21–30 of 32 posts
(Personally, I think that the notion of a core curriculum is mistaken,, but so is much of public education, and I don't know which small concrete steps would be best to move it forward.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with graduates in the Western world is: there are too many of us already. Even in the "hard" disciplines of science and engineering, there are too few jobs. How many physics graduates go on to become full-time physicists? How many of all graduates go onto jobs where they need what they learnt in undergrad? Not many. Meanwhile, try finding a plumber or an electrician... Our physical infrastructure is quite…
Do you have any numbers or stats on this? I haven't heard that theory before. I just watched a video interview with Bill Gates yesterday and he said that we're now behind in software. The entire robotics industry (according to Gates) is behind not because of hardware, but because we don't have the software. He went on to say that software will continue to be a field where we need even more people involved, where we h…
"Into the Eye of the Storm -- Assessing the Evidence on Science and Engineering Education, Quality, and Workforce Demand"
http://www.urban.org/publications/411562.html
Abstract:
"Recent policy reports claim the United States is falling behind other nations in science and math education and graduating insufficient numbers of scientists and engineers. Review of the evidence and analysis of actual graduation rates and workforce needs does not find support for these claims. U.S. student performance rankings are comparable to other leading nations and colleges graduate far more scientists and engineers than are hired each year. Instead, the evidence suggests targeted education improvements are needed for the lowest performers and demand-side factors may be insufficient to attract qualified college graduates."
I have personal experience with this. I'm a highschooler (junior now), and I took an intro Java class freshman year, AP Comp Sci soph year, and I'm TAing a Java class right now. There is very little learning of Java going on in any of those classes. Part of it is that the teacher doesn't make it a very hard class, but also even among the people who try and do all of the assignments the majority just don't get it. The…
I've taught basic programming to a lot of people, and I find that the problem is on the other side:
Teaching programming is something that not everyone understands, and learning from those who just don't understand teaching programming is a monumental task.
Students come in with different views of the world - some of them have the metaphorical analogies in place to understand scope and curly brackets as "boundaries" or "bags", others don't. Explain it to them.
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Here are stats on math. In short: 1157 PhDs given out, and 761 have academic positions (the main place to get a job as a mathematician). Plus, a reasonable fraction of the academic positions are purely teaching. http://www.ams.org/employment/2007Survey-DG.pdf I know physics is similar.
Here are stats on math. In short: 1157 PhDs given out, and 761 have academic positions (the main place to get a job as a mathematician). Actuaries, quant finance (it's not dead yet), crypto-related programming, logistics... there are lots of non-academic jobs (most of which pay better than all but the best academic appointments). It may be the case that giving up four years of earnings is not worth it from a purely p…
A math PhD in an actuarial setting is out of place, like a CD grad working at Geek Squad (a hypothetical Geek Squad with pay comparable to programming).
I have personal experience with this. I'm a highschooler (junior now), and I took an intro Java class freshman year, AP Comp Sci soph year, and I'm TAing a Java class right now. There is very little learning of Java going on in any of those classes. Part of it is that the teacher doesn't make it a very hard class, but also even among the people who try and do all of the assignments the majority just don't get it. The…
Programming is something that not everyone understands, and teaching those that just don't understand programming is a monumental task. I've taught basic programming to a lot of people, and I find that the problem is on the other side: Teaching programming is something that not everyone understands, and learning from those who just don't understand teaching programming is a monumental task. Students come in with diff…
class HelloWorld {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello, world!");
}
}
If you want to teach people you've got to start from the freedom of using a suitable language, which means to all practical purposes LOGO, BASIC or Scheme.
