What exactly is "Computer Science"?

[commdogg]

Well, I'm trying to prepare myself as best I can for college and therefore wondering "What exactly is 'Computer Science'?"

What I would like to know is what courses are considered to be "Computer Science". I want to be a programmer if this changes what the courses you recommend.

Thanks for any/all replies.

[Strike]

Actually, what computer science means in terms of courses depends upon the school. Some schools are much more into all-around knowledge of the workings of computers and some are either much more hardware or much more software. I'm taking (or have taken) a wide range of courses:

Principles of OS (principles, not programming techniques)
Principles of Algorithm Design I/II
Principles of Functional Languages
Computer Design (hardware, mostly)
Computer Networking (protocols and programming)

So, as you can see, some are strictly programming, some are strictly hardware, and others don't have to do with either but have everything to do with computing.


----edit----
btw, that is of course not all of the courses, I've taken, just a small sampling to demonstrate my point

[This message has been edited by Strike (edited 26 November 2000).]

[Paul Weaver]

We also do Social and professional issues (laws, piracy and cracking etc.) and Formal Notations (Maths, mainly logic, predicate calculus and some other boring stuff at the moment). also do some AI and multimedia stuff later on, as well as computer design (with assembler thrown in), and OOP (java).