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Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?

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191–200 of 221 posts

Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?

#191
There is a growing view of “healthy” approach to AI: Llm-assisted coding instead of vibing, using it for grammar and better language instead of letting it write the whole paper, starting off and getting a template instead of end to end AI.

Having AI write the homework/report/paper is considered plagiarism. It’s really easy to profs to check it because people who do it usually don’t even bother reading their own slop. It’s obvious nonsense and they can’t answer a basic question about their own work.

With coding it’s obviously harder, but the same works - asking “what does this part of code do” is very effective.

With the last part the real problem is lazy profs. Most don’t want to be bothered with ever talking to students, checking assignments, tutoring. If they could some of them would only do final exams.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?

#194
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in college in the early 2000s, it was the same. Most professors were at least a decade behind current technology.

> a decade behind current technology. And how about computer science? CS is not a degree in web programming framework or DNN modeling framework du jour. Algorithms, data structures, linear algebra, and programming fundamentals do evolve, but gradually. None of the languages I use at work existed when I was an undergraduate. Very nearly all the data structures and algorithms I use at work did.

Computer science is embarrassed by the computer.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?

#196

I'm in a CS program right now, I've seen wild shifts from ChatGPT 3.0 to the current models: 1) I've seen students scoring A grades in courses they've barely attended for the entire semester 2) Using generative AI to solve assignments and take-home exams felt "too easy" and I was ethically conscious at first 3) At this point, a lot of students have complex side-projects to a point where everyone's resume looks the sa…

> 3) At this point, a lot of students have complex side-projects to a point where everyone's resume looks the same. It's harder to create a competitive edge.

This one of the things that breaks my heart personally.

I have personal projects I am so proud of that took me years to build or considerable effort to reading through papers and implementing by hand.

I used to show these in interviews with such pride, but now these are at best neutral to my application, but more likely a knock against me because they're so easy to vibe code.

I guess it would be like if you spent the last decade writing novels which you were really proud of and felt was part of the small contribution you've made humanity, then overnight people decided they were actually awful and of zero value.

Everything I ever wrote – all the SWE blog posts, tutorials, books, github repos. It's all useless now.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?

#197

Large well-regarded CS schools still have 'systems' and other traditional CS specializations. I would encourage looking at those programs. Experience is still needed too. You can't just blindly trust AI outputs. So, my advice is to get experience in an old-fashioned CS program and by writing you own side projects, contributing to open source projects, etc.

> Experience is still needed too. You can't just blindly trust AI outputs. So, my advice is to get experience in an old-fashioned CS program and by writing you own side projects, contributing to open source projects, etc.

The issue is you can't blindly trust humans either, and increasingly you're better off asking an AI than a human.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?

#198
post #151

I was in a programming class when ChatGPT/CoPilot first came out. I hadn’t started using it yet for classes because I was under the impression that “my work should be my own”. I was the only one in the class who would get 80+ average on quizzes, everyone else got nearly perfect scores. Oh well.

Sounds like you took programming to learn programming while the others took it for a certificate.

I had similar issues for different reasons at university. Some of the subjects I learnt were extremely boring to me and I just didn't focus on them, while others I obsessed about. I learnt the things I wanted to learn, but didn't get the grade I probably could have if that was what I was optimising for.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?

#199
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but are C++ or Java really that outdated. AFAIK that’s what most schools teach. Maybe with some JavaScript as well. It’s not lime they’re teaching Fortran or COBOL. And with the advent of AI coding, I’d hope they can spend more time on system design, as that’s where I’ve found new grads are generally lacking.

The irony is that if they taught COBOL today, those grads could likely get a good job working on legacy code.

Yeah, for sure there are some edge cases, and COBOL is a big one, since there's a LOT of banking/finance stuff built on it.

FWIW, my employer just deprecated our legacy COBOL (1-2 modules out of many), replaced with Java. It took years to make that transition.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?

#200
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a good thing. They should be teaching the cornerstone principles, not offering vocational courses.

I think having one or two "software engineering" courses where it's project-based really helps. You get to actually learn how to use Git, work in a team, and architect and finish a project on time - which is going to be valuable no matter if you're seeking a software engineering job afterwards or stay in academia.

Seriously I had multiple courses on Java and C++ but not a single mention of version control. It wasn't even an elective as far as I remember.

A course where 3+ students build something together in a single repo and the professor can view the commit and PR history would be amazing.

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