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In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

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Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#21

Post by daveFNbuck »

harias wrote: post #17

> Once the students were selected, the researchers then administered the Major Field Test in Computer Science, an exam that was developed by the U.S. Educational Testing Service and is regularly updated. There is a huge variation among countries in how subjects are taught and tested. I would like to add that many of my peers have resorted to streamlining for whiteboard interviews, and unsurprisingly, they end up with…

There is also huge variation within countries. The curriculum is basically up to each college or university in the US. I never took this test.

Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#22

Post by sandGorgon »

Here's a question from the other side - what are good courses for people from these countries to study so that they become more skilled ?

Im assuming that most of the Coursera/udacity/etc combo is ineffective, because the students from other countries must already be consuming them. So the difference is clearly originating from college level courses.

Should everyone just do Abelson and Sussman + Knuth and call it a day ?

Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#23

Post by witcherchaos »

> When it comes to computer science skills, U.S. students approaching graduation have a significant advantage over their peers in China, India, and Russia.

There are a few explanations for this

1.) Programming is an English skillset, which the native English-speaking countries have an advantage. Out of the native English speaking countries (US, England, Canada, Australia, and others), US has the biggest economy, the best tech companies that can train students as interns, and the best infrastructure to grow the students. Where as China, while it does have the population advantage, doesn't have the English capability. Chinese government is currently actively engaging in nationalism (maligning foreign brands, censoring foreign cultures, destroying churches, arresting pastors, saying winnie the pooh is an evil foreign influence), thus will have less and less English skillset overtime.

2.) more innovative/risk taking mindsets. This allows a more creative problem-solving skills amongst students. The Chinese education style is regurgitation and there is a culture of copying and cheating amongst students. Rote learning is widely practiced in schools in India as well, which isn't conducive to innovative problem solving.

Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#24

Post by ummonk »

> making sure that both the educational institutions and students enrolled at those schools were statistically representative of schools and computer science students throughout the respective nations.

Given the typical CS student body, this basically means Indian, Chinese, and Russian students studying at US universities performed better than those studying at Indian, Chinese, and Russian universities...

Either because US universities teach better or because the best students come to the US for their education.

Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#26

Post by gyc »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #21
harias wrote: post #17

> Once the students were selected, the researchers then administered the Major Field Test in Computer Science, an exam that was developed by the U.S. Educational Testing Service and is regularly updated. There is a huge variation among countries in how subjects are taught and tested. I would like to add that many of my peers have resorted to streamlining for whiteboard interviews, and unsurprisingly, they end up with…

There is also huge variation within countries. The curriculum is basically up to each college or university in the US. I never took this test.

I would assume ABET certified programs would have certain standards or requirements regarding he schools’ curriculums.

Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#27

Post by NullPrefix »

harias wrote: post #17

> Once the students were selected, the researchers then administered the Major Field Test in Computer Science, an exam that was developed by the U.S. Educational Testing Service and is regularly updated. There is a huge variation among countries in how subjects are taught and tested. I would like to add that many of my peers have resorted to streamlining for whiteboard interviews, and unsurprisingly, they end up with…

Students from U.S. educational system are doing beter in an

>exam that was developed by the U.S. Educational Testing Service

Who could have guessed that?

Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#28

Post by sandGorgon »

witcherchaos wrote: post #23

> When it comes to computer science skills, U.S. students approaching graduation have a significant advantage over their peers in China, India, and Russia. There are a few explanations for this 1.) Programming is an English skillset, which the native English-speaking countries have an advantage. Out of the native English speaking countries (US, England, Canada, Australia, and others), US has the biggest economy, the…

I don't think so. I'm specifically referring to India, which is all English. All education in India happens in English - it is our primary official language.

I think the difference is in the teachers. This difference is most likely originating because of the education given in univs by good professors.

Everyone has access to the online courses/MOOC

Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#29

Post by mywittyname »

I'm curious to see how skills hold up in the era of "every child must code."

I believe that a healthy amount of CS/CE students get into the field due to existing (strong) interest in the field. This is probably especially true of people graduating during the outsourcing era (2000ish-2012), when enrollment plunged due to fears that there would be few software engineering jobs left in the US.

I'd be surprised if people in it for the money rather than interest will perform as well. If parents start pushing their children into the field because it pays well, then schools may lower standards in order to increase graduation rates, thus flooding the market with unemployable people (see: India).

Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#30

Post by umvi »

sandGorgon wrote: post #22

Here's a question from the other side - what are good courses for people from these countries to study so that they become more skilled ? Im assuming that most of the Coursera/udacity/etc combo is ineffective, because the students from other countries must already be consuming them. So the difference is clearly originating from college level courses. Should everyone just do Abelson and Sussman + Knuth and call it a d…

> what are good courses for people from these countries to study so that they become more skilled ?

Just my opinion, but more doing, less "learning". I've interviewed dozens of Indian candidates at my company, and I've noticed a huge problem: a good 50-60% of them know the jargon and theory, but if you try to probe deeper they don't know what any of it means.

It reminded me strongly of Feynman's account of the Brazilian education system[1]

Basically, I think serious students need to actually build stuff and gain a deep intuition of the concepts they are learning. There seems to be far too much rote memorization of CS concepts and jargon without deep understanding of the why and the how.

[1] http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education

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