CS Majors – What Are We Supposed To Want?

I am surrounded by CS majors here in college.

I am a CS major too.

Yet, sometimes I wonder – what is it that we CS majors really want after all?

Some of us are brilliant at what we do. Some of my friends, I would place in that category. I see them everyday in the lab- working on stuff, chatting and living their life. they are the people who have interviews at the top companies today. They are the people who I would go to if I have questions, concerns or just need some advice about internships-about code-about basically everything related to computer science.

Some of us are not so brilliant but we love what we do. I may place myself in this category but then I may not. We are always in the labs too, working our butts off and then rewarding ourselves with ice-cream once we get our assignments done and our projects to work. These are the people we hang out with at the lab. We maul over the exams and let out our frustrations as well as talk about that little bugger of an error we just fixed with these people.

There is also the other kind of people – I don’t know very many of them. The ones that picked CS as a major because it is popular and they can do it. Maybe they like it maybe they don’t. Maybe they are brilliant at it as well or maybe they just end up switching out of it. They are they ones that have a very different ambition with regards to computer science and as such I do not know much about it.

I wonder what I want. I would not put myself in the first category. I may not even put myself in the second. In some cases I would. I am not in the third category for sure. Yet, I know I love studying this.

Am I then supposed to be looking for an internship  or a job in a sprint? Is that what I am “supposed” to want? 

I am not a big fan of job fairs. I don’t put on a formal attire and attend information sessions with the big names in the business. I sometimes think of applying for a position somewhere close by to the college but not majorly. Does that make me incompetent or lazy in the CS world?

I focus on my classes and do events on my college campus. I am planning to study abroad even though I am already studying abroad by studying at UC San Diego. I want to travel over the summer instead of intern. I want to take classes to learn a different language instead of cramming in another CS course so I have more to put on my resume. I want to spend time writing that research paper for that other history class. I want to minor in Studio Art and make a portfolio of portraits of people close to me. 

As a result I don’t have much time to do a billion individual CS projects the the big shot companies are looking for in a picture-perfect resume. Does that make me not much involved in the CS world? Maybe. But it does not change the fact that I am still a kind of CS major.

I love tutoring. I love working on the assignments we get from class even though sometimes they may frustrate the life out of me. I know I love what I do and if I wanted anything better I would have switched my major but I did not. 

I love being a computer science major. Yet, I love other things too – like art; travelling. Should that matter?

Hell no. We are not clones.