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Why do so few people major in computer science?

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

#581

Post by ghaff »

erikbye wrote: post #566
ghaff wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't gone through CS50 but I took the MIT equivalent online. From the perspective of someone who has done a fair bit of programming but is not a professional programmer (and doesn't do a lot these days), it was somewhat time consuming but not terribly hard for me. However, my thought when taking it was that if I were a freshman taking this who had minimal experience with computers, I'd have been pretty lost. Not…

Would that be MITx 6.00.1x?

Yes. (It's actually in 2 parts online.)

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

#582

Post by xxSparkleSxx »

cjonas wrote: post #52
xxSparkleSxx wrote: post #12

I think the market is just way over saturated. Hiring practices for developers point to just that. I mentioned in a different thread how simole it is for my travel-nurse of a sister to get a new job (her stints around the Bay Area paid ~100k and she only has 2 years of experience). Developers jump through hoop after hoop for employment, this wouldn't happen if they were in demand like a nurse. The market is just resp…

I have a CS degree from a small liberal arts school. I've only had to do a handful of interviews, but they've always been extremely mellow (my last one took place on a chairlift) and I've been practically begged to take each job. Then again, I'm in Wyoming, not Silicon Valley so that may have something to do with it.

Interesting. Do you have tons of side projects/other work you have available for potential employers to view? My sister only shows her degree and that she's been licensed in whichever state.

I'm in bioinformatics, so not pure tech, though I did interview for several straight tech-companies last year and my experience was very poor. Multiple phone-screens, having to work on side projects, on-site multi-hour interviews, white board exercises, etc.

My sister the travel nurse literally spends 2-5 hours on the phone every time she wants a new position. That generally includes 2-4 phone screens with potential employers. Then she gets offers and picks which job she wants. Are your interviews really that simple, it takes less than 5 hours to find a new job? You spend a few hours on the phone and then get immediate offers with relocation if needed?

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

#583

Post by Apocryphon »

ArialAnemone wrote: post #64
NotQuantum wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter point: You can reason that women wouldn't go into other fields like plumbing, or construction because those are also male dominated. The biggest distinction is that Computer Science can be a path climb the socioeconomic ladder. > I think it is also the only career which people try to inject diversity just for the sake of it. Well when you think about the reach of software in the modern world, it can influence…

You're not making a convincing argument. Why are the capabilities of plumbers to mentally map various causes and effects and points of failure not subject to the same forces of thought differentials you claim? My cynicism says that diversity is a result of baizou, not any actual accounting of some magic spread where different and useful ranges of thought are spread in equal proportion mapping to a species of bureaucr…

Programming requires more abstract thought than plumbing. Jobs spoke about the intersection of liberal arts and technology, wrt computer science, not plumbing.

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

#584

Post by linkregister »

ForHackernews wrote: post #530
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…

> 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. Only somebody with zero experience with wet lab chemistry or biology could ever write the above with a straight face. At least you can fix a missing semicolon. If you screw up a long-running organic synthesis, or you k…

You will not be screwing up an organic synthesis or killing a bacterial colony in your 100- or 200-level biology course.

The author's point was that the early unforgiving nature of programming could possibly be a factor in the potential lack of growth in the field.

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

#585

Post by jerrylives »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #128

Because universities continue to place a heavy emphasis on math, specifically calculus, as a gatekeeper. Calculus is useful but I don't believe it's necessary for a CS degrees.

If kids are failing out of Calc 1, I doubt they would fare any better in upper level CS classes.

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

#586

Post by ForHackernews »

linkregister wrote: post #584
ForHackernews wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Only somebody with zero experience with wet lab chemistry or biology could ever write the above with a straight face. At least you can fix a missing semicolon. If you screw up a long-running organic synthesis, or you k…

You will not be screwing up an organic synthesis or killing a bacterial colony in your 100- or 200-level biology course. The author's point was that the early unforgiving nature of programming could possibly be a factor in the potential lack of growth in the field.

