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Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

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Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#41

Post by mxcrossr »

jlos wrote: post #17
latenightcoding wrote: post #14

as a self taught individual I always find it outstanding how much things they are able to pack in a CS degree and how fast people forget all this stuff after graduation. Like how many of your coworkers from top CS schools remember most of the material in their compilers, cryptography, comp bio courses? EDIT: To clarify, I'm not criticizing this approach, I think it's great to expose students to as many subfields as p…

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.

At least this is what I told the students when I was a TA for a class teaching prolog!

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#42

Post by rawtxapp »

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…

FWIW, I've never seen any value whatsoever in these ethics classes (note: I'm not saying it's not an important topic, it's extremely important).

The hypotheticals and situations presented and discussed in many of them are very similar to yearly mandatory classes we have to take at FAANG (and many other workplaces I assume) and it boils down to having a checkbox that says "I'm not stupid".

Real world ethics is much more subtle and difficult to teach imo. Like how do you do trade-offs around cost/societal issues/potential financial consequences and do it under pressure with your job on the line.

In Canada, we have the iron ring given to engineers to remind them of their duties to society, I think that serves as a good reminder even if it's symbolic.

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#43

Post by junar »

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…

CS 181W/182W is pretty close to a required class for a Stanford CS major. There are "Technology in Society" and "Writing in the Major" requirements, and taking one of those classes is the simplest way to satisfy both.

https://ughb.stanford.edu/courses/approved-courses/technolog...

https://undergrad.stanford.edu/programs/pwr/courses/writing-...

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#44

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#46

Post by npunt »

rawtxapp wrote: post #42
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…

FWIW, I've never seen any value whatsoever in these ethics classes (note: I'm not saying it's not an important topic, it's extremely important). The hypotheticals and situations presented and discussed in many of them are very similar to yearly mandatory classes we have to take at FAANG (and many other workplaces I assume) and it boils down to having a checkbox that says "I'm not stupid". Real world ethics is much mo…

I agree that most ethics courses aren't well done and scream 'mandatory training' rather than 'interesting subject'. The required two week one I took at Stanford GSB was pretty weak, despite business ethics being extremely important. I think they've made it better since I took it; it was a sideshow when it should have been much more central to the business curriculum.

Pedagogically, going purely book- and reading-based like most courses is a bad idea, as that can't capture the paradoxes and nuances involved in ethical decision making. I think the field would benefit from more decision-oriented approaches including a review of past ethical dilemmas perhaps as case studies, more embodied/situated formats like simulations, and practical advice on how to identify and/or avoid getting into ethically compromised situations in the first place. But you do need to couple those with the foundational frameworks that you'd use in those situations, and ideally contextualization with much broader ideas like the social contract in society.

Ethics guidelines from professional engineering societies can help with some amount of ongoing ethical awareness, but I do think it has to start in the formal education system.

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#47

Post by CodeIsTheEnd »

lumost wrote: post #19
latenightcoding wrote: post #14

as a self taught individual I always find it outstanding how much things they are able to pack in a CS degree and how fast people forget all this stuff after graduation. Like how many of your coworkers from top CS schools remember most of the material in their compilers, cryptography, comp bio courses? EDIT: To clarify, I'm not criticizing this approach, I think it's great to expose students to as many subfields as p…

I switched into Software Engineering following a physics undergrad and had to self-teach the majority of what I know. 10 years in, I find that many individuals fall into a trap of having forgotten many concepts while also thinking that they weren't useful in practice and a bad memory of having to learn/crunch the topic. This was a significant difference from my experience where most concepts I only picked up as I fou…

> Crunching algorithms for 2 semesters probably makes aspiring engineers feel that they are simply memorizing pages from a book which are trivially indexed by google.

I realize that the majority of engineers will never need to use any of the more advanced topics taught in an algorithms class, but I hope you recognize the irony in this comment; the “trivial indexing” performed by Google is anything but, and, in fact, is only enabled by those very algorithms, implemented dozens of times, in multiple languages, with subtle variations and optimizations and under non-obvious reinterpretations, at every level of the stack.

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#48

Post by Supermancho »

jlos wrote: post #17
latenightcoding wrote: post #14

as a self taught individual I always find it outstanding how much things they are able to pack in a CS degree and how fast people forget all this stuff after graduation. Like how many of your coworkers from top CS schools remember most of the material in their compilers, cryptography, comp bio courses? EDIT: To clarify, I'm not criticizing this approach, I think it's great to expose students to as many subfields as p…

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.

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#49

Post by sammyq »

uyt wrote: post #33
vincentmarle wrote: post #8

Does anyone know which of these courses are great to learn more about system design?

Not from stanford but I enjoyed these: MIT 6.824: Distributed Systems https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQP8WApzIQQ&list=PLrw6a1wE39... CMU The Databaseology Lectures https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkgDDs9EJUw&list=PLSE8ODhjZX... You essentially learn systems by looking at lots and lots of examples of how good real world systems are designed.

How did you like 6.824 specifically? I haven’t taken any systems courses as I’m not too interested in it, but I realize distributed systems is important in the industry as a SWE and was thinking of watching the videos. Any other courses you recommend on the topic?

Re: Stanford CS Curriculum 2021

#50

Post by riffic »

SneakyTornado29 wrote: post #10
ArtWomb wrote: post #2

Great list! Stanford CS has been very open about putting its resources online. But the curriculum I've been increasing into lately is that offered by the Design Group. And that seems to be a carefully shrouded secret ;)

Any specific group(s) you are referring to?

I assume they're referring to this:

https://me.stanford.edu/groups/about-design-group

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