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Tell HN: Studied computer science but struggled with statistics, and algorithms

3 points by kbrannigan ↗ HN
Hello guys, In college, I put my classes in 3 categories.

The Naturals:

Topics I could do in my sleep: GUI classes, Programming Classes.

The conceptuals:

Topics I understood the concept of:

Database, Physics, Computer Graphics, Biology.

The Aliens:

Topics I couldn't grasp no matter how hard I read the books.

: Statistics, Probability, Algorithms, Calculus 2.

These topics are what make me afraid to apply for a job. I can code, but I do poorly in interviews.

Thanks.

1 comment

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dusted
I'd say that apart from algorithms, it does not matter, and depending on the kind of job, not even that..

But in my opinion, a computer program is also an algorithm, albeit a specific one that can solve the problem that caused the program to be written in the first place.. And so I'll kind of argue that, if you can't grasp the general concept of algorithmic thinking, you can't really program a computer.

Anyway.. If you can code.. Write code, make some stuff and put on github.. Write some computer games and get them into the linux distributions and so on..

Then you have stuff to talk about in the job interviews, pulling up something on github and talking it through will convince them that you can do stuff, and since it's your own code, you can easily explain them what it does and why you wrote it that way.