Computing

Computing, or Computation Science, is now considered the third pillar of scientific enquiry, alongside theory and experimentation. It is also a natural science, not an artificial one, and highly interdisciplinary. Computing practitioners can find careers in dozens of fields.

Computational Systems in Nature

Computing is a science of information processes. Information processes occur in

Biology. "Biology is today an information science. The output of the system, the mechanics of life, are encoded in a digital medium and read out by a series of reading heads." — David Baltimore.
Business management processes, like workflow and commitments.
Evolution of social networks, ecomomies, political organizations.
DNA Transcription.
Particles and their interactions in quantum mechanics. Quantum waves carry information.
Chemistry. Remember those equations? 2H₂ + O₂ → 2H₂O + E is a computation.
Neurons? Brain function? Thought processes? Information is flowing!

Computing is a natural science. Computation is a principle, not a tool.

The Five Disciplines of Computing

Back in the day there were engineers and scientists and mathematicians that played with computers; now we have a field called Computing, or Computation Science, or Informatics, with several subfields:

Computer Science (CS): The theory and practice of computation, algorithms, software systems, data organization, knowledge representation, language, intelligence and learning.
Software Engineering (SE): The design, organization, and construction of large-scale, often mission-critical (software) systems, with a focus on product efficiency, reliability, robustness, testing, maintenance, and cost-effectiveness.
Computer Engineering (CE): The design of digital systems such as communications systems, computers, cell phones, digital audio players, digital video recorders, alarm systems, x-ray machines, and laser surgical tools.
Information Technology (IT): The construction, maintenance, and troubleshooting of an organization's computing infrastructure (both hardware and software), including networks, email systems, web sites, databases, and telephony. IT work generally involves more configuration and upgrading than programming.
Information Systems (IS): The design of "computing solutions" for companies, non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and governments to support their mission and improve their effectiveness. IS is generally taught in business schools.

Questions

The four questions that have motivated advances in the field of computing:

What is computation?
What is information?
What can we know through computing?
What can we not know through computing?

Great Principles of Computing

You can look at the field of computing by focusing on technical things, or on great principles (since, like it or not, there are advantages in this world to having an education in addition to a trade). Computing principles can be grouped into seven categories.

Computation: A science of information processes
Communication: Reliable data transmission
Coordination: Cooperation among networked entities
Recollection: Storage and retrieval of information
Automation: Delgating tasks to computational systems
Evaluation: Performance prediction and capacity planning
Design: Building reliable software systems

Myths about Computing

The following myths have done a lot to harm the image of computing as a field and kept much-needed talent away:

The only people that study computing are game-playing, socially inept, nerdy, male, geeks.
All the jobs in computing are being offshored.
Computing is only about programming desktop computers.
Computing ended with the dot-com bust.
There's no real field of computing, anyway, it's just a minor part of other fields — my art class or business class will teach me all I need to know to be a great programmer.

Exercise: Do some research and refute all the above B.S. Start with this article.

Careers

If you have a good, solid undergraduate education in Computing (or especially Computer Science), you will gain skills enabling you to go on to lucrative careers in:

Biology, Genetics, Computational Biology
Medicine, Medical Imaging
(Web) Search, Data Mining, Information Retrieval
Online Music and Movie Distribution
Entertainment: Film, Television, Animation
Gaming
Mobile Devices and Applications
Security, Defense, Cyberwarfare
Aerospace
Business, Law, or Medicine. (Professional schools in these fields love to get new students with a technical background, who tend to naturally have good logical and analytical skills.)

Don't miss the The ACM's Computing Careers Site (and check out the cool posters while you're there).