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Why do so few people major in computer science?

danwang.co

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Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#411

Post by gaius »

azakai wrote: post #238
lordnacho wrote: post #107

The grief factor of learning to code is on a different scale to every other major. One missing semicolon will take your whole tower down, and you realise this in the first day of practical exercises. Even if you are of the opinion that CS is math, and coding doesn't come into it, you will hit a coding wall early on. In fact, every exercise in CS has this problem. You add a new thing (eg inheritance), and it breaks. B…

One of my professors actually made the opposite point: that in CS, the compiler will give you an error. You can fix it and move on to the next. While in math (he was a math prof), the paper doesn't object to your writing nonsense. If you have an error early on in your work, all the rest might be nonsense, and you only find out much later after a human grades it. tl;dr at least in CS you get immediate negative feedbac…

Getting the syntax right is the most trivial part of writing a useful program.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#412

Post by dagw »

erikbye wrote: post #391
PretzelFisch wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Cousin smart kid had to come over at midnight because he had his first java assignment outside the ide. Couldn't compile because class path was not defined right on windows. Things like that scare people or pop their confidence.

That just sounds like the professor didn't teach them about Java classpath before telling them to use a CLI; or this kid didn't read the course materials.

Sure, but if you have been playing around with environment variables in your OS since you where 8 years old the problem becomes a lot easier to troubleshoot, compared to someone who has never heard of environment variables.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#413

Post by graeme »

Spooky23 wrote: post #330
simonsarris wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More people than ever, especially on HN. https://www.gwern.net/iq Nothing you say relates to IQ stats about the median grad. If CS enrollment was up, it would push the needle I'm sure. It's not. You may as well be saying, "What do you mean most wine is bad? I drink good wine all the time."

I'm getting a random lot of 20 kids from average schools. Surely, if IQ is dropping significantly amongst the general population of CS students, I'd be seeing that?

The author's point was that college IQ was dropping, and this explained the lack of rise of CS enrolemt. Simce CS is objectively harder, only a lower portion of college students can now do it.

That's their hypothesis. So their hypothesis isn't that CS student IQs are dropping.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#414

Post by aerovistae »

gaius wrote: post #407
runeks wrote: post #406

One possible answer: you can learn computer science without needing a degree at all, and subsequently prove that you've learned it by just writing a program that works. That makes a CS degree inherently less valuable than almost all other degrees out there. Why would employers request a degree saying you know your stuff, when they can just ask you to prove it directly? I was recently st a meetup and met a guy I went…

That is not "computer science" any more than spotting constellations makes you an astrophysicist.

I don't really understand the point of this comment.

Are you suggesting that those developers who lack a CS degree but can program effectively nonetheless don't really know "computer science," and therefore are weaker applicants?

By extension, are you suggesting that most developer jobs have a need for applicants well-versed in Turing machines, automata, language parsing, trie data structures, and so on?

You seem to be saying that demonstrating strong coding ability doesn't correlate to strong academic CS ability, but I can't imagine why you would bother to point this out unless you felt it was strongly relevant, in which case you must also be suggesting some variant of the above arguments.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#415

Post by demonshalo »

gaius wrote: post #407
runeks wrote: post #406

One possible answer: you can learn computer science without needing a degree at all, and subsequently prove that you've learned it by just writing a program that works. That makes a CS degree inherently less valuable than almost all other degrees out there. Why would employers request a degree saying you know your stuff, when they can just ask you to prove it directly? I was recently st a meetup and met a guy I went…

That is not "computer science" any more than spotting constellations makes you an astrophysicist.

