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Comment by jason_slack | Hacker News Reader

I do regret getting a CS degree.

CS came easy to me and so I got a CS degree.

Hindsight I wish I had challenged myself to get a degree in something that didn't come easy.

I dont appreciate my degree and I blow off the fact that I even have one. It means nothing to me.

I have a 14 year old son whom I am pushing to challenge himself and be more well rounded than I was. He is learning C++, yes but he plays basketball, loves MotoGP, learning to cook and overall learning how to talk and argue his points :-)

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I'm in my final year of getting a CS degree and i'll be honest I feel the same way. My main motivation for getting a CS degree was that it would open up more career choices in the field but I wished i'd done something like Economics (which I have a real interest in).

Most of the content has been easy although I have learnt a lot of techniques and algorithms (especially in AI) so it's not been completely worthless.

I started college a couple years ago after 15 years working as a programmer. I wanted a CS degree, but during the first semester I spent a lot of time thinking about what I really want to do and switched to Computer Engineering. I might switch to EE before I'm done.

I thought I wanted the piece of paper, but I found out that I really enjoy pushing myself to learn new things.

The danger with this is that it requires a lot of self-control to dedicate yourself to something else for three years. It becomes very easy to ignore your university work in favour for that which you're more passionate about. The risk is you end up in more or less the same position but with a lower GPA.

what kind of degree would not come easy if you were able to make a CS degree? IMHO only a few degrees like pure math or physics may be more difficult.

CS isn't any harder than most other programs. GP could have found a challenge in arguing philosophy, designing fashion, or learning theater.

I always liked Economics. I was accepted to PA School but could not come up with the funds to attend.

There's a distinction between "difficult" and "comes easily". A lot of CS is easy for me, I think in part because the underlying thought patterns are intuitive and in part because I enjoy poking at it on my own. I don't think, say, mechanical engineering is particularly more _difficult_ on an absolute scale, but I personally would have had to work a lot harder and develop better learning skills for a mechanical engineering degree, and I would have learned a lot more in the process. And exposed my brain to something I'll likely never get a chance to expose it to now.

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