Yale Computer Science Dept overworked, understaffed • Hacker News Board

Re: Yale Computer Science Dept overworked, understaffed

#31

Post by cmbaus » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 6:30 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #30

cmbaus wrote: post #27

This might be a concerning trend if you are a working programmer. Currently labor is tight, but it seems in a few years the schools will be cranking out huge numbers of CS majors. If past cycles are an indication, this might coincide with decreased demand. Look what has happened in the legal field. There is a glut of lawyers currently on the market.

Law has transformed into the liberal arts degree of the current age. Almost nobody actually goes on to law; they go on to management or other analysis/talk careers. Edit: It occurs to me that I've caused downvotable confusion because law degrees in the USA are quite different from law degrees in Australia (where I studied law). In the USA law is a postgraduate degree. Here it is an undergraduate degree. Australian ci…

That might be becoming the case as jobs in the field dry up, but I know plenty of lawyers who went to law school to become lawyers. It is hard to justify the cost of a law degree for general education.

Re: Yale Computer Science Dept overworked, understaffed

#32

Post by benesch » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 6:34 AM UTC

GauntletWizard wrote: post #17

simonsarris wrote: post #4

Ugh this sounds familiar. Back in 2008-2010 I was one of two sitting students on the Computer Science curriculum committee at Rensselaer Polytechnic University (RPI). Three topics were always present: 1. What do we do about kids who come in knowing inadequate math and how does this keep happening? 2. Should we consider switching out C/C++ as the default for Java as the default. (The answer to this was almost always n…

As much as my life has gone great, I really wonder what would've happened if I'd gone to RPI rather than RIT.

Rochester is a tough place to go to college, but Troy is even worse. I wouldn't second guess it.

I grew up in Rochester and only recently began to appreciate it; curious to hear what your opinion is.

Re: Yale Computer Science Dept overworked, understaffed

#33

Post by fusiongyro » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 6:35 AM UTC

wmf wrote: post #21

nn2 wrote: post #20

But they've been increasing tuition like crazy too right? ~4-6% every 3 years according to http://oir.yale.edu/node/108/attachment Apparently that gets spent on all kinds of things, just not the actual education the students need. At >30k a year you could really expect that they would hire enough real teachers.

The lack of professors may also be caused by the whole "world-class researcher" fetish. You don't need ninja rockstars to teach intro CS.

It seems strange to me that schools can have folks with titles like "Dean of Community Outreach" but they feel compelled to wring cutting-edge research and excellent teaching out of the same people. I'd like to see the proof that world-class teachers and world-class researchers are the exact same set.

Re: Yale Computer Science Dept overworked, understaffed

#34

Post by turing » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 6:42 AM UTC

I was in the the AI class mentioned in the article, and I can say the results were somewhat disastrous. The early problem sets were trivially easy to facilitate quick grading (e.g., creating truth tables for propositional logic statements, filling in two variable names in pseudo-code for a search algorithm), while later problem sets had enough errors to make completing them difficult or impossible. Incorrect and conflicting information was regularly given out at office hours, assignments and tests were graded incredibly slowly and rarely returned, and the professor and T.A. were almost never on the same page. I understand the difficulty of the situation for the professor and T.A., but as a student I often felt I was wasting my time.

Re: Yale Computer Science Dept overworked, understaffed

#35

Post by MojoJolo » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 6:44 AM UTC

I bet it's a misunderstanding of what Computer Science really is. In my opinion, many youngsters or people that's not in the tech world think Computer Science as just programming, or developing a website. I have an experience on this because my parents are forcing me to develop a website in which I don't like and they reacted with "what is your education for?"

