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Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

nytimes.com

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Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#61

Post by dsiegel2275 »

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…

There is certainly an aspect of overbooking present in university admittance/enrollment:

Universities regularly "admit" more students than they can actually allow to "enroll". If a university can physically support a freshman class of, say, 1000 students, they will "admit" a number higher than that, say 1300, knowing that only a percentage of the students that they admit will actually end up enrolling (because very simply some of them choose to enroll at a another university that they were also accepted into).

Here at the university I work at they refer to this "admittance/enrollment" ratio as "yield" or "yield rate". The yield is tracked from year to year and the number of acceptance letters sent out is based on this historical data.

Sometimes, though, the University is surprised (like this past year here) and gets a much higher yield rate and ends up with more students than dorm rooms...

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#62

Post by akvadrako »

gaze wrote: post #49

If CS is so popular right now, how can it possibly command high pay by the time these people hit the job market? Do they all expect to compete against each other for high paying positions? How is that a good bet? Do they expect that there will be a ton of jobs that will all pay well?

More CS workers means more output, which means even more CS workers can be hired. Since knowledge work has such a high productivity multiplier we seem a long way from saturating the market.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#63

Post by SolaceQuantum »

pseudolus wrote: post #41

Why the emphasis on recruiting new faculty to teach undergraduate level computer science courses ? Does the material genuinely require the input of a professor? It seems that universities/colleges are experiencing short-term shortages of teaching personnel that can readily be recruited from other sources without necessitating hiring new faculty.

In my university a professor isn't usually newly hired for undergraduate level CS course teaching- but the university doesn't want to hire a non-phd to be teaching undergrads. It's not a good look for a university to be hiring non-phd bearers for its teaching positions. However, CS PhDs can (relatively) easily go into industry or tenure-track dependent on what their research was about, so there's not many PhD people who are willing to take a teaching position.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#64

Post by gnulinux »

gaze wrote: post #49

If CS is so popular right now, how can it possibly command high pay by the time these people hit the job market? Do they all expect to compete against each other for high paying positions? How is that a good bet? Do they expect that there will be a ton of jobs that will all pay well?

Yes. My school (UC Berkeley) was the same (felt like everyone wants to study CS so they made the GPA cap 3.3 so if you have <3.3 no CS for you, and classes were STILL overcrowded clusterfucks) but my graduating class had $105k avg salary.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#65

Post by lordnacho »

gaze wrote: post #49

If CS is so popular right now, how can it possibly command high pay by the time these people hit the job market? Do they all expect to compete against each other for high paying positions? How is that a good bet? Do they expect that there will be a ton of jobs that will all pay well?

Having a degree is not the same as being able to work as a coder.

Sure it overlaps, but it's a kind of marmite-like work: you either love it or hate it.

You also have a fairly harsh selection process, at least at the top end companies. Not everyone is going to pass the whiteboarding quiz, and although you can somewhat study it, it's very different to most other fields where it doesn't feel quite as harsh.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#66

Post by bachmeier »

AznHisoka wrote: post #44

"The university is looking to hire several tenure-track faculty members in computing this year, he said, but competition for top candidates is fierce. I know of major departments that interviewed 40 candidates, and I don’t think they hired anybody." That doesn't sound like fierce competition if they were able to interview 40 candidates... Did they give them all high-paying offers and they all rejected?

I'm not CS faculty, but this is similar to the situation in economics. Interview 40. Of those, 20 may end up being acceptable. The eight best of those 20 get offers at better places. Four others take nonacademic jobs. You're left fighting over a pool of eight candidates with a lot more than eight other schools. It was really tough after the recession, when the Fed was hiring a ginormous number of new PhD's.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#67

Post by Humdeee »

Wohlf wrote: post #55
AznHisoka wrote: post #44

"The university is looking to hire several tenure-track faculty members in computing this year, he said, but competition for top candidates is fierce. I know of major departments that interviewed 40 candidates, and I don’t think they hired anybody." That doesn't sound like fierce competition if they were able to interview 40 candidates... Did they give them all high-paying offers and they all rejected?

Competition must be fierce... at the level they want to pay.

I would wager the pay would be at or near minimum wage levels. I had this exact predicament. A decade ago, it was an $8/hour offer or do an internship/co-op and make triple. Passion for your area of study is great, but going to a home with minimal to no luxuries gets old pretty quickly as years go by.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#68

Post by gnulinux »

Wiretrip wrote: post #22
rb808 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'...

It's not "AI" now... There are all sorts of SWE jobs not just "AI" and pretty much all them pay well.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#69

Post by lordnacho »

Isn't CS teaching the kind of thing that ought to be able to scale?

There's no other subject that's as well covered on the internet; nothing in an undergraduate course isn't public knowledge. There's loads of video lectures these days.

And the coursework is incredibly scalable too, in addition to being similar to what people actually use in industry. My brother did CS at an Ivy, and they were just pushing repos to a server, and the UT software would check you'd done it properly.

Couldn't you just let everyone enroll, then make sure they do their practicals?

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#70

Post by alistairSH »

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.

Sibling comments mostly cover it. Outside of truly specialized professional programs (engineering, nursing, architecture), US colleges delay specialization until year 2 or 3.

The other notable difference is an undergraduate degree in the US is typically a 4 year program. Many in the UK are 3 year programs.

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