I know, I know. Extremely broad title. But I was watching videos the other day of dudes wrecking computers with viruses for shits and giggles and it crossed my mind that I spend a lot of time on the computer, I generally find them a little interesting. However I never would have considered it a remote possibility for me to learn how to do things involving computers, be it program or physical repairs/building. Why? Well, I don't find things involving machines as opposed to living systems very interesting. and also? pretty bad at math. Or, at least I thought I was. I am not very good at things like memorizing equations, didn't memorize my times tables until I was in middle school, barely remember important numbers. But I've taken math classes in college and I am basically at the same level as a lot of people? And I can make good grades if I dedicate enough time to it. Shockingly enough it's the only class I've ever gotten a 100 on a test. But then I read stuff where programmers talk and it seems more like a language than math. I may be bad with numbers but I am pretty good at things involving language. Sorry if this is turning into a ramble or anything. I've just been trying to do research on what jobs will play nice with my specific brainweird issues and "computers!" seems to be what keeps coming up and I've always been really dismissive of the idea. I still want to get my bio/psych degree because that's what I'm interested in (plus I already have credits in those subjects where I've never taken a comp sci class) but it might be interesting to teach myself some stuff. There are just 50 million resources on the internet and I can't tell the good from the bad so any advice would be good :(
Yeah, I remember having to learn "logic" in a high school math class and I was like "Wait, how is this math?" and then after that no future classes touched on logic again, and went back to the math I know which is "memorize these equations that are practically meaningless to you and remember to plug in the numbers correctly" which I think says a lot about math education.
^----------- times a million. I was so sad when the proofs section of geometry was over it was the only math thing i was ever any good at. >:(
Yeah, math as seen in school and math as seen by research mathematicians don't really look anything alike. Programming looks more like logic, and indeed a lot of it shares academic ancestry with logic. So if you were comfortable with the if-then stuff, that's most of the math you need for programming aside from specific, math-heavy applications.
I think I'll take a crack at learning how to code then over the summer. I've been recommended R and Python specifically by someone who works in research (which is what I want to get into if possible). Any other reccs on resources or anything else that would be a good idea to learn would be appreciated.
Hmmm. Seems like a good challenge! I've taken some "hard" classes with professors who expect students to do the work on their own and learn things on their own and have done well in them. I think this will be good for my compulsions to "learn ALL the things!" and "must do work as precisely and accurately as possible, damn how long it takes."
