I dropped uni

Did it 2 months ago actually.

I was in "Mathematics and computing applied to human and social sciences" (shortened as "MIASHS"), a French bachelor's degree ("licence").

Here's a summing up of what happened :

Human and social sciences :

The courses were interesting but I quickly got bored

Maths :

I knew I would fail this, I suck at maths (except for basic stuffs ofc). So I was counting on other fields. Starting from the 2nd year, I could have chosen between the maths path, or the computer science path.

Computer science :

Now this is where I just... I dunno. See this kind of situation where you wonder if the professor/teacher has any idea what he's talking about ? We were RIGHT into it.

At the very first CS course I was seriously questioning the course in my head. People were falling asleep (we could barely hear the lecturer anyway), leaving or playing games.

And the few things I could hear from the professor/teacher (dunno his status and I don't care) were surreal. Here's the two things I remember :

"The more a CPU is evolved, the less instructions it needs to work" : a processor doesn't work like that AT ALL ;
"Variables don't go into memory" (or smth like that) : bro... for the sake of the world, PLEASE READ THE DEFINITION OF A VARIABLE.

And the programming courses where boring as hell... we were learning it the worst way possible (source : a programmer friend, my basic knowledge of programming, and the fact I'm learning more things alone at my place in front of my PC).

English :

I think this is the thing that definitely make me reach a new low mentally. I AM NATIVE (or "near-native", at least). I speak both English and French. My boyfriend is literally an English-speaker-only, and so are others of my friend.

And I was tired to have to HAVE TO PROVE that I speak... literally one of my two native languages ??? Especially to a teacher who prolly has a lower level than mine (but that's another subject... although I have some reasons to think this).

We were graded not even on our work, but on the self-correction of our work (srsly, wtf ?).

And okay I'm making mistakes when speaking or writing in English, even dumb ones. BUT I DO THAT IN FRENCH TOO, so what do we conclude ? I don't speak any language ?

What now ?

Well, I don't know. I'd love to get into computer science studies. I love this field, and have quite a lot of knowledge on the subject.

But the thing is, in France (maybe Europe in general), it's impossible to go to studies focused on CS without a bunch of maths being involved. I know it's different in other countries (apparently it's the case in my boyfriend's uni, but sadly I don't exactly have the means to go study on the other side of the Atlantic xD).

Because yes, dear French universities : we're in 2025. You can know how a computer works, their architecture, what the logic gates are, what an instruction set is, what the layers of abstraction are, and even code in an Assembly language ; and be at the same time perfectly unable to explain what a mathematical function is.

I agree you have to know some maths, but you absolutely don't need to be an expert mathematician (unless you want to build a whole computer from scratch, maybe then yes).

And believe it or not, the only CS studies I could go to because I had an abysmal level in maths... was the one with "maths" in their name.

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Rainy

1735966392

yeah the math stuff is so dumb. here in the US nearly all 4 year schools require some sort of math pathway, often including stuff like calculus which not everyone will need. I'm doing a 2 year electronics technician degree partially due to this.. but in any case best of luck to you

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Weird, I precisely have seen the opposite : that in the US you have CS studies that don't evolve much maths

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