Hey guys, I have a serious question for you: How do you define science?

And yes this is going to be a long Rant. This topic really pisses me off.

A bit of context first. I come from a "humanities" background. I study history and dude, I love it. The problem is that even though we fucking pull our brains out studying historical phenomena with a fucking ton of conceptual tools, our work is mostly seen as literature to entertain the elderly during their lonely evenings. But that's not really the point of this rant.

My fucking problem is that while we try to do some serious work; actual work that could help society for real, it all goes into that magical fucking kingdom called "humanities". HOW THE FUCK DO THEY DARE TO CALL SOMETHING "HUMANITIES". IT'S A FUCKING HISTORICAL TERM THAT MEANS "TO FULFILL MEN IN ALL IT'S ASPECTS", AND NOW THEY'VE REPURPOSED IT, MAKING IT CONTAIN ANY STUDY THAT ISN'T "EMPIRICAL", "OBJECTIVE", ADD ANY FUCKING SCIENTIFIC DELUSIONARY TERM YOU CAN THINK OF.

And don't get me started on "objectivity". Oh boy, your fucking objectivity is hollow as a kid's balloon. There is no such thing as a objective study, even when it applies your "rational" "godly" scientific method. Some guys follow that shit as if it was a fucking religion. I do understand it's useful and all that, but in the end it's just a tool, you can't fucking define "science" by it's tools.

"""Q: What is carpintery?
A: Well, it's hammers, nails and wood. Yep. Hammers, nails and wood."""

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD WAS FUCKING INVENTED DURING THE XVIII CENTURY, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK WAS GALLILEI BEFORE THAT? "HUMANITIES"?

Why do I say objectivity isn't posible? Well, guess what? YOU ARE FUCKING HUMAN. Every thing you know is full of preconceptions and fucking cultural subjectivities invented to understand the world. And it's ok, becouse if you understand your own subjectivity, at least you can see yourself in a critical sense, and at least "tend" to objectivity, in the same way functions tend to infinity.

And here comes the best part: people studying "cs" in my university pass most of the time studying a ton of shit that isn't really science, but is taken as scientific becouse it is related to "science". These guys spend entire semesters just learning programming fundational stuff that in my opinion isn't really science, it's just subjective conceptual constructs built to make the coding process better. They only have TWO fucking classes on discrete mathematics and another 3 or 4 in actual scientific fields related to computing. THESE GUYS AREN'T FUCKING BEING TAUGHT TO BE COMPUTER SCIENTISTS; THEY ARE TEACHING THEM TO BE PROGRAMMERS. THERE'S A HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CS AND PROGRAMMING AND THAT IS THE WORD SCIENCE. And yes, I'm being drastic on the definition of science on purpose becouse guess fucking what? I'M PISSED OFF.

"Hey, what are you doing?"
"Just doing science with scrum and agile development."

I understand most of you guys would think of science as "the application of the scientific method", "Knowledge by experimentation and peer-review", "anything techy". Guys, science is a lot broather than that. I define it as "the search for truth", mainly becouse that's what we are all doing, and what humans have been doing to gain knowledge through the ages. It doesn't matter what field of truth you are seeking as long as you do it seriously and with fundaments. I don't fucking care if you can't be objective: that's impossible. Just acknowledge it and continue investigating accordingly.

I believe during the last centuries the concept of science has been deformed by the popular rise of both natural and applied sciences. And I love the fact that these science fields have been growing so much all this time, but for fucks sake don't leave every other science (science as I define it) behind. Governments and corporations make huge mistakes becouse they don't treat history, politics and other sciences seriously. Yes, I called history a "science", fuck you.

And yes, by my definition programming is not a science. I don't know what most of you think programming is, but for me it's a discipline that builds stuff, similar to carpintery or blacksmithing. Now if you are pushing the limits, seeking ways to make computing go further, then that's science. The guys that are figuring out AI are scientists, the guys that are using it to detect hotdogs aren't - unless they are the same person- deal with it. I guess a lot of you guys are with me on this point.

