What is Computer Science? A Complete Guide to Its Fields and Careers
Author: M. Mehdi
Computer science is basically about computers and software.
For example, if you go to a hospital pharmacy and buy some medicines, you will see that the pharmacist gives you a computer-printed receipt. That is because of computer science. The pharmacist has a computer and software that generates the bill automatically.
Who developed that software? The answer is a computer specialist built that software.
"The computer was born to solve problems that did not exist before."
-Bill Gates
As for the sub-fields of computer science, the number is very large. In this blog, I will give you a detailed overview of all the fields that originated from computer science and the career options to choose from.
1. Web Development
This career is related to developing the websites and this can be classified into the following two categories:
Backend
The backend is the implementation of business logic. We can also refer to it as server-side logic. It communicates with the website's data and sends the data to the website whenever the user requests a query.
Front-End
It's all about the UI, whatever you see on the website. For example, if you go to google.com and search for anything, the displayed data or pages come from the backend, and you are viewing them on the UI.
2. Mobile App Development
One of the most emerging careers is mobile development. Basically, you develop mobile apps as you see in the Google Play Store and App Store.
There are two types of mobile app development:
Android
One of them is Android development, and these apps are only developed for use on Android phones.
IOS Development
These are the apps only developed for iPhones and available on the Apple Store.
3. Machine Learning
If you talk about future scope, then machine learning could be the best choice because this era is all about Artificial Intelligence, and the world is shifting toward using robots and computers to automate tasks.
In machine learning, what you actually do is provide data to the machine and teach it based on that data. Let's suppose you are teaching a machine that if a person shows strange activity in brain graphs, it could indicate a particular disease.
This is a highly paid field, but you must have hands-on experience.
For machine learning, your programming skills must be strong. If you want to see programming in detail, here is a complete guide that you can follow to start learning programming even if you are beginner.
4. Artificial Intelligence
You heard a lot of buzz about AI, right? It is like the human brain (of course, not as efficient but good for computations).
Let's understand with the help of an example:
You have to write an email to your boss, and it is not very good or polite enough. Then you will take the help of AI and ask it to correct that. AI will use its knowledge and provide you with the best email. This is all about Artificial Intelligence.
5. Data Science
Have you ever imagined how weather specialists determine what the weather could be for the next five days? This is actually data science.
Basically, we get the data and try to analyze and observe the patterns to predict what the weather would be tomorrow or in the next few days, just based on the data.
Similarly, in the case of medical science, we have multiple tests that capture the patterns of the brain and then apply data science techniques to predict disease
This is also one of the highly paid jobs, and its future is bright.
8. Data Analyst
This is a subset of data science. The collected data is first analyzed to determine how useful it is.
For example, the collected data may contain one million records, but some records may be incomplete or missing important information or columns. The data analyst will first analyze the data, sort it, and make it useful for analysis purposes.
If you don't have good programming skills, then becoming a data analyst could be the best choice for you.
7. Data Engineering
Data engineering is about managing the data received from applications. For example, in the case of YouTube, people upload thousands or even more videos daily, and the data engineer processes it to make it accessible to you.
Streamline the data lakes and pipelines to make them fast so that millions of bytes are handled easily.
8. Databases
Whenever you go to an ATM machine, insert your card, and enter your PIN, the machine verifies it. Have you ever thought about where it gets your PIN to verify? The answer is the database.
A database stores your data in the system and provides it to you on demand. Similarly, in the case of fund transfers, it checks the system.
9. Software Testing/Quality Assurance
You have noticed that whenever you buy something like a machine or anything, you first test whether it is working or not. The same applies to software.
Software testing is to check whether the software is working correctly. For example, when banking software is developed, the software tester tests its features, such as ensuring that the user can deposit an amount, transfer funds, etc.
This is the easiest field of computer science, but there is too much responsibility in software testing. For example, if a tester passes the software as working fine, people will say the software tester confirmed that it is working fine.
For a detailed discussion on software testing, including its importance, future, and more, you can follow this guide.
Conclusion
There are multiple fields related to computer science, but while choosing one for yourself, you should keep the following things in mind:
- What is the future of this field?
- Do you really like it?
- What could be the challenges in this field?
- What is the current market status?
- How much will be the salary?
Try to choose a career that has a long lifespan and offers plenty of job opportunities in the market.
For computer science, in most fields, you must be familiar with programming. If you are not, you can learn it easily.
Here is a complete guide that you can follow to start programming.
Personally, I believe that, considering future trends, you should choose data engineering, data science, or machine learning. Remember, this is just a suggestion—the decision is yours.
Computer Science is a highly paid field with a bright future. So, to land your dream job, you can watch this tutorial.
💡 Pro Tip: Computer science is not just about coding, it's about creating the future. If you want to innovate, solve real-world problems, and shape technology that impacts millions, this is the field for you.