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Sunday, September 20, 2015

What is Computer Science?

For the past few decades, computers have been an ever increasing part of our daily lives. For a long time they existed solely as desktop machines, but today they can be found in our phones, our cars, our TVs, and now even in our watches. This trend is only going to continue, and our dependency on computers and the software within them is going to be much greater in the future. Who is driving this innovation? What kind of person is responsible for creating all these new technologies?

The answer to that question is a person generally called a Computer Scientist. These could be programmers, system administrators, database architects, software developers, or a number of other jobs in the field of Computer Science. These are the people who build new apps and software, maintain servers that make up a cloud network, create websites, maintain large databases of information, and much more. These people usually have strong analytical skills, the ability to use logic and reason, and do well with mathematics.

While the job duties of these kinds of people may vary, their field is the same: Computer Science. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Computer Science as "a branch of science that deals with the theory of computation or the design of computers". It is a field of science that mainly focuses on the theoretical, algorithmic ways computation works. Many college courses on Computer Science put an emphasis on programming, which has led many to believe Computer Science is simply programming. The truth is that it is simply the understanding of how computers work, and how to get them to work to benefit us in our daily lives. It is by no means a simple or easy to understand science, but is an essential part of our society in the 21st century.

-Erik B.

Sources:
 Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2015. 

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