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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

#171

Post by TuringNYC »

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?

This article is so poor I dont know where to start.

The Computer Science Stampede

>> "While the number of undergraduates majoring in computer science at certain American universities more than doubled from 2013 to 2017, the number of Ph.D. candidates — the potential pool of future professors — remained relatively flat."

They seem to ignore the three decades of legacy PhD graduates who gave up looking for jobs in academia because of so few spots opening up. The article makes it seem almost like all legacy graduate supply poof disappears!

>> “I had a faculty member who came in with an offer from a bank, and they were told that, with their expertise, the starting salary would be $1 million to $4 million,” said Greg Morrisett, dean of computing and information science at Cornell University. “There’s no way a university, no matter how well off, could compete with that.”

Nice anecdote, but the number of graduates in that spot is tiny. Rarely do PhDs get that type of salary on Wall St, and often it does not last. No, they cant compete with the back on this one candidate but luckily there are a thousand other candidates, and tens of thousands of candidates once you consider the pool of grads having graduated over the last generation.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#172

Post by chrisseaton »

bytematic wrote: post #136
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 from the UK but I remember hearing that they were making school much easier over time their, almost to the point of "impossible to fail". Is this true of age 5-18?

> almost to the point of "impossible to fail"

No, a full third of GCSE exams are fails.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-45282518

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#173

Post by drewg123 »

TuringNYC wrote: post #171
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?

This article is so poor I dont know where to start. The Computer Science Stampede >> "While the number of undergraduates majoring in computer science at certain American universities more than doubled from 2013 to 2017, the number of Ph.D. candidates — the potential pool of future professors — remained relatively flat." They seem to ignore the three decades of legacy PhD graduates who gave up looking for jobs in acad…

No, but most recent PhDs can get a job at a FAANG company, where their starting salary will be much higher than a faculty salary (and that's before bonus, stock grant/options/etc). Even with the cost of living in the Bay Area, they'll be able to pay off student loans faster and will finally have time to enjoy life.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#174

Post by cs-holder »

Since when is being a software engineer a "high-status" job, as mentioned in the first paragraph? Most people would consider a non-washed out doctor or lawyer (which is expensive and difficult to achieve) as having higher status than pretty much anyone working with a CS degree, unless they are a successful founder or went into investments. Besides medicine/law, young people with some degree of privilege and ambition seem to go into banking, private equity or management consulting still. If they have a CS degree, they're doing something closer to the above with it, not being ads CRUD engineer #3445. Everyone working for a for-profit company as a software engineer and even founders and VCs are basically dancing to the tune of one of these people holding the purse-strings. Is this wrong or do I just have a chip on my shoulder about this?

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#175

Post by Jtsummers »

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?

There's an information delay that causes these trends. Remember that the people making decisions on their college majors are 16-18 year olds. They're basing these decisions on $$$. The university encourages these decisions because of $$$. The new students aren't looking at the job market and recognizing that they're pushing it towards a glut (as a cohort), as individuals they're making a sound decision in that moment with the incomplete information and lack of forethought typical of someone that age.

Of course, that lack of forethought isn't exclusive to them. You see the same behavior in other markets. Today I see that someone has developed X and is making money, but the market isn't captured (lots of growth potential). So I decide to make X (sound decision on what I know). However, 98 others also make the same decision at about the same time. By the time we all start shipping X we've flooded the market and now it's not profitable (getting too small a slice of the whole, or competition drives prices too low). I'm trying to recall the precise term in systems theory, "bounded knowledge" maybe?

EDIT: "Bounded rationality" was what I was trying to recall. It's useful in a number of fields, I came across the term (proper, the concept wasn't new to me) in studying systems dynamics.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#176

Post by jefftk »

Aeolun wrote: post #121
jefftk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 classe…

I don’t get this. In the Netherlands I’ve studied for 4 years on hard computer science. Somehow someone from the US has done maybe 1.5 years of that and gotten the same degree?

How many computer science classes are needed for your degree? I believe when I was in college it was 9 classes (each one being one semester, about half a year). I took more than that, because I liked it, but many CS students just took the minimum.

(This doesn't count requirements outside the CS department, like math, or other graduation requirements like "some total number of classes, at least three humanities classes, at least three social science classes" etc.)

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#177

Post by _hardwaregeek »

I'm very curious to see the number of people start as CS and drop vs the number of people who end up as CS. I know at my school there's a lot of people who come in wanting to do CS but end up dropping and a decent amount of people who end up in the CS major either via other STEM majors or just randomly.

Because of this churn, the intro classes need to be a lot bigger than the rest, simply to accommodate both sets of people. And really, intro classes are the most important part of the CS degree, for motivating people, for teaching the practice of programming and for the skills that you'd actually use on the job.

One potential solution is to just not hire research faculty for intro classes. While I do kind of believe in having actual professors teach undergrad classes, if schools are struggling to hire PhDs, why not look at non PhD's? It's not like having a PhD helps with teaching intro classes. If anything, it probably hurts.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#178

Post by saberience »

stronglikedan wrote: post #135
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 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…

I don't agree. Most people simply don't work very hard. For a motivated person, 1 year on their own time can easily be enough time to replicate a bachelor's in CS. When I did my bachelor's I was a young dumb kid who partied a lot and wasted a lot of time.

Now, 14 years later and tons of industry experience, I realize how trivial the material in my CS bachelors was and really the big problem is that most students don't really work that hard. Now my work ethic is much, much better, and I've been learning far more advanced material, far faster than I ever did before, because I come home in the evenings and actually study (using online options) and practice.

When I look back at college level CS, it's a joke. Also, the online resources are built to actually be taught well, when I was in school, there was no Khan Academy, Pluralsight, Coursera, Udemy, etc. Most college professors are research oriented at heart and are uniformly terrible teachers. The online moocs and so on are focused on actually making things easy to learn, which gives modern learners a massive advantage.

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#179

Post by nradov »

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.

It takes just as much creativity and deep knowledge to achieve the Master Plumber rating (or for any other skilled trade).

Re: Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting into Class

#180

Post by currymj »

very stressful to try to teach under these conditions! the logistical problems of teaching and consistent grading grow worse than linearly with the number of students, unfortunately. if you want to have 500 people graded on the same curve, it's a lot more work to make sure they're all treated consistently and fairly.
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