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Computer science/programming is a brutal field. Most girls don’t make it because it requires sitting non-stop for 24 hours amongst cans of Pepsi and snicker bars.

I’m acutally not trying to discourage your daughter, just painting the realty. It’s not about brains, it is about having adhd.

I did mechanical engineering and picked up programming on the side. She might want to try something similar - that is, jump into small easy jobs (even web coding) and learn the trade that way on the job. Take junior college classes in her off time to get credentialed. That would allow her to concentrate on liberal arts school while making some scratch.

The comp sci field changes so fast that getting a comp sci degree might not actually prepare her for something useful. The lanuanes I’ve learned are basic, algol, pascal, assembly, Fortran, Cobol, C++, C#, Java, PHP, html, xml, javascript, asp, visual basic, Foxpro, Mysql and some I’ve forgotten. I need to learn Perl, Python and Ruby. OSs DOS, Win 3.2, Window 95,98,2000, 2003, 7, Linux Fedora from 12 to 35.

If you get my drift, it’s a moving target. She’d be better off taking engineering or math or science as second part of her major.

"...and some I’ve forgotten."

Let me help jog your memory, based on the era you hearken back to:

Lisp, Snobol, APL, raw hexadecimal, raw binary, Algol64, CP/M, Hollerith punch cards (don't forget those metal cylinders you'd wrap a punch card around), pink & yellow paper tape, dot matrix printers w/ fanfold paper, 128 char/min teletypes, modems w/ 2 foam-lined cups shaped to fit a standard phone earpiece & mouthpiece (to annoy someone, you'd tap your fingernails on it while they were typing in a line, causing noise that generated garbage), floppies sized 12" & 8" & 5.25", text-only 80x24 B&W monitors w/ character hiliting for forms, cross assemblers, Rational C, AT&T UNIX Brick, SunOS, AIX, HPUX, ......

Tai_Chung, I respectfully disagree with DaxtonBrown’s well-intended assessment of the programming opportunities now available to both men and women. If your daughter is interested in software development and/or the related disciplines, encourage her. Modern software development and management is continually evolving with decreasing limitations on who participates.

The cello is a beautiful instrument. Make sure the school has a decent music program. Perhaps a local state university might provide a good foundation for your daughter’s first two years without unrealistic costs.

I have a degree in Computer Science, and I’m a woman. It’s an okay one for women.

My only issue with it is that it’s hard to be a mom and be an engineer. Most people work long hours, and it’s hard to work part time. (May be more flexible these days)

Also the field does change rapidly. I quit working to have kids. I wish I had done someting like accounting.

My sister in law was CS major also. She never stopped working. My btotter was a stay at home dad while he battled cancer. She’s VP of her company. Done very well for herself.

I also wish I had gotten a teaching certificate.

Agree 100%...I have an MS in Electrical Engineering from a large State
University...I swore that I would never be a programmer, but that is a
major part of what I do and I have had to learn many languages and
operating systems over the years.

So I would also suggest engineering/math/physics as her area of study
...the programming she will learn in foundation courses and on the side.
Computer Engineering is a strong choice as you can learn how hardware
and software interact.

I would also push her towards a good State school...they are much cheaper
and have infinitely better engineering and science programs than most
small lib-arts schools, which tend to be private. The Engineering
departments tend to be a-political, so you don't have to worry about
indoctrination...that will come from the outside campus.

Computer science/programming is a brutal field. Most girls don’t make it because it requires sitting non-stop for 24 hours amongst cans of Pepsi and snicker bars.

I’m acutally not trying to discourage your daughter, just painting the realty. It’s not about brains, it is about having adhd.

I know where you are coming from but I don't think this is a valid assessment anymore.

I was also a ME (from Georgia Tech) and I fell into IT. In the 90's and 2000's most of the best software people I knew were not trained CS. They were engineers. We all agreed that enginneers were better designers and implementers than the abstractly taught CS folks, for the most part.

But my disagreement comes on two fronts. First, all those languages you listed make it sound like you need to get retrained with each language. That isn't true. You learn the patterns of logic, the patterns of language syntax, and the design patterns. Then for each language you simply learn the new language syntax specifics. Its the concepts of design and patterns that they should learn in school.

My second issue is that it is a completely new world in terms of CS. You can't hire an ME or EE who is self taught and expect them to grasp machine learning concepts and AI. Heck, I would weed the engineers out for anything above what I call straight line implementers. Someone that is going to be a new era super star needs to be able to R&D with AI.

The whole girl thing is showing your age a little - no offense because I'm probably close to your age based on you language list. All I will say is that I see a lot more techie women than ever before.