My Discipline

Ever since sophomore year of high school computer science has been of interest to me. That was the year I started to take coding classes, after creating things out of lines of code I was fascinated. I was also fascinated because it is a highly-demanded lucrative skill to have.

Matylda, Spring 2012 Student Hackathon Coding March 24th, 2012 via Flickr

Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

1. What do students in your program learn how to do?

The program I plan to major in is computer science. The answer to this question is such a large answer. Basically, a computer science degree isn't necessarily just coding. It could be creating a web page, sifting through data, creating apps, and of course; writing the code to create any of these things. With this major, it could also mean knowing the hardware of the computer and knowing how all of it works together. Am example is this website Blogger, a whole team of people put this website together. Some people created it, some decided what it should include, some people worked on the visual design of it, and some people worked on making it user-friendly. A computer science student can direct their course of study to make it so they can learn any of those things listed in creating this website. 

2. What do people who get degrees in this field usually go on to do for work?

In this field, the job possibilities are so large. One person may become an independent app designer and make tons of money off of a game like Angry Birds. Another person could become a data analyzer. They would take a company's large amount of data and find the trends and convey them to the company. This is common when companies are looking for trends in sales so they can capitalize on them in order to make more sales. Another common job is a webpage developer. A person codes the necessary script for a website to be made. 

3. What drew you to this field?
When i first started coding I was amazed how simple numbers and words strung together could create a visual moving thing. The project I created that sticks out most to me was a moving robot GIF that I created. Actually seeing my code in action amazed me, What draws me to the field is how I can create a visual moving object, or anything visually appealing out of lines of code. I enjoy creating visuals, for that reason I might pursue graphic design or web development. 

4. Who are the leaders/most exciting people involved in your field right now? Why? These could be individual people or specific companies, organizations, businesses or non-profits.
The leader in this field right now are Microsoft and Apple and their creators. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were trailblazers in the field of computers. They took the next steps in making computers more user friendly. Their companies are still they main companies in regard to computers. Windows(PC) and Apple(Macs) are the two powerhouses and types of computers people use. Both companies have expanded from just computers and created tablets, smart phones, and many more technology based items. 

5. What are the leading academic/scholarly journals in your field? Where are they published? Give us the names and locations of at least 3. 

One leading journal in computer science is Distributed and Parallel Databases. The two main editors are Amit P. Sheth of Wright State University which is in the United States and Divyakant Agrawal of University of California at Santa Barbara. 

Another leading academic journal is the website Computer Science News. As one would expect it's giving the public information on the newest technology breakthroughs. It posts links to different articles that have the newest and most up to date news on computer science. It is updated daily and it is ran by the website, Science Daily.

The Scientific World Journal is also a very informative peer-reviewed, open accessed journal. Although it covers many aspects of science, it does devote attention to computer science. It updates them on the latest news in the field of computer science. Hindawi Publishing Corporation created the website. The corporation is based in Egypt. \

Reflection: After reading other blogs, I realized that kids our age are one day going to be making a huge difference in the world. We are all studying similar and different things and will one day be practicing what we have studied here in our time at school. I also recognized that everyone has such different classes depending on their major. Some people have math and science heavy classes, others have arts and history classes. One thing is that everyone is passionate about their major, they are excited to pursue it and hopefully find a job in it one day. From reading other blogs I still see myself having a job in the computer science field. After reading their blogs it has made me understand how I am also as passionate as they are, it also made me understand that it is going to be challenging at times but t push through because it is my passion. 
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