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

Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

docs.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 146 posts

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#131

Post by specialist »

npunt wrote: post #39

Given the power tech has over the daily experiences of billions and how many questions of values and ethics it is now directly confronting in society, I'm a little surprised there's just one ethics course and one law course that cover these subjects, and they're electives [1]. We all know much of the learning in engineering is on the job anyways, so the role of formal education is less about particular job skills and…

Ditto moral philosophy, civics, epistemology, logic. The earlier, the better.

Started binging History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps during the apocalypse. So grumpy that I missed all this stuff. If nothing else, I would have learned that most of our debates in society are truly ancient, maybe save myself some angst.

https://historyofphilosophy.net/all-episodes

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#132

Post by joelfolksy »

tsss wrote: post #127

Looks like something you'd find at some no-name technical college in Germany and not a top university. Where's the linear algebra, multivariate calculus, real analysis, differential equations, graph theory, abstract algebra, numerical mathematics, stochastics, etc.? Those are all required courses in my degree with additional options in complex analysis, functional analysis, topology, measure theory and so on. How are…

Math classes are taught by the Math department.

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#133

Post by chris11 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #101
sdevonoes wrote: post #91

Looks really good. I still remember the curriculum of my CS degree in Europe: - first year: Mathematics I, Mathematics II, Mathematics III, Electronics I, Electronics II, Digital Circuits, Statistics I, Physics I. The rest was about software and programming (at least!) - second year: Mathematics IV, Statistics II, Physics II. The rest was about software and programming (nice!) - third year: software and programming o…

That looks like a CompEng degree, something of a mix of CS and EE content. The physics and digital circuits courses don't seem very typical of pure CS degrees.

A lower lever digital circuits and physics class both seem common in CS degrees. Digital circuits is foundational to how computers work. I wouldn't expect required classes after the into ones though.

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#134

Post by billti »

jjice wrote: post #123

> Practical Unix I hope this is a required course. I wish it was a freshman year course for me. I had to pick Unix up on my own (and fell in love while doing so), but a lot of my classmates didn't, and it made group work in the future a bit of a pain. Not that it is there fault, but it would have been nice to lay down an OS framework for students instead of focusing solely on writing algorithms and leaving what SSH i…

Not to be nit-picky, but I wonder if it shouldn't be "Practical Linux"? How many people work with Unix vs Linux these days? I would guess amongst the graduate demographic Linux is also probably a more recognizable and attractive term than Unix.

On the general point though, I totally agree. Even after nearly 30 years of working on Windows, learning Linux has been one of the best investments I've made over the past decade. No matter what OS you run locally, doing anything with the cloud, Android, Docker, etc. means understanding the basics of Linux.

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#135

Post by karpierz »

billti wrote: post #134
jjice wrote: post #123

> Practical Unix I hope this is a required course. I wish it was a freshman year course for me. I had to pick Unix up on my own (and fell in love while doing so), but a lot of my classmates didn't, and it made group work in the future a bit of a pain. Not that it is there fault, but it would have been nice to lay down an OS framework for students instead of focusing solely on writing algorithms and leaving what SSH i…

Not to be nit-picky, but I wonder if it shouldn't be "Practical Linux"? How many people work with Unix vs Linux these days? I would guess amongst the graduate demographic Linux is also probably a more recognizable and attractive term than Unix. On the general point though, I totally agree. Even after nearly 30 years of working on Windows, learning Linux has been one of the best investments I've made over the past dec…

In my (limited) experience, the majority of engineers in the valley end up working on MacBooks, so Unix would be the lowest common denominator.

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#138

Post by jlos »

macromagnon wrote: post #27
jlos wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best parts of education is not primarily the material you remember. It's the effect on your thinking patterns as a result of studying and the familiarity with a school of thought. For example, I studied Greek before software engineering. I've forgotten quite a bit, but theres an entirely different set of thought processes I have access to while doing software engineering because of it.

Can you expand a bit on how Greek helps? Are you talking about Ancient Greek? I know a few latin derived languages but I never taught about the relation to computer languages.

Yes, ancient greek. And I think the connections are mostly indirect. In interpreting literature in another language (Latin, Greek, etc) you spend time analyzing syntax and grammar looking for the idea or intention. Programming is very different, but code does still express and idea or intention.

Also, really helps with reading and written communication.

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#139

Post by jlos »

Supermancho wrote: post #48
jlos wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best parts of education is not primarily the material you remember. It's the effect on your thinking patterns as a result of studying and the familiarity with a school of thought. For example, I studied Greek before software engineering. I've forgotten quite a bit, but theres an entirely different set of thought processes I have access to while doing software engineering because of it.

> It's the effect on your thinking patterns as a result of studying I've heard this over and over again, but I don't believe there's a shred of evidence for it.

Every discipline (academic, artistic, practical, even athletic) deal with certain types of problems and have develop their own heuristics for dealing with those problems. And because most discipline involve not a single skill but a set of skills, some disciplines will have skill overlap.

If you play music, run your own business, study (or practice) engineering, or become involved in an academic discipline you develop a set of skills you can carry to other domains. Don't really see how the dispute here

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#140

Post by sgt101 »

imtringued wrote: post #108
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly believe it's a rationalization for having to spend so much time studying.

Pretty much. jlos is claiming that college educated people have a monopoly on certain thinking patterns, isn't that extremely elitist?

I think it depends on what you think education is : if you believe that education is going to an elite university then I think it is elitist. If you think education is being exposed to a wide range of ideas and perspectives - a range beyond which you would have found by yourself - then I don't think it is. A kind Aunt with three bookshelves and an open mind can give you an education that you couldn't buy. Would that make you part of the elite? It would be difficult - it could take years - but it's not elitist.
Post reply on HN