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New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

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Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#51

Post by eternalban »

sudonim wrote: post #37
jrockway wrote: post #8

I'm not sure it's a great idea to get so focused at such an early age. There's a lot to learn about the world when you're 14, and it might be good to explore a wide range of topics. (I personally took most of my "real" classes in high school, so by the time I got to college, I had an idea of what I wanted to do. After going to college for a year, I realized my needs would not be met in that way. But deciding at 20 is…

From the article: "Unlike traditional vocational schools, this new school will have a rigorous academic component and will prepare students for college" You're going to the school because you want to learn to code, but it's not just coding.

"vocational school":

I guess it is official now: IT programmers are the blue collar workers of the digital age. Nothing against hard working men and women regardless of the color of the[ir] collar, but software is a mind product and this disparages the true measure and worth of [what] we do as software engineers.

[edit]

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#52

Post by bri3d »

This is awesome, and I would have loved to go to a school like this.

However, I wonder if the school will become a place for people who are passionate about software to expand their coding talent at an early age, or if it'll become a place for kids whose parents want them to make money later in life to slog their way through a curriculum. It seems like there's a mixture of both types even in college CS programs, and one kind is a lot more pleasurable to learn with (as well as a lot more useful) than the other.

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#54

Post by tomjen3 »

mjwalshe wrote: post #21
grifaton wrote: post #2

Could anything like this ever happen in the UK?

Probaly not they wouldnt get 5 good GSCES which have to include english so school would be put in special needs and the head and 80% of the staff woudl be fired. And a "technical" school getting anyone into oxbridge mm that will be the day.

Does Oxbridge really matter, anymore? I mean for those of us who aren't planing on becoming the next PM.

Similarly I am sure Eton (which seems to be one of the most popular ways into Oxbridge) provides a very good education, but I am also certain that it is almost impossible to pay that much for most people.

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#55

Post by rdouble »

seer wrote: post #38

I am actually astonished that this is the first time something like this is tried in the US. And I also don't understand the negative comments here in HN - most of you guys probably had a passion for computers at even earlier age and would have enjoyed this kind of school greatly. Here In the Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria) this is long established practice - we have loosely specialized schools and students decide wh…

It is not the first time, there are dozens of specialized schools in NYC alone. There are thousands of specialized schools across the country. Arts, sciences, sports, you name it.

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#56

Post by 32ftpersecond »

darien wrote: post #45
seer wrote: post #38

I am actually astonished that this is the first time something like this is tried in the US. And I also don't understand the negative comments here in HN - most of you guys probably had a passion for computers at even earlier age and would have enjoyed this kind of school greatly. Here In the Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria) this is long established practice - we have loosely specialized schools and students decide wh…

Specialized High Schools already exist in NYC. I attended Murry Bertraum for Business Careers (in downtown manhattan) and took computer science electives in QBASIC, Fortran, and Java. This was in 2004 - when obviously Qbasic and Fortran had nothing to do with the internet - but that's the education system for you. There is also Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech and Bronx Science.

Stuy High alumnus here ('04). Applications to the Stuy, BK Tech and BX Sci are more rigorous than most college applications - considering this high school is not basing entrance acceptance on GPA/Attendance, what could they possibly be using as an acceptance metric? While it might be good for a few kids who believe (or are told to believe) that Comp Sci is the only way to a six figure job and a life of happiness, something tells me the other aspects of High School might be largely deficient and ultimately, dare I say, self destructive.

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#57

Post by YuriNiyazov »

I went to Stuyvesant HS 10 years ago, and I took all the CS classes that the school had offered from Mr. Zamansky ("Z", as we affectionately call him), and can add some more specific information as to why this was necessary.

Stuyvesant opened in the beginning of the 20th century, and there are some vestigial components that should've been amputated long ago: in addition to the standard math, science, language (English and foreign), gym requirements, it has some requirements that truly made it historically a technical vocational school. To wit: 1 year of technical drafting (1 semester of drawing mechanical designs on paper, 1 semester of CAD), and 1.5 years of technical shop (1 semester of single-period shop, and 1 semester of double-period shop). By technical shop I mean the following: you get to choose two of ceramics, woodworking, metalworking (aka jewelry-making), electronics (aka computer tech), photography and video editing.

