Do you recommend Computer Science?

Its so much harder to do rather than I.T & Business but is it worth it? Are jobs easily found? Are they "well paid" ?

Thanks

Don't be in it for the money. Be in it because you genuinely feel a passion for it.
You see a lot of compsci grads being overlooked in favour of grads from other disciplines who just taught themselves how to code (or non-grads), just because of the "boring" tag put on many compsci grads

I'm a software engineer/computer scientist, and the skills and experience I use have very little in common with typical I.T. skills.

For example - I've recently been reading a research paper on hard disk & SSD performance presented to the system via a RAID-5 controllers, with the aim of using the research to write a program that provides realistic performance estimates for potential customers who wish to use large (up to 320 core, 24 TB RAM, etc) systems.

As part of this project I've been in communication with the author of the research paper, constructively criticising some of the arguments and mathematical formulae, with the result that the paper will be reworked to include my observations.

Rather different from I.T. I think!

And yes, it does pay quite well

(My academic background is computer science from Durham quite a few years ago. I maintain contact with Durham which is why I'm on this website.)

Thanks for the response Was Computer Science worth it? In terms of it being much harder than IT. Is the pay 'that' good? I've always been interested in coding etc but Computer Sci is much harder to get into that IT so I'm kinda stuck...

Well, IT is very different from Computer Science. It's the difference between being the pilot of an aircraft and being a passenger

As far as the pay being good - yes, if you have the talent, work hard and look for and take opportunities. I will definitely retire well before I'm 60 with my own house, no debts and a decent pension.

Computer Science is much more than just coding.... that's just the foundation, along with mathematics, that Computer Science is built on.

How much maths is involved? Is it a lot? Because some uni's ask for A-Level Maths, and some dont. I didn't pick Maths because I didn't plan to do Computer Sci until very recently. However, Newcastle dont mind if you did maths or not, so I might apply there. But is the maths really hard? I dont like maths however I'm not too bad at it (B at GCSE). Thanks

How much math depends on the course.

Those courses that require A-level maths will probably have a higher maths content, and vice-versa. That's a good thing; you can pick the course that is appropriate to your maths ability.

There may be less maths on some courses than others but it will all be complex maths which is at a higher level than GCSE. Have you looked at the work involved in some of the modules at Newcastle University, these 2 for example http://www.ncl.ac.uk/undergraduate/modules/csc1025/ and http://www.ncl.ac.uk/undergraduate/modules/csc2023/ .

As someone pointed out, the better jobs will go to those from the better universities so don't expect to get the same salary as someone from Cambridge/ICL/Warwick etc.

I know somebody who runs a large company's IT dept and in his own words "IT Technicians are ten a penny". They are always on the lookout for people with Comp Sci degrees - better salary and more in demand.

Thanks for all that info. I'm thinking of doing Computer Sci at somewhere like Newcastle, because then I can become either a software engineer or an IT Consultant, right? Ive read on Prospects.co.uk that you can become an IT Consultant with both a computer sci degree and IT degree, however to become a software engineer, you need computer sci, so it gives me more options, correct?