I am a junior in CS at my university, work load can very from schools to even what professors you have. If you can just work a little bit each day and you're good. Not even close to as much work as people make it out to be. I recommend doing a little research outside of class its pretty important in the industry to keep up to date on things. Just play around with some software. You really wont need that great of a laptop and the schools probably have computers you can use as well. Of course itll be better to have your own but it comes down to money. Youll probably be compiling pretty basic programs though you really don't need anything fancy. As for fields in CS its hard to know what you want to do until you're into it a decent amount, there's cyber security, software engineering, testing (up and coming field in the industry). You didnt ask but you really dont have to know much to start to dont freak out. Any more questions you can ask me my opinion ill be glad to answer I love it

Xaldin wrote I am a junior in CS at my university, work load can very from schools to even what professors you have. If you can just work a little bit each day and you're good. Not even close to as much work as people make it out to be. I recommend doing a little research outside of class its pretty important in the industry to keep up to date on things. Just play around with some software. You really wont need that great of a laptop and the schools probably have computers you can use as well. Of course itll be better to have your own but it comes down to money. Youll probably be compiling pretty basic programs though you really don't need anything fancy. As for fields in CS its hard to know what you want to do until you're into it a decent amount, there's cyber security, software engineering, testing (up and coming field in the industry). You didnt ask but you really dont have to know much to start to dont freak out. Any more questions you can ask me my opinion ill be glad to answer I love it

EnzoAndCass wrote

Xaldin wrote I am a junior in CS at my university, work load can very from schools to even what professors you have. If you can just work a little bit each day and you're good. Not even close to as much work as people make it out to be. I recommend doing a little research outside of class its pretty important in the industry to keep up to date on things. Just play around with some software. You really wont need that great of a laptop and the schools probably have computers you can use as well. Of course itll be better to have your own but it comes down to money. Youll probably be compiling pretty basic programs though you really don't need anything fancy. As for fields in CS its hard to know what you want to do until you're into it a decent amount, there's cyber security, software engineering, testing (up and coming field in the industry). You didnt ask but you really dont have to know much to start to dont freak out. Any more questions you can ask me my opinion ill be glad to answer I love it

Thank you so much for the reply! I didn't really know what to expect as far as work load so I appreciate you letting me know. I'm relatively good with keeping up with technology and doing the adequate research to stay up to date on things. As far as playing around with some software and just getting ahead and learning before I go, are there any specific programs you think I should begin using to ready me as much as possible for the courses?

Once you know what school is youre going to you can probably find out what language youll be taught in mostly. At my school we use c++ some do java and some do python etc... I would recommed just learning a little bit about that language even if you dont fully understand itll come together a lot more for you. Id wait until you get into it more but you can mess around with things like git (gitlab/github), rubymine (ruby language). I use visual studio to code and notepad++ for some quick edits. Theres plenty of other things like testing software and software used to code but you dont need to overwhelm yourself and most of it you probably wont understand for a while if you are pretty new to code so dont freak out.

EnzoAndCass wrote

I have been accepted to the universities I had applied to and I had applied for Computer Science to all of them. I want to go into a Technology Based career that offers good money (not looking for mid to high 6 figure salaries) but more importantly makes me want to actually work and makes me happy. I wanted to know if anyone in this forum can offer tips in regards to going into Computer Science: Which laptop should I use for university? What are some intriguing careers in the field that I may want to consider? The work load and how to manage the work. It would be really appreciated! Thank you all!

Are you sure you know what computer science really is? Or did you pick it because you like video games and computers and it has the word "computer" in it?

But anyways, get something that isnt a mac. If you actually make it through and get internships you'll have numerous job offers. And the work load starts out tough and only gets tougher, though its actually more than when you get out of college. Manage it by not being a lazy procrastinating bum like many of the people around you will be.

P.S. Try to learn coding java before you get to college, youll be ahead of the game that way.
Also, I hope you really like math, you'll be doing a ton of it, from calc1 to differential equations.