It's worth repeating: taking drafting and shop is required to graduate. By and large, these classes are not popular with students at all, the most obvious reason being "why the hell do we need to know this outdated shit? If someone likes it, they can take it as an elective."

Over the years, Z developed an ass-kicking CS curriculum: Intro to CS, AP CS (1 year), Systems/Network Programming, Graphics, and Independent Research. They are extraordinarily popular with the students, partially because Z is a great teacher, and partially because of the support of the previous alumni who would regularly take junior and senior-level college classes in their freshman college year thanks to that curriculum.

It's worth pointing out that none of the CS classes qualify for any graduation requirement. If you take them, you are taking them on your own time because you are interested. Aside from the knowledge itself, there's no carrot, even though the rest of the world is pointedly indicating that we need more software engineers and less metalworkers.

Now, Z goes to the current school administration and says "hey, can we add CS as an option to fulfill some graduation requirements?" and for 10 years straight (not kidding) the response he was getting was a consistent "GFY". Welcome to the NYC public school bureaucracy and people defending their own turf. It's not even that he asked anything outrageous. He didn't say "Hey, can we get rid of drafting and shop?". He said "Can we give our students more choice as to what is required to graduate?"

So, about two years ago Z decided to try a different avenue - working within the structure of Stuyvesant was not feasible, so he might as well go outside of it. Someone I know connected him to Fred Wilson, they chatted, and the rest is what you see in front of you. None of this would've happened if the Stuy HS administration had a few less heads up their asses.

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#58

Post by serge2k »

eternalban wrote: post #51
sudonim wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: "Unlike traditional vocational schools, this new school will have a rigorous academic component and will prepare students for college" You're going to the school because you want to learn to code, but it's not just coding.

"vocational school": I guess it is official now: IT programmers are the blue collar workers of the digital age. Nothing against hard working men and women regardless of the color of the[ir] collar, but software is a mind product and this disparages the true measure and worth of [what] we do as software engineers. [ edit ]

For a while now I've been thinking that there should be a divide between software engineers, programmers, and computer scientists. Software engineers should be considered the people who go out and design a system, who are the primary create force and technical experts. Programmers should be people who implement.

Computer Scientists should be (mainly) scientists.

I see a lot of people who I have gone through school with enjoy the first 2 years where it's mostly practical work. Then they hit the last 2 years where it comes down to theory and they struggle with it.

A 2 year vocational school that focuses on learning a couple of languages, data structures, and gives a few options for specializing a bit sounds like a good idea to me. Then you can software engineering which is focused entirely on the actually engineering of a system.

In a seperate but equal sort of setup you can have more theoretical CS.

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#59

Post by 32ftpersecond »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #46
yummyfajitas wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare unemployment rates in geography, philosophy and foreign languages. We need more CS people. We don't need more philosophers. (Though admittedly, knowledge of English or German might be very useful if you are coming from Romania.)

> We don't need more philosophers. Agreed but imagine how boring CS would be if people were ignorant of all of those other subjects.

> We don't need more philosophers.

Disagree. There would be no computer science without philosophy (but not the other way around).

> ...imagine how boring CS would be if people were ignorant of all of those other subjects.

If we eliminate philosophy from our curriculum, et cetera, I poise that kids entering high school this year will be obsolete by the time they have graduated. Because CS without philosophy is really just machine learning, right?

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#60

Post by jamesmanning »

Will they record/share the videos/lectures/notes?

It seems like it could also be a boon to many others if they can take the efforts of this school and share them out, similar to OCW at MIT, or Stanford, or even Khan Academy.

I think it would be particularly interesting because the other material out there tends to target either too high (the university material is at a university level, of course) or it doesn't have the same kind of feedback as what the students will be able to give here.

While Joel doesn't want it to just be superstars, it seems fairly likely that a good number of the kids would be the kind that already wrote their first OS and compiler before they attend, so I'm wondering if there will be a similar 'level divide' as what's seen in industry, and if so, what that ends up doing to the ones below that Mendoza line...

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