10 PRINT "HELLO, WORLD!"
(display "Hello, world!")I have personal experience with this. I'm a highschooler (junior now), and I took an intro Java class freshman year, AP Comp Sci soph year, and I'm TAing a Java class right now. There is very little learning of Java going on in any of those classes. Part of it is that the teacher doesn't make it a very hard class, but also even among the people who try and do all of the assignments the majority just don't get it. The…
Programming is something that not everyone understands, and teaching those that just don't understand programming is a monumental task. I've taught basic programming to a lot of people, and I find that the problem is on the other side: Teaching programming is something that not everyone understands, and learning from those who just don't understand teaching programming is a monumental task. Students come in with diff…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here are stats on math. In short: 1157 PhDs given out, and 761 have academic positions (the main place to get a job as a mathematician). Plus, a reasonable fraction of the academic positions are purely teaching. http://www.ams.org/employment/2007Survey-DG.pdf I know physics is similar.
Here are stats on math. In short: 1157 PhDs given out, and 761 have academic positions (the main place to get a job as a mathematician). Actuaries, quant finance (it's not dead yet), crypto-related programming, logistics... there are lots of non-academic jobs (most of which pay better than all but the best academic appointments). It may be the case that giving up four years of earnings is not worth it from a purely p…
While having the degree helps you get the job ("omfg you have a PhD you must be so smart!"), it isn't necessary. The number of jobs where PhD level mathematical knowledge is necessary is actually quite small. Producing more PhDs will probably not be as helpful jmtame seems to think.
First off, I love ACM as an organization (not to say I get along with all of the members of our chapter). I volunteer time every year at our conference. And I like education, sort of. But it's bad enough that drop out rates are >50% for engineers in the US. You think you're going to figure out how to teach it to younger students if you can't even understand why half of everyone loses interest in higher education? I h…
You seriously need to appreciate the distinction between CS and coding. Let me break it down: computer science is really difficult. It's not the CS jobs that go to India. It's the coding jobs. Also, here's something you many not know. K-12 CS education in India is actually pretty good. My school started computer science in the fifth grade. Internalizing the Turing machine (even if it is not formally explained) at tha…
The complaint I'm making is one that has been voiced already by many universities, including my own (Illinois.edu). It's the reason schools like Olin College are getting built and considered by Newsweek and Kaplan as "one of America's next Ivy League schools." It has nothing to do with computer science being difficult, it's because it's not interesting. This isn't about how to distinguish CS from coding, it's about fixing the outdated curriculum from the Cold War when we basically said "forget drawing and practice in the Computer Science and Engineering degrees, we're strictly math science and analysis now."
Java and C/C++ development is what most CS students will end up doing (coding). Those are the people I'm talking about; I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. If you think success is all about bribery, you (as defined by Michael Arrington) have a losing attitude and have no place in Silicon Valley. Not my words, but Mr. Arrington's. And I for one side with him in saying that hard work produces more results than flattery.
My point is this: nobody wants to learn coding with zero application. I'm saying that higher education doesn't have it right because 50% of students dropout, so you're going to try and move it into k-12 and expect better results? How on earth do you propose to do that exactly?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seriously need to appreciate the distinction between CS and coding. Let me break it down: computer science is really difficult. It's not the CS jobs that go to India. It's the coding jobs. Also, here's something you many not know. K-12 CS education in India is actually pretty good. My school started computer science in the fifth grade. Internalizing the Turing machine (even if it is not formally explained) at tha…
Computer Science is a discipline applied to something, such as doing coding at a startup. Most CS students turn out to be coders. Not many people, for example, are going to go off and write new compilers and program in MIPS assembly. Most will end up doing the typical Java and C/C++ development stuff. My roommate for example doesn't have any interest in AI or machine learning or data mining (although I'm not necessar…
The focal point of the argument seems to be whether CS "education" and "vocational training" should be separated.
P.S. Nice to see another UIUC student. I've been accepted there and would possibly end up enrolling unless I get into some long shot universities. How is the scene there?
Maybe it was just an elective. But my high school did offer 2 different "computer science" classes. The basic one was pretty much intro, and taught Visual Basic. And then had an advanced class where they taught us Visual C++. Basic stuff forms, calculations(accounting stuff) and then for final had a project to make a game.
Personally I don't think they need to teach it as a core requirement...CS is a class for the geeks, do you really want people who barely pass basic Algebra, to start wrapping their minds around C++? Especially when they have 6 other classes to stretch their mind.