CS undergrad program. Instead, I picked up 99% of my useful knowledge from a few other places:

- One semester-long software development class, where the teacher did literally nothing while we formed small teams and worked on a project for a real client in or near our university

- Software engineering internship in the industry

- Extremely hard-ass Advanced Placement C.S. teacher in high-school

I learned a lot of cool theoretical stuff in college that is definitely good to know: functional programming, operating systems, machine learning techniques, compilers, graph algorithms, etc., but was never taught any core programming techniques or required to write very extensive code at any level of quality. It's all about real-world experience, if that's what you're shooting for.

I'm graduating with an English degree but I don't feel like I know how to write a novel.

If you're lucky they actually taught you CS when they were giving you that CS degree. If you have a passion for creating software then don't worry, you're in a good place, but you've got tons of work ahead of you. Now you'll need to learn an entirely new set of skills. In terms of books I'd recommend Code Complete, Rapid Development (somewhat misnamed but quite good), and Refactoring. Having CS knowledge will give you a leg up because you will be able to apply certain skills and knowledge to hard problems that most programmers have a hard time coming by (compilers, low-level data structures, etc.)

If you're unlucky then you got a pseudo-trade-school education in Bachelor of Science clothing. Sorry to say that you probably got ripped off. But don't worry, if you have a passion for creating software then you can still use self-study to build up the knowledge and skills necessary to become a true software craftsman, and at least you're not starting at square one. Plus, a CS degree still looks good on paper and will help with job searches.

P.S. Learn source control inside and out, it'll pay massive dividends.

Chances are he did find a job in the last 8 months, but here's my input (maybe someone else in a similar situation can use it): I graduated with a BS in ECE a few months ago, and also felt like I wasted 4 years for a piece of paper, but in those 4 years, I gained a lot of web development experience. While interviewing for the next few months after graduation, I saw that I knew a lot more about web development than EE, and that I was more interested in web development and CS. I landed a programming job where I'm learning more than I've learned during four years of electrical engineering courses. So my advice is to find what you're more interested in, and maybe you have college work or extra-curricular experience that can help. Engineering and CS share a similar thought process, and employers look for this in their technical interviews - especially if they know you don't come from a formal CS education. As others have pointed out, you can (and should) work on personal projects and freelance. Besides helping you learn and gain experience, you might even make some money!

I think at many schools, how much you know about programming depends on the electives you choose to take. I could have taken many easy classes and had a much easier time going through school (probably had a higher GPA too). But, you need to think why you are in school in the first place. Are you there to get a slip of paper stating that you spent 4 years or so visiting classrooms occasionally throughout the afternoon/morning? Or, do you want to actually learn something of substance that you can use in your personal/professional development.

I like the first answer on the SO post, developing a website or writing a game will definitely make you a much better coder. When you build something from the ground up by yourself, you learn a lot more than just coding. You learn how to break out of deep troughs of despair. You learn how to work more than 8 hours at a time. You learn why its important to add efficiencies to your work habits. These are a few of the things you learn. But, these are the things that separate coders (the subset) from people with degrees (the superset).

Maybe the guy has gotten a job in the past 6 months since this was posted?

This is why I feel co-op should be mandatory for all CS degrees. I look at some of the people in my program who struggle with even basic programs and algorithms, and I can't help but think they're deluding themselves. A summer spent doing QA, then another as a junior developer, then two more doing real programming work would either disavow them of the notion that they should be a programmer, or give them the skills to at least get a job when they graduate.

I think it's shameful that colleges are perfectly happy to take 4 years of tuition and tell you that your shiny BS in CS will get you a great job when you graduate. A few profs will drill it into your head that co-op is mandatory, but that's only if you get the good ones.

You can't expect college to teach you how to program. It's more experience and try-and-fail than anything else.

The college will teach you the basic, it will give you a ground to know how to start building. They won't tell you how to put the bricks together.

Sounds like a case of mishandled expectation to me. Computer science is a mathematical and logical discipline; programming is a good means to practice that mathematics and logic, but it's not what computer science is.

Pretty much I think this is one reason why the big names in software industry did not totally adopt the notion of graduating with a degree. What they did was to venture out on the real world and try solving some problems that they have by using computers and understanding how to program it. Pretty much I think it is safe today that 90% (or more) of what's being taught in universities offering CS degrees doesn't match up with what's happening in the real world. You want to program, sit on a computer, find something to solve and do it.

I was a better programmer at the age of 12 than most of the people who did my Computer Science degree were at the end of the course.

A worthless piece of paper. Had a fun three years getting it though.

I think this post complements the "How Effective are Technical Interviews" post that was on HN recently. A CS curriculum definitely prepares you for the theoretical questions asked in a technical interview, however, neither a CS degree nor a technical interview give you a real sense of how strong that person is at development.

I don't think this problem indicates the usefulness of a CS degree. Instead, I think it says that the only real way to learn how to program is to program.

My suggestion is to find a side project or something to get involved with. That will give you something to guage where you are and ways to improve.

I think a lot of students coast through a CS program and expect to be good at programming when they are done. A student should always have a personal project that he is working on outside of school (even if it is really small). Something that he cannot ask the teacher for help with. That way he has experienced unguided learning and has something to show off at job interviews.

There is a difference between programming and engineering. I didn't take a software engineering course until after I graduated, but it was so worth it...

It's one thing to solve a problem once it's in front of you, but it's another to make the plan that exposes you to the problems, and keeps new problems coming along so that you can keep solving them, until one day... the project is done.

You could probably replace "CS degree" and 'program' with a lot of different degrees and vocations. This is what people seem to fail to understand about collage, anything worth doing takes far more effort then making it through 4 years of college. All college does (at least the first 4 years) is get one ready for the lifetime of learning that is ahead.

imho, cs degrees are not supposed to be about programming. their focus should be purely theoretical side of computation e.g. heavy emphasis on algorithms, data structures etc. etc. which pushes them mostly towards applied mathematics imho. most programmers are autodidacts anyways, and picking stuff up is generally not that hard.

This sentiment is true, I think, for any profession, graduating with an undergraduate degree just gets the door open, you still have a long way to walk. Similarly, if you're an English major reading The New Yorker, you may not feel like you know how to write a decent piece.

Graduating with a CS degree from where?

Choose another career ASAP. Find something you love.

This is why there are so many bad programmers around. Depressing.

If I was a fresh grad (or non-grad with some level of self-taught skill) I would be looking at companies that have formal apprenticeship programs. There are shops like Obtiva that do this sort of thing and look to lift people up through the "craftsmanship" approach.

From my experience people can programm() or they can't. I rarely have seen someone "learn" programming. A CS degree has nothing to do with it.

Becoming a good programmer is something different.

() Deconstructing problems into smaller problems and expressing those in computer commands.

I think I can help you out wiht the job situation..and a perfect match for what you're looking for. send me an email. gaurav.namit at lbi.com

I'm sure that you've done a great deal of challenging/complex programs in pursuing your major.

If this is so, and you can't program, then how did they appear?

This person should work for GE. Most of their senior and lead Software engineers can't code either.