Speak for yourself. I definitely goofed up syntheses and badly botched biology labs in first- and second-year chem and bio courses.

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

#587

Post by Baeocystin »

uncletaco wrote: post #479
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…

So my story is a little different. I didn't write my first program until I was in college and didn't even own a personal computer until I was going into my junior year in 2009. I had the advantage of having a department that assumed we were computer illiterate (I went to an HBCU in the late 00s: lots of low-income kids, very few had PCs of their own growing up, let alone college educated parents) so there were a lot…

Thanks for sharing your story. It makes me genuinely happy to hear.

It really bothered me that I wasn't able to successfully tutor more CS students, and many folks that I know would have (eventually) loved it and thrived in the discipline dropped out due to their inability to get over the hump.

It sounds like from your experience direct, constant mentoring (along with a highly motivated student!) does work.

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

#588

Post by cr0sh »

Legion wrote: post #380
watwut wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the thing, you should not deal with that when you are just seeing for cycle for the first time. You should not be anywhere near compiler flags. The IDE is something you should start with. Text editor + compiler is the harder way. The first class should start with opening IDE and writing something really simple. Like someone mentioned logo or the old basics - if kids start in that environment they pick it up q…

Logo is great and all, but we're not talking about beginning programming for kids, we're talking about CS degrees. At some point between Logo and bachelor's degree, you run face-first into that complexity, which is the "wall" the commenter atop this thread was referring to.

> Logo is great and all, but we're not talking about beginning programming for kids, we're talking about CS degrees.

I'd be willing to bet you could create a CS course using nothing but Logo - and it would probably be better for students than what currently exists.

In his book "Mindstorms", Papert discusses the faulty idea that Logo is only for children, and that it isn't a language that can be used to develop complex software.

The fact is, it can. In fact, Logo is pretty close to Lisp in its functionality.

The most complex piece of Logo I've ever seen was a few decades ago in an issue of the Rainbow Magazine (for the TRS-80 Color Computer); it was essentially a game of Monopoly, with full graphics (and probably sound too); I'm not sure if it did any kind of file i/o - but I know Logo supports all of that and more (especially current versions of Logo).

Seriously - if you think Logo is only for kids, you're missing out on a very fascinating language.

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

#589

Post by cr0sh »

cableshaft wrote: post #478
watwut wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I would say that this basically screams "badly taught programming". Missing semicolon does not take down work, it just needs to be put back in and ide should help you. "Even if you are of the opinion that CS is math, a…

In early college I once spent 10 hours in the computer lab with a broken program over a missing semicolon. The compiler kept telling me the problem was something completely different and in an entirely different part of the code so I kept my focus there, but in reality it was just a missing semi-colon much higher up. I got so frustrated from that (and a couple other struggles, along with some extremely shitty and unh…

> That was back in the 90s when I had that semicolon problem, and I'm pretty sure compilers have improved since then, because I usually see compilers catch missing semi-colons pretty much exactly where the problem happens nowadays.

Yeah - that's been replaced by C++ compilers b0rking hard on errors in variable templates and such (and leaving you just as confused as to where the problem really is).

/wish I was making this up...

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

#590

Post by Overtonwindow »

jerrylives wrote: post #585
Overtonwindow wrote: post #128

Because universities continue to place a heavy emphasis on math, specifically calculus, as a gatekeeper. Calculus is useful but I don't believe it's necessary for a CS degrees.

If kids are failing out of Calc 1, I doubt they would fare any better in upper level CS classes.

I disagree. I think the concept of mathematics as a deciding factor of how well one would do in CS is based on the perception mathematics professors have on it. If you remove the requirement for lots of math for a CS degree then those professors lose out of classes to teach, diluting their necessity. Less classes mean less revenue for the schools. I think math and CS are entangled because of history, and protecting the status quo. Sure it's useful but that doesn't necessarily mean it must be mandatory. To lessen math in CS would mean too many entities lose out, so they have a vested interest in keeping things just the way they are.
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