In the end, we are all artisans building abstract tools by giving orders to a machine.

I still have some characters left, so I want to thank the community as a whole for letting me vent my inner rage. I don't have much ways to express myself on these matters, so for me DevRant is a bless.

Fuck my country's universities, fucking greedy assholes that ruin lives, suck wallets and sucks life from the young.

I'm currently studying something completely non related to programming: History. And I really love it. I love reading 1000 pages for each test and essay and talking about the problem of naming the Cold War a war and cold and etc. The problem is that I won't make as much money as I would make even as a self taught developer.

After considering my possibilities, I thought I could enter the computer science carreer. I don't know how this works in other countries but here you would have to study 3 years of an engineering common plan and then specialise in some sort of industrial engineering while getting an specialisation also in computer science. After some counting, I got to the conclusion that I would be studying 6 years (or more), and wasting half of those years learning stuff that I would never use nor care about.

But that's not all. This semester I took the introductory class for programming. It's pretty basic stuff but at least they teach a little bit about algorithms and problem solving. It turns out that a friend of mine that's about to graduate from computer science applied as a helper for the prof. I was so excited I could finally talk with someone about code!

Since the start of the semester I have been passing a lot of time with him and talking about the future. Turns out he doesn't understand shit about code but somehow he learns everything by hard and has passed every computer science course without having any practical abilities. I don't blame him, he's studying hard and playing by the rules, and turns out that he has wasted precious time of his life also learning biology, chemistry, structural engineering, hidraulic engineering, transportation engineering and a ton of engineerings that he won't use.

If the university would instead take that time to teach better courses of practical programming or leave him some time to try out the stuff he learns by hard, he wouldn't have to hear me talking about stuff he doesn't comprehend but feels that should, and wouldn't be utterly depressed, he wouldn't take SIX years to learn less than what he could learn in less than THREE years. And this isn't just a random university, it is one of the 2 best universities we have here and was in 2014 the best of all Latin America.

And wait, here comes the best part. In my country, levels of education are heavily stratified. After school, superior studies give different titles according to the time you've been studying. Yes just the time. And these titles are what your employers will see to give you different work positions. So for studying a 2 year carreer you get a technic job which pays well but not too well, then at 4 years you get a license title which only proves that you know stuff, then at 5 or more (depending on what you are studying) you get a professional degree and will get payed as a full fledged professional. So here, even though in other countries it takes 6 years to have a masters in engineering, they give you just the engineering degree, and it would take 2 (or more) more years to have a master. Even though you can totally teach engineering in 4 years, here they take BY LAW 2 years more, while paying what a fucking full stack of pairs of kidneys would cost in the black market.

So fuck that shit, I won't be throwing my money at any university. I hope they get reformed soon becouse this is fucking dumb, really really dumb. Like 2 year old shit dumb. I'll just learn a bit more, make some projects until I have a decent portfolio and apply to some company that cares for real knowledge and not just a piece of paper with letters and a shitty logo on it.

Let me recap everything i learned after graduating college with a computer science degree and entering the corporate world

---

1) College is a scam. Literally NOBODY EVER asked me on ANY interviews if i have a degree and if i had graduated university. Nobody cares. They treat me as if im a slave clown who didnt finish any school and thats how they view and treat everyone

2) By having a computer science degree, i do NOT have a privilege of getting hired, I do NOT have a privilege of getting more interviews, i do NOT get a privilege of having a higher salary, i do NOT get ANY benefits or privilege other than wasted time and brainwash.

3) Literally a senior technical software engineer told me on a technical interview "college is not meant to teach you anything useful or valuable, college is there just to teach you how to learn"

The FUCK? I was extremely shellshocked when i heard him tell me that in my face. I was in disbelief and too stunned to speak. if somebody told me that truth before i started college i would have never started college. I can do that on my own for free

4) I have applied to over 100s of interviews and nobody wanted to hire. Everyone wants a Google-Level Senior engineer in 2023 with 50+ years of experience and then pay him 600$ a month.

