Remember the good old days when you went to college and they didn't even have a bachelor degree program for computer science? They may have had one or two courses you could take, but a whole discipline in it? Not a prayer. Well, my friend, the times they are a changing, to paraphrase Bob Dylan. Today, colleges offer some very extensive programs in computer science in order to keep up with the computer schools who have been offering computer certificates for some time now. Below you will find a typical bachelor degree program for anyone who wants to graduate with a BS in computer science.



Your first semester in college, when starting a program in computer science, usually starts you off slowly. They'll begin with what they typically call an Introduction To Computer Science. This course will include a history of computers and some basic terminology like bits and bytes, RAM, ROM, etc. It's not very difficult as far as your actual programming skill, but it does require a lot of memorization and that is the difficult part of it. There is just so much to learn. Many students actually can't even get past this part. In the meantime, while they are taking their computer course, they usually take other science related course like Calculus and Chemistry.

After a student finishes the introductory course, which can sometimes last for two semesters, their second year is where they start to pick the specialties that they want to concentrate on. This is where they have to make some very difficult decisions. They can either go into the programming end of computers or they can focus on things like networking or even computer repair and building. The purpose of the intro course is to prepare them for making this choice. Unfortunately, most intro courses are too weak to do this and the student is left totally confused and unable to decide where to go next. That's where the school councilors come in.

Once the student does make the decision, the courses offered are numerous. For those who want to get into programming there are the basic courses to ease them into programming, such as BASIC, FORTRAN and COBOL. These courses are usually offered the first semester of year two. From there, the student advances to programming languages like C++ and PASCAL. They are also introduced to object oriented programming like Visual Basic. Object oriented programming is probably the most in demand form of programming today.

For those who don't want to go into programming but rather go into the systems end of things, they are offered courses like networking, which usually concentrate on networking systems like Novell and Microsoft Networks. Students who take these courses usually spend a lot of time in the lab putting together small networks. That's one thing about a computer science bachelor degree. There is a lot of hands on.

Finally, to get your actual bachelor degree a student will have to complete a final project. This will involve either writing a very complex program, for programmers, or putting together a small network, for networkers.

Unlike a lot of other disciplines, those who graduate with a bachelor degree in computer science, are actually somewhat prepared for getting a real job.