Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#51

Post by Cu3PO42 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:19 PM UTC

xyst wrote: post #47

I’ll be honest. CS doesn’t teach you how to program (anybody can learn that). CS teaches you how to think critically and analyze problems. Also CS is just very difficult, especially with all of the theoretical courses. At a certain point, it becomes a test of your resolve as a person vs your ability to program.

> CS doesn’t teach you how to program (anybody can learn that). CS teaches you how to think critically and analyze problems.

And in my opinion that's perfectly fine. On the other side many jobs that are "just" programming really shouldn't require a CS degree. It should be up to the job market to come up with reasonable requirements, not the Universities to churn out graduates with a different skill set to comply with the market.

> At a certain point, it becomes a test of your resolve as a person vs your ability to program.

I feel like this sentence goes somewhat counter to what you said before. If CS isn't primarily about programming, which I agree that it isn't, why should it be a test of my ability to program? I disagree that it's merely a test of your resolve, however. Sure, you need to have resolve to complete a hard degree, but the same applies to many other subjects.

I'd much rather say it's a test of your ability to think abstractly, generalise and recognise patterns.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#52

Post by bloomer » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

username90 wrote: post #31

fredley wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the only reason I can think of for still using this interview technique.

They use it since it correlates better to later performance review scores than anything else they have tried.

The test they use to select employees correlates with their rating of employees is pretty circular. Any arbitrary test will do that.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#53

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

Antoninus wrote: post #50

I graduated in CS. The education helped me in two ways: 1. Getting an internship and then a job at a large enterprise company right after graduating. 2. About 5 years in professional software development, I was starting to be included in architecture and system design discussion meetings with key decision makers on large projects. Where my non-cs colleagues with the same skill level could not keep up with the convers…

There is absolutely nothing about modern system design that my CS degree from close to 25 years ago would have helped.

Anyone can learn proper system design by working in the field and being exposed to proper design first hand.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#54

Post by sammyh » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #26

sammyh wrote: post #16

One theory could be that people do not simply have the previous experience in CS the same way they have it from physics, biology, chemistry and math from college or even before. I for once was interested in physics, started in electrical engineering but transferred quickly to computer science just after few mandatory courses I had taken.

As I wrote elsewhere, my money would be on the opposite if anything. Yes, there are base level science courses in high school. But you can sign on as a chemistry, physics, or mechanical engineering major with very little beyond some basic aptitude and interest. At many schools, on the other hand, if you're following the CS curriculum you're starting off with topics like algorithms and effectively teaching yourself pr…

My point was perhaps more on how much you actually get exposed CS as a subject before deciding it as something you would like to pursue in the future, unrelated to actual skill or interest in it. As an oversimplified analogy, in general, would anyone consider becoming a professional musician without having being exposed to instruments or music as a creative art form i.e. something you can actually learn and do? A hypothesis would be that if CS curriculum would be added more heavily to prior education, the amount of people majoring in CS would also rise.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#55

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:44 PM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #44

jasode wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For those saying you've never been helped by your CS degree, [...] You've seriously never bothered thinking about, say, algorithmic complexity? There are lots of successful working programmers that will never need to deal with "algorithmic complexity" because "programming" encompasses a very wide spectrum of skills. I attempted to explain a rough categorization of 2 groups: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12079…

> " ...let's say a 30-year veteran of COBOL... " That would be around the era of the Intel 80486 processor. All of us cared a hell of a lot about both algorithmic and data structure efficiency back then since computers were so feeble compared to today's systems; people who didn't couldn't produce programs that functioned properly.

A 486 was more than powerful enough to run most workloads at the time even in high level languages without too much optimization. Anyone who thinks a 486 was “feeble” didn’t spend time optimizing assembly on a 1Mhz 65C02 by doing as much zero page memory access as possible to save a clock cycle.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#56

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #46

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " ...let's say a 30-year veteran of COBOL... " That would be around the era of the Intel 80486 processor. All of us cared a hell of a lot about both algorithmic and data structure efficiency back then since computers were so feeble compared to today's systems; people who didn't couldn't produce programs that functioned properly.

