Okay heres the story. I was a computer science major(not anymore). So last spring i decided to take a c++ class after I was done with my intro to CS class. That class gave me the most stress I ever had from a class. I was forced to drop it since I simply could not keep up at the speed of light the teacher was going. So i decided to program in my own time ever since then and find out how to program games. Fall semester came and I could have taken the class again but I chickened out cause I just didnt want to go through that horrible event again. Now spring is coming up again and I have can take it again and do a minor in CS but im still afraid despite nearly a year of c++ experience. Has anyone ever felt like this about school? I just cant seem to get over it, despite glossing over the syllabus and thinking "Man, i know all of that now"...
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I feel paranoid about taking programming/CS classes
Started by ISDCaptain01, Dec 12 2012 11:42 PM
16 replies to this topic
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#2 Members - Reputation: 839
Posted 13 December 2012 - 12:06 AM
Try doing everything the opposite of the way you originally acted the first time you took the class. If you can sit right in the front row, get to class a bit earlier than the other students so you can talk to the professor, ask every single question you have without fear or embarassment (you are paying for the classes right?).
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#3 Members - Reputation: 141
Posted 13 December 2012 - 12:17 AM
That is the fear of failure and it is not just limited to school. You just have to get over it. Just look what was the result when you failed the last time. You learned that stuff anyway and you can just retake the course. You lost almost nothing.
#4 Members - Reputation: 618
Posted 13 December 2012 - 03:49 AM
i know what you guys are saying but man that was a bad semester for me. The day realized I wasn't going to make it in the class, I just came home and just sat down depressed about the future. That just killed me there. I was like "man well there's nothing else for me to do, might as well pick up my fathers trade and do accounting" . So I just switched and turned CS into a hobby knowing even if I were to pass this class , I wouldn't know what was gonna happen in the harder classes yet to come. Then today the thought fame into my head " hey why not at least minor in it? Maybe we can get a CS degree later in life"
#6 Members - Reputation: 1088
Posted 13 December 2012 - 04:16 AM
Do you need to go to that class? I mean, I dunno how it works for you but here in the uni i am attending to you don't need to assist to some courses, you can just show up for the exams (something I don't do because i rack ze disiprin!) .
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#7 Members - Reputation: 537
Posted 13 December 2012 - 06:28 AM
That is the fear of failure and it is not just limited to school.
I second this.
ISD try working out and stick to an exercise routine, the reason I say this is because after a work out not only will you feel more confident your old negative feelings will be slowly dying, it may sound stupid at first but a regular exercise regime has proven to boost mental health, make people confident and happy in addition to all the other benefits.
#8 Members - Reputation: 202
Posted 13 December 2012 - 06:51 AM
This will sound a little strange, but it works.
Imagine attending that class again in vivid detail, but change things so they're a positive experience for you this time.
You probably won't be able to do it all at once, so keep working on it twice a day (after you get up and right before bed) until you've changed every negative experience about that class to a positive one. You'll start feeling the fear and tension ease.
Remember this ... fear is like fog. It looks solid when you're standing outside of it, but you can just walk right through it. Good luck!
Roy
Imagine attending that class again in vivid detail, but change things so they're a positive experience for you this time.
You probably won't be able to do it all at once, so keep working on it twice a day (after you get up and right before bed) until you've changed every negative experience about that class to a positive one. You'll start feeling the fear and tension ease.
Remember this ... fear is like fog. It looks solid when you're standing outside of it, but you can just walk right through it. Good luck!
Roy
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#9 Crossbones+ - Reputation: 1039
Posted 13 December 2012 - 07:04 AM
You can't expect to know ahead of time how difficult a given thing is to learn since you aren't yet familiar with it.i know what you guys are saying but man that was a bad semester for me. The day realized I wasn't going to make it in the class, I just came home and just sat down depressed about the future. That just killed me there. I was like "man well there's nothing else for me to do, might as well pick up my fathers trade and do accounting" . So I just switched and turned CS into a hobby knowing even if I were to pass this class , I wouldn't know what was gonna happen in the harder classes yet to come. Then today the thought fame into my head " hey why not at least minor in it? Maybe we can get a CS degree later in life"
Neither can you know ahead of time if you are going to be in good health, good mood and otherwise able to study at a certain pace.
For those reasons, you should expect to fail now and then. If you never fail, you are probably not working anywhere near your capacity.
In my university it's routine for many people to take more classes than they can handle at a given time, fail/quit those which they can't handle, and try again later (now armed with a better idea of how much work the subject is, too). There's no shame in it. If your school doesn't penalize you for failing courses, don't worry about it.
