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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

#151

Post by mesaframe »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #111
amvalo wrote: post #96

This 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.

This comment is elitism at its worst. Even if you completely accept the validity of self-learning, there is still a place for formal education. Some people can learn a lot about a complicated field on their own, but there are still plenty of people who would benefit from some pedagogical help.

Can't agree enough. I am a autodidact, and am still learning. And really every other week I wish I had a mentor/professor. Even though good books somehow covers up for no teacher. But, you can't just read thousand of books before solving a petty problem and there's where a Professor comes. They provide you with a distillation of years of work and experience. and not to mention the resources available for you at Uni

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#152

Post by amvalo »

mesaframe wrote: post #151
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is elitism at its worst. Even if you completely accept the validity of self-learning, there is still a place for formal education. Some people can learn a lot about a complicated field on their own, but there are still plenty of people who would benefit from some pedagogical help.

Can't agree enough. I am a autodidact, and am still learning. And really every other week I wish I had a mentor/professor. Even though good books somehow covers up for no teacher. But, you can't just read thousand of books before solving a petty problem and there's where a Professor comes. They provide you with a distillation of years of work and experience. and not to mention the resources available for you at Uni

But your mentor can just be your coworker! That's how many professions have worked for a long time. I don't get where this idea that academia has a monopoly on difficult skills and knowledge comes from.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#153

Post by davidgay »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #90
rguzman wrote: post #80

Earlier 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…

And some universities hire tenure-track faculty whose primary responsibility is teaching.

See "Teaching Professor" on this list: https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Faculty/Lists/list.html?_ga=2...

It would be good if this were more common...

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#154

Post by cs-holder »

amvalo wrote: post #96

This 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.

It might make some of the people here who are worrying about competition for their jobs feel better to know that a good portion of CS graduates couldn't code their way out of a paper sack[1]. I have a CS bachelor's from what is considered a very good school and let me tell you, I frequently worked on group projects with complete sloppy bozos who had no idea what they were doing and still graduated. I can't imagine the standards have gone up with the recent flood of students and pressure to improve graduation rates.

[1]I know, I know, CS is not about "coding". But trust me, these people were not making up for it with advanced theoretical work or even like, HCI.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#155

Post by danans »

chrisseaton wrote: post #82
Wiretrip wrote: post #24

Earlier 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…

> 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

Perhaps these things go in cycles. When I was in university in the late 90s, almost everyone tried to get some sort of internship over the summer, and some were very competitive.

The telecoms were booming back then and I was turned down by one of the big companies (Nortel) before landing a co-op at a smaller network equipment maker.

I was definitely influenced by the on campus CS culture (big "top 5" state school), which encouraged summer internships. However, I could also see how people who entered college after seeing and experiencing the economic pain of 2008 would have a more focused approach to how they spent their time in university.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#156

Post by pmyteh »

chrisseaton wrote: post #125
Aeolun wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain what that means to me? Is this a kind of grade?

British final undergraduate degree grades are first class honours (1st), upper second class honours (2:1), lower second class honours (2:2), third class honours (3rd), or ordinary degree. That's what you put on job application forms. We don't use a GPA. A 1st is good. A 2:1 is fine. A 2:2 is a problem. A 3rd is a failure. Some people use cockney rhyming slang - a 2:2 is a 'Desmond' (Desmond Tutu, two-two). In some ca…

And, critically, the variance varies by discipline: science subjects hand out more firsts and thirds, while humanities subjects might give two-thirds of their students two-ones. So, as a single grade it's not particularly meaningful even within a given university. There's some cross-university moderation (there are external examiners for each course from somewhere else) but that only goes so far.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#157

Post by Fenrisulfr »

For all the people here that are downplaying the difficulty of getting into CS courses or degree programs please make sure to do some research. The article wades shallow in the details. It can be very difficult depending on the institution. Please see this comment brlow from a CS Professor about the difficulty of transferring into the Computer Science major at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As a former student who was getting into computer science concepts but not in the CS/engineering program, it was disappointing to learn learning that transferring into the program was basically impossible by the time I hit junior year and didn't have a _stellar_ GPA.

https://www.quora.com/How-difficult-is-it-to-switch-to-the-C...

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#158

Post by gnulinux »

50 wrote: post #88
gnulinux wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I assume cognitive science is the major students change towards if they didn't make the computer science GPA cut-off, right?

It used to be that way but nowadays Data Science, Statistics, Applied Math are a little more popular (in this order) since they give a larger flexibility. Especially Data Science, which is a new major gave its first graduates this Fall! CogSci is still a pretty popular major though; the reality is there are people studying "CS" among at least 6 different majors in Berkeley (EECS, CS, Data Science, Stats, Applied Math, CogSci) who will be future software engineers/data scientists. Note that Berkeley is a ginormous school, this is a lot of people... When I was in Berkeley it felt like almost every student was somehow affiliated with CS one way or another, even social science students (of course there is some sampling bias here).

(of course, one should also note that most of people studying Stats, Applied Math and CogSci would be studying not for CS but for other applied fields (physics, bio etc). These majors offer a huge flexibility for their applied cluster)

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#159

Post by maxxxxx »

nradov wrote: post #129
goldenkey wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not elitism because learning how things work "under the hood" at the age of 20, when you've been using tech your whole life, it shows a lack of curiosity. Tech is inherently obfuscated, nail-biting debugging, and a crap ton of reverse engineering. CS is a subset of mathematics. Software development is a lifestyle and an ethos. No degree will provide that in full capacity like being a curious kid who wrote game m…

Software development is a skilled trade, like being a plumber. It's not a lifestyle .

I don't think that's true. If your job is checking off Jira tickets maybe it's the case. But there are plenty of areas where you need a lot of creativity and deep knowledge to make progress.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#160

Post by watwut »

rguzman wrote: post #113
watwut wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tenure track implies research.

tenure is likely a good thing for people doing research. why is tenure necessary for people specialized in teaching?

Institution that is looking for tenure track person is not looking for someone specialized in teaching. People who specialized in teaching are treated rather as lower status by universities, so you don't want to be one anyway, tenure or not. Generaly speaking, even people who might like teaching and could be good don't want to specialize in it often, prefering research positions or out of university work.
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