5) What is happening in this corporate world is absolutely fucking disgusting, sickening and immoral. This is no different than 1800s slavery. This is how modern day slavery looks like. And even when i accept working for 600$ a month i can barely afford to pay to live. I'd get like 50$ leftover every month if im lucky. This is SICKENING

6) "Engineering will make you rich" is a BULLSHIT saying that our parents and friends say. It is FAR from making you rich. You only get "rich" (but slave level rich) once you turn 40-50 years old. Is that success to you?

7) Engineering is so saturated that nobody appreciates this hard work anymore. You're a slave and you have to compete with other slaves by telling your master (employer) that you'll work for slave salary AND you'll work 10x more in exchange to earn 20x less. This is IMMORAL and DISGUSTING

> be me
> studying 1.5 years liberal arts stuff and general education class at community college
> transfer to a 4 year university.
> realize I need a major
> Realize I also I wanted to 9ne day have a family.
> realize family would need money
> "struggling actor" not a great choice
> pray about what I should be doing
> get distinct impression that instead of attending the session on majors at the college of fine and performance arts to go to session with the college of Science and engineering.
> hear pitch for computer science.
> signup for introduction to programming taught with c++.
> A couple semesters down the line take 3 classes all at once Discrete Math 1, Linear Algebra, and database design and administration.
> around week 6 realize that all 3 classes revolved around sets and set logic and set math.
> realize rdbs's are "applied" set math and that Each class a little more "applied" than the former.
> Be genius at SQL and set math
> havereally smart database teacher mentored me
> get introduced to the recruiter at the career fair.
> get interviews
> get flown out for 2md interview
> get internship
> do work, and get project back under budget
> a job offer
> finish senior year
> start as a "real" developer supporting business data and analytics.
> ???
> profit.

[Public Survey?]
I'm in a stressfull situation.
In 2 years, I will hopefully attend a university of applied science.
I have two ways to go.
I can still go on with Computer Science and up with a Bachelor.
Or I will attend a university where I will get my Bachelor in Aerospace Engineering.

I know that this place isn't really a place to discuss this sort of topic. But Idk how else I should solve it. I can not get rid of this decision. Even tho it's a personal decision, I also want to hear your opinions.

My status:
Graduate student studying Computer Science at the University of New York at Buffalo.
4 Computer Vision and Image Processing Projects
3 Distributed Systems projects (Android apps).
Red Hat Certifications.
Applied to 135 companies for an internship program.
Here are the replies I have gotten so far.
" We have analyzed your resume and we think you'll be a great choice for this position at our company."
What position?
MARKETING INTERN.
FML!

We have been at a university of applied sciences today with our class.
It was kind of ok. I did expect more surprising things there. The whole building was smaller than our college (not the same as in the US). The rooms, where profs tell you things with a series of rows of seats, were dirty and pretty much used to the point that the seats are about to break easily.
I was expecting the university to be kind of the same as the universities you see in the movies lol.
It could have at least been bigger than our college and more "modern" than our school.
[...]
Anyways, let us get to the point here.
We were first in the foyer and afterwards in their main lecture hall.
We were introduced to the day's plans by a team of engaged students from different study programs and the president of the professors. Yada yada yada.
We got the full program in each room and each individual time span filled with study programs on a sheet of paper.
I did select pharmacy, media production, architecture, data science, applied computer science, computer engineering, mechanical engineering and future energies.
Pharmacy and data science were the most interesting study programs to me. I have asked one of the professors if deep learning was a topic for bachelor students, as well.
He said that that is only the usual case for people who got a promotion.
As an example he told me that yesterday he was at a conference hall with 10.000 people in which he gave a talk about deep learning. "Most of them were professors" he said. "Since this study program is new, it might change in a few years" he added to his conversation.