#10 Members - Reputation: 213
Posted 13 December 2012 - 08:58 AM
Well, the way I see it you can't do worse than last time, right? Even if you know it felt horrible and you were all depressed, you still moved on afterwards, right? Otherwise you wouldn't consider doing the course again.
I've been studying at a university for 3 ½ years now, and I can tell you that I have failed a lot of courses. A lot. All I need to do is buckle up, retake the course with the mindset that it can't be worse than failing again. Since I already can handle the failure, since I've failed before, retaking the course will only make it a better experience than last time.
Go for it, there are plenty of times in life where you will fail and have to try again, and again, and again and maybe even again until you finally are successful.
I've been studying at a university for 3 ½ years now, and I can tell you that I have failed a lot of courses. A lot. All I need to do is buckle up, retake the course with the mindset that it can't be worse than failing again. Since I already can handle the failure, since I've failed before, retaking the course will only make it a better experience than last time.
Go for it, there are plenty of times in life where you will fail and have to try again, and again, and again and maybe even again until you finally are successful.
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#11 Members - Reputation: 903
Posted 13 December 2012 - 10:54 AM
No failure no success. Or "Failure is the mother of success" . I had a similar experience with my cs programming classes years back. I simply just stopped showing up for classes the second time and handed in what needed to be handed in and took my project exam and passed it all. For me programming theory and practical implementation cannot be forced it has to be learned at the page one sees fit. Also one year at that very first University(I changed my university but still same major) they had drop put rates on like 70 percent or more for first year students...
Anyway do not fear this class take it again and make sure no other stuff goes on in your life while taking this class.
Wish you the best luck and a merry Christmas
Anyway do not fear this class take it again and make sure no other stuff goes on in your life while taking this class.
Wish you the best luck and a merry Christmas
"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education"
Albert Einstein
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education"
Albert Einstein
#12 Members - Reputation: 1671
Posted 13 December 2012 - 11:41 AM
What's the saying? "Courage is being afraid of something, and doing it anyway" or something like that. You can talk about it all you want, get advice and insight and a bunch of pats on the back, but at some point, it's a binary choice: take the class or don't. Just take the class. You do know all the syllabus material. You don't necessarily know all the little side details about what will be covered in the class, and that's another reason to take the course. But primarily it's to get over your fear and put a little accomplishment under your belt.
I used to be intimidated by my college professors when I first went to higher education, thinking my problems and stumbling through their material wasn't worth bothering them with. Trust me when I say that you will get as much help as you ask for, if you're just straightforward with them and take opportunities to get whatever help you need. Office hours exist because instructors want you to learn the material and succeed, not because they need a reason to sit at their desks. Make yourself known to the prof, tell them "I struggled with this course last time, but I've been putting in a lot of work on my own since then and want to give it another shot." The moment you become more than just another face in the crowd, your chances of success in the course go up dramatically.
TL;DR: Buck up and take the class. You'll do fine.
I used to be intimidated by my college professors when I first went to higher education, thinking my problems and stumbling through their material wasn't worth bothering them with. Trust me when I say that you will get as much help as you ask for, if you're just straightforward with them and take opportunities to get whatever help you need. Office hours exist because instructors want you to learn the material and succeed, not because they need a reason to sit at their desks. Make yourself known to the prof, tell them "I struggled with this course last time, but I've been putting in a lot of work on my own since then and want to give it another shot." The moment you become more than just another face in the crowd, your chances of success in the course go up dramatically.
TL;DR: Buck up and take the class. You'll do fine.
#15 Members - Reputation: 1088
Posted 13 December 2012 - 03:38 PM
^this.
Some courses just plain suck. It could be the contents of the course, or the way its been taught.
For example, a few of the best courses (as in, content of the course looks pretty sweet) my uni has are taught by the most boring and incongruent teacher I had. One time we were being introduced to Java (actually OOP through Java), and the teacher was talking about objects identities (objects = references, primitive types = values), so one of my classmates asks "So, if object1 = object2; means that both object1 and object2 are pointing to the same object, how does someone copy an entire object?"
I swear to god that my teacher couldn't answer the question. She started to talk about identities (repeating what she said 5min ago) and it said something related to the slide she had displaying by that time, which of course, had nothing to do with copying an object. To this day (course already finished) no one told us how to copy an object in Java lol (spoiler: it involves overriding an Object method).
Imagine that situation with every single question directed at her. You couldn't ask her anything. Only like 3 out of 15 people went to her theory classes, most of us passed the course anyway because the practice class teacher re-explained everything to us on his class and we could actually ask him something and get a good answer.
