By Bernadette Grey
When Tom Morton decided in the spring of his junior year that he wanted to be an accountant, his parents helped him find a college with a strong accounting program and bought him plenty of pcncils with strong points.
The day Linda Buskin announced at the dinner tabic her intentions to be a newspaper journalist, she and her family undertook an evaluation of journalism schools across the country. Neither family was troubled with its child's career choice: math was Tom's best subject and Linda loved to write. The Mortons had few questions about accounting, and the Buskins had even fewer questions about journalism since Linda's father had been a journalist.
But what would have happened if Tom and Linda had declared their intentions to be computer systems analysts? Their parents would certainly have asked many more questions. The kids would probably have had to define "systems analyst" and explain that aspiring systems analysts and computer programmers
BERNADETTE GREY is FAMILY COMPUTING 'S
associate editor.
should usually major in computer science. Compared to familiar disciplines such as accounting and journalism, computer science is still in its infancy. As a nontraditional newcomer. it can make parents with college-bound teenagers feel uneasy, confused, and even downright frazzled. So it's perfectly understandable if you have questions about the realm of computer science. Here are some things you should know:
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