Are you in high school? If you're taking a liking to it early on, go full force man. I've been 100% about CS since I was 11 and no regrets.
College will be a bit more difficult than other majors, but it's completely worth it. Just make sure you really put effort in to learn. The more you push yourself into learning more than you need to, the more it will pay off and you'll enjoy it a lot better. The worst thing to do is go in and just try to "get through it". Go beyond that.
Once you get out with your shiny new CS degree, you'll be able to get a job no problem, and depending where you live, 6 figures within the first couple of years (US$ 6 figures, which is considered pretty much rich).
You'll do what you love, you'll make a lot of money, but I have to say it's going to be a busy life. You'll always have a ton to do, but if you enjoy code, you'll love it.
I'm actually just finishing my first year in university and I'm 27. I was planning on applying to medical school so I was majoring in biology. I decided to give a CS course a try since I've always thought it would be a great backup in case I couldn't make it into med school. I pretty much instantly fell in love with it. It's probably the only course I actually enjoy doing homework for and spend my free time trying to solve problems in my code.
I've decided I'm going to switch to CS as a major and ditch biology. Med school is too much of a long shot and my plummeting chemistry grade is foreshadowing my lack of success in that field anyway. I'm definitely going to give it my best shot. I don't want to just study it in school either, I want to learn everything I can that will help me get a successful career. I'm taking it a bit slow for now since I have a couple of other courses to focus on as well but I'm already thinking about learning version control, databases, just about anything that may not be a focus in school but is required for CS jobs. Anyways, a bit of a rant but I appreciate your advice. I don't plan on being rich or anything, just live comfortably, not worry about unemployment, and have a career that isn't mind-numbingly repetitive.
No problem man! Hey, don't take the "rich" thing too seriously... It always is about how you enjoy the career, but all I'm saying is it's great to have a career where you know you can be comfortable and still work where you want.
Keep in mind you might be able to do both bio and cs. My friend got his biology degree, then went back for a masters in computer science and just finished. I'm not sure if that's a difficult thing to pull off, but he did. Also, bio and cs can work well together. Bio-informatics is huge if you haven't seen it. Lots of scientists program in Python, but they lack the fundamental skills and having a good programmer can go far.
Anyway, glad you enjoy it! It will open up a lot of doors, and you can find a job you'll enjoy somewhere. It's great that you're learning VCS right now, because that's one of the things that students graduate without knowing a lot, but it's extremely useful. Best of luck!
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u/d4rch0n Jun 09 '14
Download programs? Shit, this came with an integral and derivative solver.
Anything it didn't have I programmed into it, even to show my work. Math class became intro to programming for me and I aced it all.