But what they don't realized is that Computer Science is more than developing a website or programming. CS deals with math, algorithms, and such words that they haven't heard before. Automata, discrete math, pumping lemma. Computer Science is much harder than they thought. With this, many students in my university shift to another course because they can't handle CS. Too many students are enrolling CS becase they think it is the trend. They think it is the right course to learn how to develop website, how to create something like Facebook, how to develop an app, how to develop something like Instagram, or even how to create a game (http://blog.jpbalb.in/post/16048908922/game-programming-anyo...)! Yes they can learn them through CS, but if that's just what they want, they can just go to the internet and do a Google search. Because again, CS is more than just that.

Finally, I think it's not the lack of staff, but the lot of students. Give those students few years in Computer Science, and I'm pretty sure those "lot" will be "few".

Re: Yale Computer Science Dept overworked, understaffed

#36

Post by kombinatorics » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 6:45 AM UTC

ugh, seems like everyone is doing a cs major now a days. kind of diminishes the value of the degree, sort of like a business degree aha.

Re: Yale Computer Science Dept overworked, understaffed

#37

Post by argonaut » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 6:52 AM UTC

MojoJolo wrote: post #35

I bet it's a misunderstanding of what Computer Science really is. In my opinion, many youngsters or people that's not in the tech world think Computer Science as just programming, or developing a website. I have an experience on this because my parents are forcing me to develop a website in which I don't like and they reacted with "what is your education for?" But what they don't realized is that Computer Science is…

Our of curiosity, why are your parents forcing you to develop a website? (And, tangentially, is there a reason you can't say no?)

EDIT (reply to below): You said "my parents are forcing me to develop a website," which makes me think your parents are still forcing you to make a website, right now. That was what was confusing to me...

Re: Yale Computer Science Dept overworked, understaffed

#38

Post by javert » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 6:54 AM UTC

MojoJolo wrote: post #35

I bet it's a misunderstanding of what Computer Science really is. In my opinion, many youngsters or people that's not in the tech world think Computer Science as just programming, or developing a website. I have an experience on this because my parents are forcing me to develop a website in which I don't like and they reacted with "what is your education for?" But what they don't realized is that Computer Science is…

A computer science curriculum is the right background for a professional software engineer. A smart and dedicated person may be able to self-teach that background, but not by "just doing a Google search."

Re: Yale Computer Science Dept overworked, understaffed

#39

Post by MojoJolo » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 6:55 AM UTC

argonaut wrote: post #37

MojoJolo wrote: post #35

I bet it's a misunderstanding of what Computer Science really is. In my opinion, many youngsters or people that's not in the tech world think Computer Science as just programming, or developing a website. I have an experience on this because my parents are forcing me to develop a website in which I don't like and they reacted with "what is your education for?" But what they don't realized is that Computer Science is…

Our of curiosity, why are your parents forcing you to develop a website? (And, tangentially, is there a reason you can't say no?) EDIT (reply to below): You said "my parents are forcing me to develop a website," which makes me think your parents are still forcing you to make a website, right now. That was what was confusing to me...

I'm always saying no. But they are always asking because they think it's the right job for me. It's because of their misconception of being a Computer Science == Website Developer (Wordpress, HTML, CSS)

Re: Yale Computer Science Dept overworked, understaffed

#40

Post by timtadh » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 6:58 AM UTC

DeepDuh wrote: post #6

simonsarris wrote: post #4

Ugh this sounds familiar. Back in 2008-2010 I was one of two sitting students on the Computer Science curriculum committee at Rensselaer Polytechnic University (RPI). Three topics were always present: 1. What do we do about kids who come in knowing inadequate math and how does this keep happening? 2. Should we consider switching out C/C++ as the default for Java as the default. (The answer to this was almost always n…

Maybe part of the problem is the misnomer of the whole field itself. CS is not really science, it's math. It's about tools that every professional and scientist will later need. And as such, I'd argue that teaching is actually more important than research. Of course, these tools need to be researched and developed as well, but more importantly do we need very capable teachers in order for people to build their founda…

No we do science too. Math is a fundamental part of lots of CS branches but we also do straight up science (with the whole research question, hypothesis, experiment, evaluate cycle).