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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

#161

Post by stronglikedan »

amvalo wrote: post #150
stronglikedan wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't finish my degree, but I can tell you that "a year or two" is nowhere near enough to "learn CS on (one's) own". On a daily basis, I use the foundations that I did learn in a formal environment much more than any of my self-taught skills. It's a very complex subject that cannot be effectively navigated without some guidance. Otherwise, you may think you know it, but you're just skimming the surface (and likely…

A year or two is enough time to get your foot in the door with web dev. For more advanced stuff, sure, it's an ongoing process. On the other hand, I question the utility of most university CS curriculums. There are usually only one or two classes covering the core "algorithms" knowledge that autodidacts might not have, given how many people squeak through these classes by copying HW, I'm not convinced that anything r…

I agree on your fist point, but I can't speak to the modern curriculum or how it's tackled, since it's been over a decade since I was in uni. I do know that web dev is only a very minuscule subset of CS. A typical web dev may be able to tell me which algos are inefficient for a given task, but I can tell them why.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#162

Post by naniwaduni »

whatshisface wrote: post #147
bytematic wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that philosophy undergrads get the highest lsat scores, however that could have changed in the last 5 or so years.

Statisticians are actually the winners on this one: https://www.lsac.org/sites/default/files/media/2017-18_appli... (Although they are not that far from a few other majors, it is an interesting read in any case.)

Some statistics training is probably also a good thing for lawyers, too.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#163

Post by AlphaWeaver »

dsiegel2275 wrote: post #61
chrisseaton wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

At my university, in this situation, there _were_ more students than dorm rooms, and we have a freshman live-on requirement, so the university actually had to pay to rent out several entire floors of commercial apartments near campus.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#164

Post by kevindong »

My school, Purdue, has handled the surge pretty well, primarily by being very accommodating towards increasing capacity (when CS majors are involved) and severely restricting non-major access to CS-major classes.

For the lower level core classes required of all CS majors, space is basically guaranteed for CS majors. If there's not enough seats, capacity will get increased to accommodate the students who need to take the class.

In the upper level classes, capacity will generally be increased if needed. Sometimes, there's a handful of seats (1-10) open in the less popular class at the beginning of the semester.

During registration (which occurs two-thirds of the way into the prior semester), only CS majors are allowed to sign up for CS classes. All other students (including CS minors) are required to submit a request which will be decided on a space-available basis the week before classes start. Those requests are only granted for students who have taken <=5 CS-major classes. There's a very specific sequence that CS majors usually take the core classes in. The semester a CS major would take a core class if they're on schedule is called a "peak semester". Non-majors are completely barred from taking those core classes during their peak semester.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#165

Post by Balgair »

el_cujo wrote: post #105

>Aafia Ahmad, a sophomore computer science major at U.T. Austin, had hoped to take an elective course in computer security this semester. But when she tried to sign up during early registration in November, the course was already full. I know this doesn't refute the point the article is trying to make, but it doesn't seem that unreasonable to me that an underclassman might not get into a highly sought after elective.…

At UCLA, the Film major is notorious for being difficult to get into. Some colleges have majors that they are 'known' for. Supply-and-demand being what it is, this makes it difficult to get into these programs. That's not to say that you can't take a few classes in those programs every now and again. If anything, having a bit of that in-demand major (and having a broader knowledge base with another major/minor) is better than having none of it. When it comes to learning, perfect is the enemy of good.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#166

Post by Hupriene »

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 .

@sibling maxxxxx

If you think that being a plumber or an electrician or a mechanic never requires creativity and deep knowledge, then I think you are looking down on those professions a bit too much. Much like programming, most of what those fields involve is routine grunt work. But from time to time, the usual ready-made solutions don't work and you'll have some tricky problem to solve.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#167

Post by traek »

maxxxxx wrote: post #159
nradov wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> But there are plenty of areas where you need a lot of creativity and deep knowledge to make progress.

This is also true for many other skilled trades.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#168

Post by docbrown »

detaro wrote: post #124
docbrown wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's an interesting question why it always does. Not really. It’s a good question to ask but the answer is rather simple: R1 institutions stay afloat because of research grants; they need researchers to secure that grant $$.

And it's surely helping the grant-getting that their researchers have to spend time teaching classes they don't really want to teach. Teaching-focused people, even if you make them full professors, are still comparatively cheap (since they don't need big teams or labs), and I don't think it's obvious that it doesn't make sense, especially if you consider decrease in teaching quality and other factors. And this also h…

>Teaching-focused people, even if you make them full professors, are still comparatively cheap

This is where liberal art universities strive. While their endowments and grants may be lower, their retention and graduation rates may be higher (unsourced opinion). But Unfortunately we’re living in a time where we need both type of institutions and having that choice is good. While i still don’t agree with the rising costs of education, research driven programs are good for future researchers and STEM. Liberal art programs are great for the humanities.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#169

Post by abecedarius »

mamcx wrote: post #132
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.

I'm self-taught. I still learn stuff that probably never will help me to get money (like, how make programming languages). I go to the university and get severely disappointed, and after 3 semester all the passion get sucked and I left. However, I WISH that college/university were way better. Be on a class with others help a lot, and despite I'm not very social at all, be along others with the same interests? that is…

Not a class, but it sounds like you might find a stint at the Recurse Center rewarding.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#170

Post by johnc1231 »

davidgay wrote: post #153
jrochkind1 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Northeastern University started doing this a few years ago as well. It definitely helps.
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