That is a complex question.

You can search around the internet to see descriptions of courses on computer science, as well as degree programs, etc.

Is it hard? Depends on what you call hard. But if you can read, and study, and understand things more or less, then you can learn computer science. If what you want to do is computer programming, you don't need a college degree in computer science to to that.

There is a great deal of programming that you can do with modern programming languages without having to know anything about "Computer Science" as such - or how networks work, or how device drivers work, or how gates and switches work, etc. At a very high level, computer programming is the process of writing instructions to direct a computer to do some useful (or not so useful) thing. Depending on what exactly you want the computer to do, you don't necessarily need to know what the computer does "under the hood".

There are many programming languages that more or less hide the internal workings of the computer from the programmer so that the programmer can concentrate on solving the "higher" problems - such as making a space ship explode.

The programmers who write operating systems have to know computer science. They also have to have a deep understanding of math and all the inner workings of the computer, its drives, and busses, and memory, and other things.

The programmers who write applications like MySql also have to have a background in computer science, math, etc.

And so on... the closer to the hardware you are working, the more likely you have to understand the computer itself.

However, those programmers who USE MySql don't need as much of an understanding of typical "computer science". As a matter of fact, many programmers who use MySql have had no courses in computer science. What they DO need to know is how relational databases work, and more specifically, how to use MySql. And the person who is simply getting information out of the database don't need to know how to design a database, but only how to access the data in it... and so on.

So... WHAT you should study depends on WHAT you want to do with your programs. But to get started, you don't need computer science. Once you get started, you might find yourself needing that foundation... but that can come later. There is too much for one person to know it all, so you just have to start somewhere, and learn what you need as you go along. I bet a lot of programmers will tell you the same.

Good luck, and have fun!

I hope that was helpful.

Woody Z http://www.learntoprogramnow.com