Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 305 posts

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#21

Post by seanmcdirmid »

chrisseaton wrote: post #17
magicbuzz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do US airlines overbook flights? Is it the same sort of thinking?

No that metaphor doesn't work. US colleges' approach to admissions is more like selling aeroplane tickets but not asking people where they want to go, then be surprised when they all get to the airport and try to cram on the one plane going to the same place. In other places you buy a ticket for a destination. Yeah some flights might be a bit overcrowded in some cases, but it's not as bad as not knowing how many peop…

They aren’t surprised. Rather, they simply can’t make all planes go to the same place. That happens over time, but then you have recessions where that plane becomes extremely unpopular, which messes up that growth.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#22

Post by Wiretrip »

rb808 wrote: post #11
gaius wrote: post #2

Getting a weird sense of deja vu... colleges were oversubscribed for CS just before the dotcom bubble burst too.

Yeah I remember Universities desperate to attract people to CS in 2003-6

And before that, in the late 90s, due to the millenium bug goldrush. Now it's 'AI'...

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#23

Post by zbentley »

alex_young wrote: post #20
magicbuzz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do US airlines overbook flights? Is it the same sort of thinking?

Overbooking increases the likelihood of full flights which increases the efficiency of the system and reduces costs. It's hard to see a problem with that.

> It's hard to see a problem with that.

I think it's a value judgement. Is a lowered price of the majority of instances of a thing (flying or taking a class, in these examples) a worthwhile trade for the reward being a probability rather than a guarantee? Is the severity of the minority case (getting bumped) worth the trade? What actual probabilities for happy vs. sad path are acceptable to you?

Those are subjective questions with no inherently correct answers.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#24

Post by Wiretrip »

tyteen4a03 wrote: post #14
chrisseaton wrote: post #3

Why do US colleges over-admit like this? In the UK you apply to do a computer science course, and they have 50 places or whatever for that course, and so they admit 50 people. You can't get into the college and then be told that actually it's full. If they do accidentally over-admit it's their problem to solve, not yours.

My (UK) uni admits about 350 people to the Bachelors programme (I think about 250 survive the first two years) and about 100 more into the Masters programme. This year we had over 300 people take the AI module and it has absolutely resulted in a decrease of teaching quality, and I'm not sure if some of the students are qualified to be there (namely, Chinese students who can't even read the coursework specification co…

I think this is a problem across the board in UK univeristies these days. When I did my CS degree (1993), I was one of two people in the year who got 1st class, now I think it's something like 25% awarded 1sts and the rest get 2:1s

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#27

Post by taneq »

chrisseaton wrote: post #3

Why do US colleges over-admit like this? In the UK you apply to do a computer science course, and they have 50 places or whatever for that course, and so they admit 50 people. You can't get into the college and then be told that actually it's full. If they do accidentally over-admit it's their problem to solve, not yours.

Because they're getting tens of thousands of dollars per student, whether or not those students are actually getting anything of value out of it?

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#28

Post by writeslowly »

chrisseaton wrote: post #3

Why do US colleges over-admit like this? In the UK you apply to do a computer science course, and they have 50 places or whatever for that course, and so they admit 50 people. You can't get into the college and then be told that actually it's full. If they do accidentally over-admit it's their problem to solve, not yours.

The article is using an elective course as an example, for some reason. Usually what you do (based on my experience at UT Austin) is try to register for all your classes in the system, with priority based on major and year. Then if there's something you really need to get into that's already full, you go to an adviser and tell them why you have to get into that class that semester and they can override the system and get you in.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#29

Post by jefftk »

chrisseaton wrote: post #3

Why do US colleges over-admit like this? In the UK you apply to do a computer science course, and they have 50 places or whatever for that course, and so they admit 50 people. You can't get into the college and then be told that actually it's full. If they do accidentally over-admit it's their problem to solve, not yours.

The US, especially liberal arts colleges, is pretty wary of premature specialization. A common thing here is that you apply to a university, take classes in a range of departments, and then by the end of sophomore year (two of four) you decide on a major.

I went to Swarthmore (referenced in the article) before CS enrollment surged (www.swarthmore.edu/computer-science/alumni) and there were some people in my CS classes who decided to start on a CS major their junior (year 3 of 4) fall.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#30

Post by SiVal »

chrisseaton wrote: post #3

Why do US colleges over-admit like this? In the UK you apply to do a computer science course, and they have 50 places or whatever for that course, and so they admit 50 people. You can't get into the college and then be told that actually it's full. If they do accidentally over-admit it's their problem to solve, not yours.

The classes aren't usually limited to people majoring in CS. Lots of non-majors take these classes, and the popularity of a class among all students is not controlled by limits on how many can major in CS. In some schools they give CS majors first priority, but there are still all sorts of issues such as scheduling conflicts causing a major to need to sign up for a class late, after it has been opened to non-majors. American universities are not trade schools, and most require their students to take several classes--which students choose for themselves--that are entirely outside their majors. Waves of popularity then rise and fall.
Post reply on HN