The Blog

CompSci at Cambridge

Ahhhh, CompSci. The one subject where you can stare at a coursework, “improving” it for dozens of hours only to be in a position worse than before because you’ve screwed up the only copy of your code and you (me), the computer scientist, didn’t back it up. BACK UP, BACK UP, BACK UP. Always back up!

Yes, CompSci, the subject that will have you on your dorm room floor before you’ve even started your assignment because your uni wanted you to use “Chime” (essentially GitHub) which is more like what professional programmers use, but no one tells you it doesn’t like windows, and no one mentions you need to create an account in GitBash. No-one, not the set-up guide they link to within the lecture, not the handful of articles on Google, nope. No, only the least popular YouTube video on the topic tell you, and you only discover that a month after your task was due.

And so, this first term is how I was rudely introduced to the idea of: RESPONSIBILITY. It’s university. The lecturers don’t care how many A*s or C’s everyone gets, like your teachers at sixth form (looking back, I definitely had really caring teachers at sixth form). It’s rare for them to push you at uni. Your tutors don’t care if you don’t. You’re now responsible for yourself, no-ones going to push you or show you how to do the little things, it’s all on you, and rightly so.

But the pains of coding aren’t unique to Cambridge, no. What is, however, is that they start you off with OCaML (???? Who?). If you haven’t heard of it (let’s not kid ourselves no-ones heard of OCaML), it forces you to see things how a mathematician would, you have to think deep and purposefully. You’re limited to what you can do with it, it’s much harder to create a game or a simulation with it, because, well, it wasn’t made for it.

At the end of the day, I’m kind of grateful the course designers chose OCaML to start off with. I would have cursed them at the start, but it’s proven to be useful. In your first term they’ll throw a load of programming languages at you (OCaML, Python, SQL, Cypher, Java) and you’ll be expected to get a grip with less guidance than you’d hope for. Throwing OCaML at you will make you THINK like a programmer, and really appreciate the art behind it (it still bloody sucks).

Side Note: I’m used to this now after a whole term, but lectures on a bloody Saturday? That’s Netflix time. Also, I only recently heard I get a BA as a CompSci., Mathematicians, engineers, everyone, actually, gets a Bachelor of Arts. Not just humanities students. BAs? Not BSCs? Dahell???

…Okay so apparently it’s because in the middle ages, science and art were widely seen as the same category of subjects, which kind of makes sense for the early sciences? I guess the tradition just carried on into today.

But still, I just want my Saturdays back man.

You need to evaluate what kind of person you are for CompSci at Cambridge. This is a VERY theoretical degree, with A LOT of time spent thinking, alone, figuring out the material. They’ll introduce you to the workflows behind group projects, and show you good coding practices, but group projects are rare in this course as far as I know. People doing CS and Engineering at other unis have many more opportunities to develop soft skills and just being able to talk through stuff. I kind of miss that.

At the end of the day, I’m grateful to be on this course. I’ve realised, even if you don’t want to pursue a professional career, a degree will make you more valuable. Whether you want to start a business, become an actor, or dance for Ariana Grande. As a young adult, basically ANYTHING you do that takes dozens of hours a week, you will call upon it later in life. If you know something you want to do that’ll require this amount of time, do that instead! Otherwise (and I don’t often appreciate enough how privileged I am to say this) just do a degree.

My first week, and even right now, 3 months in, I thought I didn’t deserve to be on this course. The people here are KEEN; that does not just mean smart, it means there’s people here that’ll gladly put in 10 hours a day. If you’re on a Uni course, working a job, doing anything really - remember, if you went through a process, an application, to get where you are, you’re meant to be there, and 90% of the time you’re the only one saying otherwise (who give a shit if it’s someone else?). What I’ve described is an actual condition, it’s a called imposter syndrome. You being where you are isn’t a mistake. Tell yourself that, you deserve it :)

Second side note: The best part about Cambridge is the drunk students at parties. HOLY SHIT, when they go from babbling, stumbling and poorly singing to *intelligently ranting about why communism failed and capitalism is the only economic solution-* You almost forget that the people around you are some of the most knowledgeable people our age, when it comes to their courses.

So whaaaat is the conclusion?

Almost EVERY opinion I had about this degree was wrong. I thought OCaML was arbitrary and useless but it drowned me with new concepts and just when you start surface, they dunk you in Java in the second half of your first term, but then you remember OCaML taught you how to float. So it isn’t that bad.

This degree is TIRING. While writing this, it’s supposed to be my winter holiday and I’ve been working 5 hours a day for the past week. It’s going to go up to 7ish when term starts. This isn’t too far from the workload at sixth form though. To be fair, I knew little about programming going into this course and I’m far from the smartest in the year. Free time is existent but you need to level up your time management to unlock it.

Well, that’s all the information. Thank you for reading. Cheers :)