This truly is a golden age of computers. Computers are an extremely large part of everyday life for most of us, whether you use them to check facebook, do research, watch a movie, plan a road trip, fly a plain, use modeling software to create a better mousetrap, withdraw money from an atm, make multi-million dollar trades in the blink of an eye or even writing a blog. Have you ever wondered how your computer knows what to do when you hit a key on the keyboard or click something on your screen? Besides the massive amounts of brilliant engineering that goes into computers there is another key to the puzzle that has made computers part of our everyday life, and that is the field of Computer Science.
What is a Computer Scientist? Well to put it simply we write lines of code that your computer reads and interprets giving you your simple navigation of your computer; that is the general idea at least. Any program, app or video game you use there is a programmer or team of programmers behind it giving it all the cool and useful features that make it simple to use. A lot of creative thinking, mathematics and patients goes into writing code and making the computer do what you want it to do. Just as computers have made your daily life easier it is the goal of a computer scientist to continue making programs that are field specific and general use that make life easier. Thanks to computers so many things have been automated creating a greater supply, computers are able to control machines that move incredibly precise and in some cases have been able to aid a surgeon in performing a surgery over great distances.
There is a lot of money in Computer Science but I think the general consensus is in one way or another we are all just trying to make life a little more simple and exciting. With the abilities of the internet, information has been able to spread to all corners of the World. Knowledge and information has been able to spread to many different countries, this gives them the opportunity to use that information to aid there daily lives, whether that is research on medicine and cures or putting up a diy windmill. With the wealth of the World's knowledge at our finger tips we are able to do great and many things. You may be thinking that we have gotten off topic by transitioning to a discussion about the internet but it's quite the opposite, an untold amount of lines of code are being executed every second by people accessing the internet; which could be a click on the browser icon or downloading how to build a make shift aqueduct that will lead to feeding hundreds of people. We do not take credit for the information but simply we are here to make it easily accessible to all who need or want it.
It is truly fascinating how much Computer Science is in our day to day lives, almost everything around us has uses or is the byproduct of some sort of programming. With the continued growth of the retail presence on the internet and the constant upgrading of cars and appliances there always seems to be a demand for Computer Scientists. It's a wide and vast career that covers almost anything and everything in some shape or form. With out the combined effort of the engineers and Computer Scientists the World would most likely not be the place it is today.
Oh, and we are not all computer hackers!
Since I'm just starting to get some experience with Matlab at the moment, I can start to appreciate the complexity behind what a Computer Scientist does, and the patience one would need with programming. I thought this blog was informative. It is helping me cope with the fact that coding will not go away, and I can't just forget it all and ignore it indefinitely. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteI had my blog set up in a similar fashion to yours, and it was suggested to me that I should include some corresponding pictures and links to articles. I am going to pass that suggestion on to you as well.
I thought it was really great how you laid out some solid examples of what computer scientists do - from simply making life easier to even saving people's lives. I thought it was great how you also touched on how computer science is a catalyst for knowledge and learning.
ReplyDeleteGood article!