It is quite hard having to decide now.
Geo informatics and Aerospace Engineering did sound interesting, too.
There are a lot of things I would like to study at the same time haha.

Idk if I should just pick mechanical engineering first and add one or two after it to it. But that would take a lot of time. Geez.

Got the GitHub student developer pack in 10th grade (highschool)

I recently made an application for GitHub student developer pack which got accepted .
If you don't know what this pack is all about , let me tell you this pack gives you free access to various tools that world-class developers use. The pack currently contains 23 tools ranging from Data Science, Gaming, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, APIs, Integrated Development Environments, Version Control Systems, Cloud Hosting Platforms, Code tutorials, Bootcamps, integration platforms, payment platforms and lots more.

I thought my application wouldn't qualify because after reading the documentation , I thought that It was oriented more towards college and university students but nonetheless I applied and my application got accepted . Turns out all you need is a school -issued verifiable email address or proof of you current academic status (marksheets etc.)

After few minutes of the application I got the "pro" tag on my GitHub profile although I didn't receive any emails .

I tested it out and claimed the Canva Pro subscription for free after signing up with my GitHub account.

I definitely recommend , if you are currently enrolled in a degree or diploma granting course of study such as a high school, secondary school, college, university, homeschool, or similar educational institution
and have a verifiable school-issued email address or documents that prove your current student status, have a GitHub user account
and are at least 13 years old , PLEASE APPLY FOR THE PROGRAM .

Checkout the GitHub docs for more info..

Thanks !

My GitHub GitHub Username :
satvikDesktop

PS. I would have posted links to some sites and documentations for further reading but I can't post url's in a rant yet :(

Okay so I'm back at ranting now cause I got a reason in my useless life to rant lmao. I started college recently, I'm majoring in Computer Science so the thing is that, my University provides specialization in cybersecurity and stuff to third year students and our Mr. HOD of applied sciences, who is basically an ass, in charge of conveying all the details to students, puts a complete mailing list of freshmen in the 'To' box rather than using BCC... smh. *Evil laughter*

!rant

Currently I am studying "applied computer science" in Berlin and most of my modules are easy as fuck for me. Most of the time I don't even have to study for the exams. My programming professor even told me that I am the best student in terms of clean/readable code and he was amazed when I handed in on of my homeworks where I used MVC. Today I failed my math exam for the second time. It's the only module that I suck at, mainly because I don't give a fuck about it. I can easily grasp the concept of anything that I am interested in, but if I am forced to learn something my brain just shuts down. I truly fear that I will drop out of university because of math. I am still at my first of three math modules and I don't know how to handle this problem properly, having in mind that I still need to participate in two more modules. The saddest part is that I am not the only one with those problems and fears. I will link a news article of the German newspaper "Tagesspiegel" in the comments.

I know this is neither a rant or a question, but I just wanted to tell you guys about my problems and maybe start a conversation about the importance of math in our modern times and why school's aren't able to teach basic math in a way that young people are excited for it or at least are able to grasp the basic concepts.

I'm finishing my secondary school in a few months and I'm currently unsure what exactly to do after school.
I'm pretty sure I want to become a software developer (maybe frontend UX/UI focused) already but I'm unsure what path to pursue.
As I live in Germany I have the options of either vocational training or studying at a University.
I'm pretty fed up with theoretic work and school right now so I'm tending towards vocational training as it incorporates one or two days of school with working in a company for the rest of the week.
The issue is that I will complete my A levels and therefore be eligible for university education in most relevant courses and have the feeling of wasting possible success in my future career (and maybe life experiences) if I just do the
vocational training.
As most developers here have a long experience as devs I'd like to ask you for advice.
Would you suggest studying something like applied computer science etc. to achieve a successful software developer career and higher wages or is experience more important than higher formal education at university for a developer?