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Computer science enrollments soared 30% last year

computerworld.com

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Re: Computer science enrollments soared 30% last year

#21

Post by learc83 »

aortega wrote: post #17
tokenadult wrote: post #4

This reminds me of a story that I heard last summer, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4603414 later confirmed here on HN by the hiring supervisor who observed the problem, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4919749 that many CS grads, even CS grads with master's degrees, can't get through a hiring screen that includes the question, "Write a loop that displays the numbers 1 to 100." Yes, something that simple is s…

There is a huge anti-CS degree movement, specially (and not suprisingly) among people without CS degrees. The affirmation that almost 100% of grads can't write a trivial program would mean that somehow CS grads are worst at programming than a sample of random people. Which language paradigm the question required? functional? logical? imperative? according the comment, they were phone interviews, meaning you had to di…

>There is a huge anti-CS degree movement, specially (and not suprisingly) among people without CS degrees.

I used to be one of those people until I broke down and decided to finish my degree.

I think most of the people who speak out against college didn't go (or didn't finish) a STEM degree. I've seen both sides (history, and CS). Most of my previous criticism of college is applicable to history (at my institution at least), but not CS.

There are so many little holes that I've filled in that I didn't even know I had.

>The affirmation that almost 100% of grads can't write a trivial program would mean that somehow CS grads are worst at programming than a sample of random people.

You're right that something is off about that story. There is no way that someone could get through the entire program I'm going through without knowing how to write that for loop.

Re: Computer science enrollments soared 30% last year

#22

Post by gems »

shubhamjain wrote: post #10
ams6110 wrote: post #3

Anecdotally, as a part-time sysadmin at a university I've seen more than a few examples of "students" in a computer science Master's degree program who are obviously in it for the perceived job opportunities. But they don't seem to actually care about the subject. They copy and paste code from google search results and if it doesn't work they are helpless. They don't make any effort to understand what is happening or…

Whats your country? I thought that was scenario of only India.

I can say this happens with undergrads at UC Berkeley.

Re: Computer science enrollments soared 30% last year

#23

Post by yareally »

shubhamjain wrote: post #10
ams6110 wrote: post #3

Anecdotally, as a part-time sysadmin at a university I've seen more than a few examples of "students" in a computer science Master's degree program who are obviously in it for the perceived job opportunities. But they don't seem to actually care about the subject. They copy and paste code from google search results and if it doesn't work they are helpless. They don't make any effort to understand what is happening or…

Whats your country? I thought that was scenario of only India.

It applies to the United States as well from my experience of being around other students in Computer Science :).

Many of the less knowledgeable students that are not interested in the subject matter past saying they have a degree in CS, simply copy and paste code they find online or from friends without ever figuring out how it works.

Professors I have had generally say, "You can use a code snippet or library you find and you cite it, but if I ask you to explain how it works, you better be able to do so."

Re: Computer science enrollments soared 30% last year

#24

Post by dhaivatpandya »

shubhamjain wrote: post #10
ams6110 wrote: post #3

Anecdotally, as a part-time sysadmin at a university I've seen more than a few examples of "students" in a computer science Master's degree program who are obviously in it for the perceived job opportunities. But they don't seem to actually care about the subject. They copy and paste code from google search results and if it doesn't work they are helpless. They don't make any effort to understand what is happening or…

Whats your country? I thought that was scenario of only India.

It happens here, but, I think to a lesser extent.

India is just insane - 99% of people are in "IT" or "Computer Science" or "Software Engineering" solely because of the initial wave of people who made it to the United States as programmers.