>the era of the Intel 80486 processor. All of us cared a hell of a lot about both algorithmic and data structure efficiency back then since computers were so feeble compared to today's systems; In the ancient 1990s, A COBOL programmer writing "green screen" terminal apps to hit a database on an IBM 360 mainframe doesn't deploy to 80486 desktop pcs. Even today, if you type "COBOL programmer" into monster.com to search…

In the 90s, I wrote C and Fortran for DEC VAX and Stratus VOS mainframes. Even then our major concerns weren’t “algorithmic complexity” and being able to reverse a binary tree on the whiteboard.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#57

Post by vibrolax » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:46 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #21

tropo wrote: post #2

People hit calculus, which is almost never needed in the job market, and they give up. Lots of math and hard science is in the major. It's not an alternative to the humanities and liberal arts and languages. It's done in addition, which just isn't fair at all. Students take two or three semesters of calculus-based physics, three semesters of calculus, two semesters of discrete math, engineering statistics, linear alg…

>People hit calculus, which is almost never needed in the job market, and they give up. This. I tried going back to school for a CS degree at 26 after 5 years of professional experience in the bay area as a developer. The CS classes are trivially easy, but I simply could not do the math. I paid for tutors. I lived on Khan Academy all day long. I tried three semesters in a row to pass calculus and just couldn't do it.…

I had to come to grips with this when I entered university 45 years ago. I went to an extremely dumbed-down high school (especially in math), and had no idea how to make myself grind my way to competence in any subject that didn't come naturally. It took over a year to learn how to learn hard (for me) things. Fortunately, I was able to join a supportive peer tutoring network that helped me overcome the holes in my education and approach to learning. The light went on when I accepted if I wanted to succeed, I would have to spend 10 good hours working a 1 hour problem set. The majority of people just don't want to make a 10x effort to learn things that frustrate them. It's especially hard to grind when you feel surrounded by people who succeed seemingly effortlessly.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#58

Post by true_religion » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:49 PM UTC

xyst wrote: post #47

I’ll be honest. CS doesn’t teach you how to program (anybody can learn that). CS teaches you how to think critically and analyze problems. Also CS is just very difficult, especially with all of the theoretical courses. At a certain point, it becomes a test of your resolve as a person vs your ability to program.

I think that’s the problem. At my university you had to pass both the theoretical and practicals in order to graduate.

They taught the theoretical, but expected you to just pick up the practical as needed. If you couldn’t learn Java in a weekend, you would fail the first coursework.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#59

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:49 PM UTC

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #23

tropo wrote: post #2

People hit calculus, which is almost never needed in the job market, and they give up. Lots of math and hard science is in the major. It's not an alternative to the humanities and liberal arts and languages. It's done in addition, which just isn't fair at all. Students take two or three semesters of calculus-based physics, three semesters of calculus, two semesters of discrete math, engineering statistics, linear alg…

> People hit calculus, which is almost never needed in the job market, and they give up. This is almost like saying, basketball players don't need to do pushups during the basketball match, so basketball training should skip push ups. The reason all engineers and scientists (computer or natural) should do calculus/differential equations/hard math courses is because these courses make students smarter. They are a form…

Most developers are “dark matter developers” despite the HN/Silicon Valley bubble. The complexity in business/enterprise software isn’t the computer science it’s understanding the business.

I find most “computer science” people don’t want to actually worry about producing products that people want nor do they want to worry about the actual business domain.

There is a reason that despite all of the “smart people” that Google has, they have consistently failed at every product that isn’t advertising.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#60

Post by imedadel » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

friendlybus wrote: post #49

ghaff wrote: post #20

One possible theory that's not mentioned in the article is that CS has probably become less approachable for those who don't enter college already somewhat versed in at least the basics. Something that is pretty much not true at all for any other STEM major. I don't do a lot of programming myself, but I took an intro Algorithms in Python MOOC from a top school a while back. I think it's fair to say that, had I no app…

It's also less approachable for those that do know more than the current class being taught. I had been privately and self taught, going to a CS degree and learning the professor's dry and mangled way of teaching client-server architecture was like derailing a train I had been building for years and trying to drag it all the way back to the start.

Did you finish though? I've got a year and a half remaining and I'm working on some side projects and thinking about not finishing the remaining year...

PS. We have to study PHP and "AI" next year here. And the final semester is an unpaid project at some local company.