Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ranking of CS departments based on theory papers

projects.csail.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 54 posts

Re: Ranking of CS departments based on theory papers

#21

Post by seanmcdirmid »

javert wrote: post #18
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signals are hard to come by in acedemic CS.

There are no signals of value under socialism. It's a well-known problem in economics. Yes, academic CS is socialism---I am a CS grad student, I know. CS academics are just sucking the public teets instead of trading value for value.

I'm an ex-CS grad student; they even gave me a piece of paper called a PhD for my trouble.

Academics isn't socialism. There is definitely an aristocracy in there and whether your work is accepted (not just published, but appreciated) or not depends on how you fit into that. The aristocracy serves on grant and program committees; yes they direct money from the state, but that is where the socialism ends and the rat race begins.

You'll learn that eventually :)

Re: Ranking of CS departments based on theory papers

#22

Post by Tloewald »

javert wrote: post #18
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signals are hard to come by in acedemic CS.

There are no signals of value under socialism. It's a well-known problem in economics. Yes, academic CS is socialism---I am a CS grad student, I know. CS academics are just sucking the public teets instead of trading value for value.

Sounds like as a CS person you've peripherally processed politic science and come up with binary answers to complex ill-posed questions. Academia is not socialism and even communism is not completely lacking in value signals (otherwise it wouldn't be able to deliver excellent medical care, for example).

If you're so convinced academia has no value signals it seems rather foolish (or at minimum hypocritical) of you to pursue academic credentials.

Re: Ranking of CS departments based on theory papers

#23

Post by WhitneyLand »

Is it the case almost none offer a degree online? Regardless of how effective online courses become I worry most top tier schools will always opt out to try and avoid diluting the brand. Scarcity and exclusivity use to be a resource problem that resulted in prestige. Now it seems the prestige must be artificially maintained by limiting the supply to anyone not happy with just a certificate.

Re: Ranking of CS departments based on theory papers

#24

Post by superuser2 »

tptacek wrote: post #3

It is hard for me to believe that uchicago.edu should outrank illinois.edu. Illinois.edu is a famous top-tier CS program; uchicago.edu is a top-tier university with a relatively small CS program.

UChicago undergrad is ranked #4 in the United States. It's not that surprising.

Re: Ranking of CS departments based on theory papers

#25

Post by me2i81 »

shrig94 wrote: post #17
measureit wrote: post #11

It should be amusing that the two professors that developed this system, Saeed and Mohammad, are both at MIT and University of Maryland, and this ranking bumps UMD up from like #17 in CS to #7. Quite handy...

UMD is a state university--and basically, if you're not UCB, imo state schools suffer from the whole "ivy bias" that society tends to have.

I'm not sure that's really true in CS. If you're not UCB, Stanford, CMU, or MIT, you're not a "top" CS dept whether public or private. Georgia Tech, U of Washington, UC San Diego, UIUC, UCLA, UT Austin are all credibly somewhere in the top 20.

Re: Ranking of CS departments based on theory papers

#26

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Tloewald wrote: post #22
javert wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no signals of value under socialism. It's a well-known problem in economics. Yes, academic CS is socialism---I am a CS grad student, I know. CS academics are just sucking the public teets instead of trading value for value.

Sounds like as a CS person you've peripherally processed politic science and come up with binary answers to complex ill-posed questions. Academia is not socialism and even communism is not completely lacking in value signals (otherwise it wouldn't be able to deliver excellent medical care, for example). If you're so convinced academia has no value signals it seems rather foolish (or at minimum hypocritical) of you to…

Just to be clear, just because something isn't optimal doesn't mean its not worth being a part of. You can be critical and not leave at the same time. Actually, the ones who stay are the critical ones who have hopes (founded or not) that the system can improve.

Re: Ranking of CS departments based on theory papers

#27

Post by raincom »

superuser2 wrote: post #24
tptacek wrote: post #3

It is hard for me to believe that uchicago.edu should outrank illinois.edu. Illinois.edu is a famous top-tier CS program; uchicago.edu is a top-tier university with a relatively small CS program.

UChicago undergrad is ranked #4 in the United States. It's not that surprising.

Undergrand ranking is different from PhD. For instance, yale undergrad >> UCBerkely; however, UCBerkely PhD >>> yale phd program.

Re: Ranking of CS departments based on theory papers

#28

Post by cynicalkane »

tptacek wrote: post #3

It is hard for me to believe that uchicago.edu should outrank illinois.edu. Illinois.edu is a famous top-tier CS program; uchicago.edu is a top-tier university with a relatively small CS program.

At U Chicago many people believe in studying only academic theory. The attitude is that if you're smart enough, you can learn everything practical in industry... if you're one of those unworthy people who wants to go into industry. This attitude affects undergraduates the most, but permeates the whole academic atmosphere. It's not unexpected that a top-tier school that focuses only on academia would outperform in producing academic papers.

Regarding undergraduate and masters' education, U Chicago degrees have top-tier status despite much lower selectivity than comparable schools, so maybe that attitude is worth something.

Re: Ranking of CS departments based on theory papers

#29

Post by ghc »

me2i81 wrote: post #25
shrig94 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UMD is a state university--and basically, if you're not UCB, imo state schools suffer from the whole "ivy bias" that society tends to have.

I'm not sure that's really true in CS. If you're not UCB, Stanford, CMU, or MIT, you're not a "top" CS dept whether public or private. Georgia Tech, U of Washington, UC San Diego, UIUC, UCLA, UT Austin are all credibly somewhere in the top 20.

As someone who spent time at MIT and Georgia Tech, MIT may be a bit better but the difference in quality of labs, resources and faculty is pretty small, with lots of cross pollination between the schools (exe: Thad Starner jumping ship from Media Lab to GT). I don't think you could credibly call GT anything but top tier unless your only resource is Hacker News or you're focusing on one of the few sub-disciplines the College of Computing (yes CS is its own independent college, not merged with EE) doesn't have great coverage of.

Now if you combine EE+CS, I might believe you.

Post reply on HN