Re: Computer science enrollments soared 30% last year

#25

Post by yareally »

kirinan wrote: post #11

Computer Science is a very interesting degree. Having done the program myself, you learn math you will never use* and ton of other things that can be counted as useless, however I am better for it. Calculus taught me less about how to do Calculus (I don't remember how to do an integral, but I don't get paid to do that), but it did teach me how to study properly and that grinding (hard work) really can solve some issu…

If you ever do any work in Canvas (SVG) from the bottom up, you'll end up probably using calculus somewhat for things like Bézier Curves[1]. It was one of those times I thought to myself, "I'm glad I took 4 quarters of Calculus." Knowing derivatives and such for making a game is also useful when it comes to Newton's laws and knowing acceleration is just the rate of change of velocity and velocity is the rate of change of distance.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bézier_curve

Re: Computer science enrollments soared 30% last year

#26

Post by yareally »

vitno wrote: post #5
tokenadult wrote: post #4

This reminds me of a story that I heard last summer, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4603414 later confirmed here on HN by the hiring supervisor who observed the problem, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4919749 that many CS grads, even CS grads with master's degrees, can't get through a hiring screen that includes the question, "Write a loop that displays the numbers 1 to 100." Yes, something that simple is s…

I was just the TA for a CS class. I don't know any students, even the ones who struggle the most in the Introductory CS sequence, who can't do that. I'd say even those that failed the course can probably do that...

I have a friend I've mentored through their CS degree and they're now a grader for a course. They tell me constantly about some students they have to give zeros to because their simple assignments (2nd level programming course) do not compile.

If one knows they will get zero if it does not compile (and they make this clear in the course), then I would be doing everything to remove code until it does compile and hope for some points versus none. I've seen some of the code snippets and it's just as bad as one would think. One person even wrote rude output statements when a user entered the wrong info (i.e. calling the person an "idiot" and such). Ironically, this person's code also did not compile.

Re: Computer science enrollments soared 30% last year

#27

Post by shubhamjain »

dhaivatpandya wrote: post #24
shubhamjain wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats your country? I thought that was scenario of only India.

It happens here, but, I think to a lesser extent. India is just insane - 99% of people are in "IT" or "Computer Science" or "Software Engineering" solely because of the initial wave of people who made it to the United States as programmers.

You might be true but I think people here don't really care about being "programmers". They are non-passionate idiots who just want a job that can feed a family of four.

The so called IT revolution companies promise tons of jobs for these CS grads.

Re: Computer science enrollments soared 30% last year

#28

Post by jacques_chester »

I suspect it'll be like the dotcom bubble: zillions of students signing up because they heard you can get rich this way (and by happy coincidence you don't need the high scores needed to get into law or medicine).

Eventually there's a popping noise and such folk leave the industry for sunnier pastures. The rest of us go back to being wildly unpopular and bickering amongst ourselves about the finer points of ... well, everything.

Re: Computer science enrollments soared 30% last year

#29

Post by purplelobster »

kirinan wrote: post #11

Computer Science is a very interesting degree. Having done the program myself, you learn math you will never use* and ton of other things that can be counted as useless, however I am better for it. Calculus taught me less about how to do Calculus (I don't remember how to do an integral, but I don't get paid to do that), but it did teach me how to study properly and that grinding (hard work) really can solve some issu…

I don't get this at all. I need my understanding of calculus, trig, discrete mathematics, probability/stats and especially linear algebra. Then again I do computer vision, but even building web apps (that do something non-trivial) in my spare time I end up using that knowledge. Basically, build trivial stuff (simple UIs and a RoR backend?) and you probably don't need math. For anything else, you'll be stuck without it. If you can't follow a research paper in computer science or some domain knowledge needed for the job, then you won't be able to do your job.

Re: Computer science enrollments soared 30% last year

#30

Post by suresk »

shubhamjain wrote: post #27
dhaivatpandya wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happens here, but, I think to a lesser extent. India is just insane - 99% of people are in "IT" or "Computer Science" or "Software Engineering" solely because of the initial wave of people who made it to the United States as programmers.

You might be true but I think people here don't really care about being "programmers". They are non-passionate idiots who just want a job that can feed a family of four. The so called IT revolution companies promise tons of jobs for these CS grads.

The problem with this attitude is that these same "idiots" also get called out when they follow their non-STEM passions in fields that don't have nearly the expected economic return that STEM fields so. Just watch any thread on college degrees/education.

What is a person with no interest or aptitude in STEM fields to do?

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