Dealing with the fact that you study Computer Science at uni...

gord said:
But seriously, i didnt think real geeks existed till i went to a Warwick open day.. me and the other business/IT students were the only ones that talked all day.. considering about 15 of us.. the rest just.. needed IRC or something..
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Ah the gantt chart brigade, chatting about writing a gantt chart for the geeks on the open day I suspect :p
 
gord said:
Well, i study ITO.. which is IT and business studies effectively.. or CS minus the hardcore programming..

So not only do i get to manage you lot.. i get to look less geeky too :p

But seriously, i didnt think real geeks existed till i went to a Warwick open day.. me and the other business/IT students were the only ones that talked all day.. considering about 15 of us.. the rest just.. needed IRC or something..
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LOL!

The exact reason i dropped out of warwick :) I cannot stand full on geeks.
 
I study Business Information Systems at UNI, so similar in some ways to Computer Science.

The only courses I find that are conversation killers for me are the namfy pamfy ones that are in large part...a waste of time.

At least the degree's we do are challenging, but then again I ain't no computer geek either so maybe my little rant doesn't really add a lot to this thread.
 
topic made me lol.

I think my usual approach is b, but I find just saying it the same as I would if I did English (which everyone here seems to do), and moving on to what they do, never seems to get a bad response. Not a visible one at least. Probably does on the inside.

edit: actually I think a strange number of people that do English seem to have a similar attitude to their degrees.
 
Never been an issue for me, I tell the truth, I study Internet computing and I find it mind numbing. To be honest most things studied at uni are pretty geeky. At my uni at least, it is the small minority of people doing computing that are the hardcore bearded geeks. Most of them are cool guys and girls, up for a good time, with computers being 'just what they do at uni'.
I lost my interest in computers a long time back, sold my rig because i realised it was daft and now I just use my computer a fair amount to talk to friends, get advice for my car, and use ebay to keep me in money. That and the fact that TV is mind numbing and reading/posting on here is just a bit more interesting.
 
To quote a friend of mine:

'Computer Sci...[Judges reaction]...cology'

Of course, I'm a rather sensible chap, so I opted to read Economics, a far finer conversation piece.
 
Neb said:
is it just me or is computer science the biggest conversation killer known to man?
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I've thought about the same thing when people ask, but I don't worry about it anymore.

A new lass has been working at my place now and I've been chatting to her in passing. She heard I was at uni and asked what I'm studying, so I just told her it's a 3 year computing science degree, been into computers since a young age and have been interested in them ever since.

"Ooh computing", she says. "I'm doing a basic computing course at 6th form"

Now I know exactly what she's talking about, so I say, "oh yeah I found that stuff really dull." She agrees.

I then go on to talk about programming, at this point I thought I was going to lose her now, but she said "Ooh wow! programming. There's a lot of money in that. Is it games programming?"

"Nah", I say. "I'm not good enough at maths, don't think I could manage that kind of stuff"

"I actually enjoy maths and am quite good at it some stuff", she says.

Since she seems to be interested I go on to tell her other stuff about the course.

She's fairly attractive too, and managed to keep her interested until I finally decided to change the subject myself.

I always talk about what I'm studying with enthusiasm and show that I enjoy it. As long as you don't talk about complicated things that they won't understand and are actually boring, they usually don't twist their face.

It's nothing to be ashamed of, much better than a degree in history :\

If the person doesn't know computers and is just asking to be polite, I won't talk about specifics, I'll just mention what's involved, what kind of job I could end up with, the money and I'll talk about projects I've done if they still show interest. And, of course how often I get wasted on nights out between studying and tell them a funny story from my last night out, will always bring them round if they're dosing off ;)
 
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Meh, I had to tell people that I was studying Mathematical Physics.
I dreamed about being about to tell girls I was on a Comp Sci course!
 
Scott Salisbury said:
I've thought about the same thing when people ask, but I don't worry about it anymore.

A new lass has been working at my place now and I've been chatting to her in passing. She heard I was at uni and asked what I'm studying, so I just told her it's a 3 year computing science degree, been into computers since a young age and have been interested in them ever since.

"Ooh computing", she says. "I'm doing a basic computing course at 6th form"

Now I know exactly what she's talking about, so I say, "oh yeah I found that stuff really dull." She agrees.

I then go on to talk about programming, at this point I thought I was going to lose her now, but she said "Ooh wow! programming. There's a lot of money in that. Is it games programming?"

"Nah", I say. "I'm not good enough at maths, don't think I could manage that kind of stuff"

"I actually enjoy maths and am quite good at it some stuff", she says.

Since she seems to be interested I go on to tell her other stuff about the course.

She's fairly attractive too, and managed to keep her interested until I finally decided to change the subject myself.

I always talk about what I'm studying with enthusiasm and show that I enjoy it. As long as you don't talk about complicated things that they won't understand and are actually boring, they usually don't twist their face.

It's nothing to be ashamed of, much better than a degree in history :\

If the person doesn't know computers and is just asking to be polite, I won't talk about specifics, I'll just mention what's involved, what kind of job I could end up with, the money and I'll talk about projects I've done if they still show interest. And, of course how often I get wasted on nights out between studying and tell them a funny story from my last night out, will always bring them round if they're dosing off ;)
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Hook me up dood! :)
 
Scott Salisbury said:
Haha, she appears to be taken at the moment. It may not stop me though :cool:
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I hope the this lady is not wrapped in a synchonized block. If there is a lock on the boyfriend, there may be some concurrency issues. I hope she is multi-threaded.
 
meh, I'm a Computer Scientist. I wouldn't say CS killed any converstations, but I would normally say I'm a 'Computer Scientist' rather than 'I study Computer Science'. The word scientist just makes it sound better :)
 
If anyone asks me I just say I do chemistry, and absolutely loath it now, which is the whole truth. I was vaugely interested in the first year, one term of it ended any interest I had.

I've met a fair number of girls who've been reasonably impressed my me and my mates when we've said we're at imperial, and I assume because they reckon we'll get jobs in the city earning lots (which is what most imperial graduates seem to do)
 
Hamish said:
I know what you mean about the conversation killer. I have no idea why as there are plenty of more geeky subjects, I usually do a) and say i do engineering as it sounds less geeky and i know quite a bit about it so i'm not going to dig a hole for myself if she starts asking questions.
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Technically you wouldn't even be lieing if you said you did engineering. Computer science is more engineering than science.
 
Comp Sci sounds pretty bad but at least some people know roughly what it's about even if they stereotype you for it. When I say chemical engineering I get blank looks followed by people either saying "Does that involve chemistry" or "That's engineering right?". At worst they say nothing and shuffle away :o
 
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