Earlier quoted context omitted.
4?
> and off-by-one errors?
yep, that was a whoosh
Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class
91–100 of 305 posts
Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US university system is quite unusual (I believe Canada also has a similar system): at the undergraduate level you typically don't apply to a specific program; all students are expected to take a variety of classes (confusingly called "courses"), only some of which apply to a specific course of study. Domain-specialized classes become an increasing proportion of your overall classes after the first or second year…
I'm not sure how universal this is; I suspect that's the case at more liberal arts schools, but not the case at engineering schools. My undergrad was at Virginia Tech, and I applied to the CS program as part of my university application. I was in the CS program from day one. But I did part of my graduate school at William and Mary, and they are as you described.
FWIW MIT and Stanford are as I described.
Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
this is one of the pathologies in academic institutions: they need teachers, but they evaluate researchers. the people who make the cut for researcher also have a lot of other options, and the institution ends up with an undersupply of teachers.
It's not pathological. Most universities have flirted with hiring non phds to teach. It can work, but there's a reason they prefer traditional candidates: thebfaikure rate is way lower.
Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class
#94Isn'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…
Yes. And is being scaled. There is unlimited access to freeCodeCamp and the WGU C.S. degree. I'm pretty sure that if you go through those, you'll get a start as a software dev. The C.S. degree is probably unnecessary for getting employed. It's still a multi-year process, but available to anyone who wants it.
Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
this is one of the pathologies in academic institutions: they need teachers, but they evaluate researchers. the people who make the cut for researcher also have a lot of other options, and the institution ends up with an undersupply of teachers.
Some universities hire non-tenure track instructors, with no research requirements, sometimes called "Lecturers". Of course, they are compensated horribly, so nobody wants to do that unless they have no other choice, and once you do that, good luck ever getting a tenure-track position. The whole academic job market is pretty dysfunctional. It's more interesting to look at the flawed ways universities have of measurin…
> Of course, they are compensated horribly
Non-tenure track academic teaching positions that pay "horribly"... I can already imagine the kind of talent they attract.
Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class
#96This article is credentialism at its worst.
The best programmers I know are self-taught, because they have a passion for it. I know people working at minimum wage, never enrolled in college, who got decent programming jobs after a year or two learning CS on their own.
These people will always (I hope) form the core of the profession.
Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
this is one of the pathologies in academic institutions: they need teachers, but they evaluate researchers. the people who make the cut for researcher also have a lot of other options, and the institution ends up with an undersupply of teachers.
Tenure track implies research.
It does, but it's an interesting question why it always does. Knowing universities that lost their best lecturers because they insisted on a high-impact research record to consider giving them a permanent position, more flexibility in that regards looks like it'd be a good idea.
Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Entry level/junior positions already have a plethora of candidates. Where companies are sorely lacking are in senior level talent. It's going to be a gut check when all of these CS grads come out and they are competing with everyone else plus all the boot-camp coders.
There's not a ton of overlap with boot camp grads. At least here, only the bottom barrel of CS grads even apply to positions that are good fits for boot camp grads.
> There's not a ton of overlap with boot camp grads. At least here, only the bottom barrel of CS grads even apply to positions that are good fits for boot camp grads.
That is not true at all. Maybe if you are in the upper-echelons at the Stanfords, MIT, and CMU's of the world doing advance research in AI/ML/Robotics/Security but for the most part most CS grads are going to school to get a job -- I was one of them.
Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
I'm not convinced people aren't just legitimately working a lot harder. When I went to university graduating in 2007, so just before the crash but not really very long ago, everyone was pretty chilled out about their courses. Nobody did internships. As long as people weren't failing they were relaxed and enjoyed themselves. Getting a 2:2 was a bit of banter rather than a serious threat to your ability to ever get a g…
It was already fairly clear by then that major employers require a 2:1.
Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class
#100Isn'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…
Every topic has plenty of literature published. Scantron was founded in 1972. Self-directed learning has always existed. CS isn't special. A bachelor's degree once meant more than passing a sufficient number of tests. Now that everyone treats it like a ticket to employment, it barely even means that.
I would agree, that CS isnt special here, its something common to at least STEM. And personally I dont know why the first 1 year isnt optimized for that. I dont think for example, that there is any reason to teach Math 1 for CS every semester with a Prof in a room limited by how ever many students might fit in. Its simply basic knowledge, that just doesnt change but that you need to know as a prerequisite for understanding later stuff. There is absolutly no reason to waste the time of Professors, or students for that matter, on that. Instead of making admission to college dependent on prior work, why not simply provide the necessary books and film it once. You learn the fundamentals yourself. Admission would be a lot fairer, we wouldnt waste an incredible amount of time of Professors and they could in turn teach actually interesting stuff.
The whole thing got quite apparent when a former roommate of mine studying mechanical engineering asked his father to help him study for a first year course and they figured out, that his father used the exact same literature in his college days as my roommate did at the time. The content hasnt changed, yet we keep throwing time at manually repeating it or going even as far as reinventing it with everyone writing their own script on the topic.