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

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

#91

Post by alistairSH »

kelipso wrote: post #51
alistairSH wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I’m an oddball, but I’d rather hire a new grad with sound fundamentals, but learned on an older tech stack, then somebody with all the buzzwords but no fundamentals. And I’ve always found summer internships to be good way to find out. Even better if the candidate is willing to work part-time through their senior year.

Yeah. I see a phrase like “hirable skills” and… it feels like “skills” that are probably going to be outdated every couple of months.

100%.

For me, "hireable skills" (for a new grad) are things like "can do a basic whiteboard exercise". I'll ask them to sketch out a program to solve a business problem. I do higher ed software, so usually start with "build a class registration system from scratch" - they're recent grads, so the problem domain is known; there's plenty of space to discussion to move in several different directions; fits nicely in 20-30 minutes.

Bare minimum, I'd expect them to ask clarifying questions (particularly around system constraints, performance, etc). And then sketch out a very basic system diagram (I don't expect them to know AWS or Azure, but do want to see things like "ID provider", "course catalog", "waitlist service", etc. Then I'll pick a service and have them pseudocode some of it.

Sadly, somewhere around 50% of grads CANNOT do the above. I'm not sure how, but I've left interviews thinking "I hope they get a refund" more than a few times.

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

#92

Post by steve-atx-7600 »

I got a lot out of learning combinatorics, probability, statistics and the ability to prove theorems. This kind of core of good thinking would still be important and from what I’ve seen, it isn’t required in even top 50-ish USA undergrad CS programs.

I think that object oriented programming and design patterns will still be important. These are useful at higher levels to architect systems that are maintainable - even if not being used at lower levels (eg code for classes within services).

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

#93

Post by alistairSH »

daymanstep wrote: post #66
compounding_it wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Pythagoras theorem doesn’t change even if you use an LLM. Fundamentals shouldn’t either. Don’t see why schools should see this any differently.

I agree. That's why universities should never teach any practical real world programming languages. They should stick to Scheme and MMIX.

Not sure if that's sarcasm or not, but when I was in uni (late 90s), it was C++, which was very much a practical real-world language. There was a bit of JavaScript and web stuff, but not much (but Javascript was only 4 years old when I was a senior, so...).

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

#94

Post by ghthor »

Kelteseth wrote: post #27
bradley13 wrote: post #13

"The professors use AI themselves and expect their students to use it, but do not have a gauge for what kinds of problems make for an appropriately difficult assignment in the modern era." I'm a prof, recently retired but still teaching part-time. This is exactly the problem. AI is here, people use it, so it would be stupid (plus impossible) not to let students use it. However, you want your students to still learn s…

Not just that. As a 31 year old developer even I feel like acquiring new skills is now harder than ever. Having Claude come up with good solutions to problems feels fast, but I don't learn anything by doing so. Like it took me weeks to understand what good and what bad CMake code looks like. This made me the Cmake guy at work. The learning curve delayed the port from qmake to CMake quite a bit, but I learned a new sk…

How are you not learning from reading all the code produced by Claude? Is auditing a new codebase or onboarding to a new project any different from creating a new codebase w/ Claude?

Reading code and understanding it is a very important skill and now might be the most important skill.

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

#95

Post by red-iron-pine »

_se wrote: post #83
nateburke wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that the algorithmic finance firms are still recruiting. Perhaps they still need a pipeline of rigorous thinkers, or are unwilling to cede significant influence over P+L to llms.

Typing code has never been the difficult part of quant finance.

alcohol tolerance, patience, and willingness to work 80 hours a week are probably more important.

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

#96

Post by klibertp »

koakuma-chan wrote: post #18
seethishat wrote: post #12

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.

What is "systems"? What do "systems engineer" people do?

Drivers, kernels, firmwares, low-level networking, the likes. Some higher-level infrastructure, like compilers, interpreters, runtime systems (Qt/Glib-like code).

I'm not sure where the question comes from? The divide between systems and app programming is almost as old as coding itself; it's not some distinction without difference - it's the difference between writing a TypeScript microservice for handling CRUD on some tables versus contributing to the TypeScript compiler, Node runtime (eg. uv), and PostgreSQL query planner.

Both kinds of programming are needed; both require specific (diverging in places) skills to do well. FWIW, I don't think systems programming is any safer (maybe a little bit) from AI than making apps, but the distinction between the two kinds of programming is real.

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

#99

Post by red-iron-pine »

bdangubic wrote: post #85
compounding_it wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FAANG employees here are cheap to hire. They work very hard to remain rich or become rich from nothing (50-60LPA will basically make you rich in 5-6 years if you save and invest well). Leetcode grind and competitive problem solving is Indian childhood bread and butter these days. And given how much househelp exists in India this kind of model is perfectly suited to be outsourced to young and middle aged Indians who h…

If the Democrats were smart (they are not) they could landslide next election (and 5 more) by running a simple campaign, “Americans First,” the core of which would be to slap 1000% tax of any job which is outsources. Your company wants to hire someone from X, for every dollar paid in salary you have to pay $100 to the IRS.

then they'd immediately create an indian subsidiary, Google SEAsia, and the hire through them

that's what many do anyway

there could be a tax on offshoring in general but good luck getting that passed, or enforcing it

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

#100

Post by nunez »

0xbeefcafe wrote: post #64

I teach courses in discrete mathematics, data structures and algorithms, machine learning, and programming at a mid-tier United States public university. I work with many students: those taking my courses, and teaching assistants. Here are the answers to your questions: 1. The curriculum has not really changed. Some faculty are attempting to use AI in their courses. Most of it is charlatanism, the faculty themselves…

> 3. The majority of liberal arts courses with substantial enrollments (40+) are referred to by students as "fake," as most of the work for these courses can be completed with AI. Seminars remain robust.

to be fair, I remember this being the case back when I was doing my computer engineering undergrad in 2005-2009. our school had a tiny but mighty liberal arts program. There were two humanities courses I wanted to take on campus, but both were difficult to register for because EVERYONE would take them. Everyone would register for them because the prof was awesome and he graded very leniently.

(Our school allowed engineering students to take liberal arts courses at NYU in exchange for them taking engineering courses at ours. I took advantage of this program instead. It was great.)

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