That's not even remotely a fair comparison.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#416

Post by smeroth »

YZF wrote: post #357
Baeocystin wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's a ton of Stupid Computer Shit we all know, mostly from messing around on our own time This, I think, is the core issue. Like most of us here, I started playing with computers as a young child, from a Timex Sinclair 1000 as a pre-teen to a Commodore 128 as a young teen, then an Amiga and beyond. It wasn't work, it was fun, a hobby. And more importantly, by the time I hit college, I had literally thousands of…

I should have thought about beer money. But I was such an introverted geek. I do remember watching other people trying to figure out how to use a mouse or the most basic stuff. I've already studied algorithms and data structures and had a paying programming job. Most of the CS work seemed trivial but I did learn some math. The math did get hard so the degree was definitely not a breeze. Even with CS there were areas…

I don't think they have an advantage, as I've noticed that kids knowing their way around their phone are often completely lost when put in front of a computer. They never use the computer, they have everything in their phones. Compared to a computer, a phone is simple, and you aren't actually solving any problems while using it (you're just downloading and running apps). When you have a phone, however, there's no need to learn the computer. This means that they're missing out on the computer learning curve that we experienced.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#417

Post by aerovistae »

erikbye wrote: post #410

Perhaps "very smart" was an incorrect assessment on your part.

Oh, anyone who can't do CS must not be very smart, right? Basically if they don't have the same skillset as you, they're probably not too bright.

Doesn't matter if they can draw near-photorealistically or pick up a new foreign language in mere months, or perhaps breed fascinating variants of plants in all manner of ways in their dorm room just off intuition; if they can't pass CS101, if their mind doesn't work their way, they're not really that smart.

Right?

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#418

Post by runeks »

gaius wrote: post #407
runeks wrote: post #406

One possible answer: you can learn computer science without needing a degree at all, and subsequently prove that you've learned it by just writing a program that works. That makes a CS degree inherently less valuable than almost all other degrees out there. Why would employers request a degree saying you know your stuff, when they can just ask you to prove it directly? I was recently st a meetup and met a guy I went…

That is not "computer science" any more than spotting constellations makes you an astrophysicist.

I'm not arguing that the ability to write computer programs makes you a computer scientist. I'm arguing that companies aren't looking for computer scientists, they're looking for programmers. And also that compilers (combined with running the program) make it a lot easier to verify whether or not someone knows enough about programming to be useful.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#419

Post by InclinedPlane »

lordnacho wrote: post #107

The grief factor of learning to code is on a different scale to every other major. One missing semicolon will take your whole tower down, and you realise this in the first day of practical exercises. Even if you are of the opinion that CS is math, and coding doesn't come into it, you will hit a coding wall early on. In fact, every exercise in CS has this problem. You add a new thing (eg inheritance), and it breaks. B…

Hah, seriously? This is a very bizarre perspective. Sure, CS is a lot of work but I would hardly describe it as more difficult than any other STEM field. I was effectively a triple major in college (graduated, went back for a double major post-bac degree in different fields) and against Chemistry and Mathematics I'd describe Computer Science as the easiest of the three.

As for git, that only takes a few days at most to learn to the level you need to use it in school, at least if you're even remotely technically minded.

In undergrad CS courses I learned about, oh, databases, algorithms, data structures, inheritance, and so on. In undergrad math courses I learned vector calculus, abstract algebra, linear algebra, numerical analysis, differential equations, etc. In science courses I learned organic, physical, and inorganic chemistry, some of quantum mechanics, how to use instruments ranging from: mass spectrometers, gas chromatagraphs, infrared spectrometers, UV-Vis spectrometers, flame emission spectrometers, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrometers, as well as cramming "free time" during the weeks/weekends with lab time. If anyone came up to me and asked "so, do you think studying computer science is more difficult than vector calculus or quantum mechanics" I'd laugh in their face.

No, CS is not uniquely difficult among college majors. I'd say there are a few major factors why CS majors haven't grown at the same pace as others. One is that the number of CS majors ballooned in the '90s when the industry started blowing up, and it's been a bit inflated since then. Another is that a CS education is treated as a necessary and sufficient pre-requisite for becoming a software developer and it's really ill-suited for that. Software dev. is not scientific work, a lot of what they teach in CS programs is not hugely applicable to being a good developer, and a lot of what you need to be a good developer isn't taught in Universities. Parallel to that, you can jump into the industry "running" if you just start coding and getting experience and learning while doing. That is often a superior way to build your skillset, build your network of colleagues, build your resume, and start making money instead of digging yourself into student debt. So a lot of people who enter the industry go that route. That also has it's problems but on balance it's probably the better route for most people.

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