Live data from Hacker News

Poll: Do you have a formal CS or a general computing degree?

news.ycombinator.com

41–47 of 47 posts

Re: Poll: Do you have a formal CS or a general computing degree?

#43
I'm a year and a half away from a Software Engineering Bachelor's, which at my school is essentially a concentration of Computer Science. We do a bit less bit-twiddling (no hardware courses) and only take the first of two Programming Languages courses (so, we write an interpreter but not a compiler), and instead do more team-oriented things.

Re: Poll: Do you have a formal CS or a general computing degree?

#44
post #19

The degree I got was in Computational Science, not Computer Science. It was focused more on the principles of computation, rather than the electronic implementation of those principles. A few years after I graduated (in '96), it was renamed to Computer Science, to avoid confusing people.

You can Major in Computational Science AND Computer Science at my university. The difference? Computational Science is spercifically about scientific modeling and you have to have done upper level calculus/analysis.

Re: Poll: Do you have a formal CS or a general computing degree?

#45
post #27

As I write this, CS degree is at 103 and Self-taught is the 2nd largest at 53. For the self-taught, would there be a market for courses that cover the entire breadth of a CS degree, but slim it down to the stuff one commonly uses as a programming professional? This would be presented as a web app and as webinars, not for free, but at very low cost. (Perhaps have some sample lessons for free.) I know it's all out ther…

Ars Digita. http://aduni.org/ Lecture videos, homework pdfs.. It's a little more coherent than opencourseware due to the nature of the program. "ADU was a one-year, intensive post-baccalaureate program in Computer Science based on the undergraduate course of study at MIT."

I was thinking more along the lines of something you could do in your spare time over half a year or so, perhaps finish the thing in just a few weeks if you do it full time.

My goal isn't to replicate an entire CS degree. It's to fill in all of the vital background that directly impacts someone on the job.

Re: Poll: Do you have a formal CS or a general computing degree?

#47
For the next level of granularity, what type of work do you do ? I'm curious to see whether the c.s. folks are doing more theoretical/low level work (OS, or compiler design), or whether that's a myth. I'm B.S., M.S., Ph.D. computer science, and split my time between application and research.
Post reply on HN