Sometimes I want to ask colleges: "What is it about your school that will make me not have nightmares?"
After a singularly unhelpful phone call to a college (I won't name names) I am feeling extremely depressed. The person who I talked to probably wasn't trying to be rude, but that's how they came across.
One problem is that I will be majoring in Computer Science (most likely). As of right now, I have learnt all that I know about computers on my own. As such, I am extremely good at teaching myself computer science-related fields. I do not have confidence in any college's ability to teach me better than I can teach myself. Why should I have confidence in any given college to do so?
Why should I trust any university's computer science department at all?
I have been taking a C++ course at my local community college and it hasn't been overly helpful (though the teacher is good). It has not been helpful because I already knew the language. Further, I can usually learn a language in one or two days - I do not need a course to teach it to me!
I want to retain the ability to teach myself instead of be taught. Colleges and universities should expand my current resources so I'd be better able to conduct research. Colleges and universities should guide me to produce useful and innovative technologies and products. Colleges and universities should not restrict me, force me into classes whose subjects I would learn faster and better on my own.
That is, apparently, not how colleges work. At this point, I'm more worried about finding a college I'll accept than finding a college which will accept me.
On a side note, these are courses that might be of interest to me:
- Data Structures
- Typography
- Operating System Design and Implementation
- Compiler Design
- Carnegie Mellon's "Operating System Practicum"
- Computational Photography
- Human Language Technologies
- Computational Perception and Scene Analysis
- Human-Computer Interaction