What I'm saying is, bad courses will happen, bad teachers too.
If you expect try to pass every course exactly the same way, you're going to have a bad time (had to do it
).
Pay attention to those courses you like, save the "good enough" effort for those courses you don't like, and if you like the content of the course but you don't like the way is been taught, its time for some good ol' self-teaching!
(which you seem already doing btw).
Some courses just plain suck. It could be the contents of the course, or the way its been taught.
For example, a few of the best courses (as in, content of the course looks pretty sweet) my uni has are taught by the most boring and incongruent teacher I had. One time we were being introduced to Java (actually OOP through Java), and the teacher was talking about objects identities (objects = references, primitive types = values), so one of my classmates asks "So, if object1 = object2; means that both object1 and object2 are pointing to the same object, how does someone copy an entire object?"
I swear to god that my teacher couldn't answer the question. She started to talk about identities (repeating what she said 5min ago) and it said something related to the slide she had displaying by that time, which of course, had nothing to do with copying an object. To this day (course already finished) no one told us how to copy an object in Java lol (spoiler: it involves overriding an Object method).
Imagine that situation with every single question directed at her. You couldn't ask her anything. Only like 3 out of 15 people went to her theory classes, most of us passed the course anyway because the practice class teacher re-explained everything to us on his class and we could actually ask him something and get a good answer.
What I'm saying is, bad courses will happen, bad teachers too.
If you expect try to pass every course exactly the same way, you're going to have a bad time (had to do it
).Pay attention to those courses you like, save the "good enough" effort for those courses you don't like, and if you like the content of the course but you don't like the way is been taught, its time for some good ol' self-teaching!
(which you seem already doing btw).
Edited by TheChubu, 13 December 2012 - 03:42 PM.
My journal: Making a Terrain Generator
#16 Members - Reputation: 797
Posted 13 December 2012 - 06:01 PM
I am willing to bet there are more professionals that had the same struggle as you. Every human will. I struggled in one of my CS classes this year. It was more of a theory class and I did struggle with the theory part of it (I will admit I absolutely suck with any kind of theories). Though in parts of the class we would program I felt just fine. I took that as the following: I need to start looking into the theory part to get better. Matter of fact I am actually thinking about retaking that class. I want to walk right up to the theory portion of the class and say "I'ma kick your a$$!"
I'm looking to minor in Math and my Calculus II professor that I had this semester told us a good story. She said that when she did her undergraduate studies in Math she said she struggled. She said she was a C average student yet she wanted to major in Math. She told us she struggle to pass some classes and did fail some. She remembers people saying she was one of the worst students in every single class she took. Now she is a very well respected professor with a PhD. She told us this before every exam. That if you struggle with this now it is ok. Just keep trying it can get you somewhere. It got her to a well respected level.
I'm looking to minor in Math and my Calculus II professor that I had this semester told us a good story. She said that when she did her undergraduate studies in Math she said she struggled. She said she was a C average student yet she wanted to major in Math. She told us she struggle to pass some classes and did fail some. She remembers people saying she was one of the worst students in every single class she took. Now she is a very well respected professor with a PhD. She told us this before every exam. That if you struggle with this now it is ok. Just keep trying it can get you somewhere. It got her to a well respected level.
Edited by Chad Smith, 13 December 2012 - 06:05 PM.
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Posted 16 December 2012 - 03:15 PM
To be honest, I think you could take the course again and do well this time. However, it sounds like you've had a confidence knock - you jumped right in and got burnt by hot water.
I've done it myself when I took a course in artificial intelligence and got my ass kicked by the maths involved. I ended up withdrawing, and its always been on my mind as a failure and "unfinished business"...
If you find the thought of it too much to bare then consider an evening class or better still do distance learning. Just make sure you at least give yourself another chance because by teaching yourself when the chips were down, you definitely deserve a second shot.
After the AI fiasco, I decided to jump back in the saddle and took a much easier Interaction Design course instead. Its given me enough time to prepare for a second shot at AI...
I've done it myself when I took a course in artificial intelligence and got my ass kicked by the maths involved. I ended up withdrawing, and its always been on my mind as a failure and "unfinished business"...
If you find the thought of it too much to bare then consider an evening class or better still do distance learning. Just make sure you at least give yourself another chance because by teaching yourself when the chips were down, you definitely deserve a second shot.
After the AI fiasco, I decided to jump back in the saddle and took a much easier Interaction Design course instead. Its given me enough time to prepare for a second shot at AI...
