Re:Computer science as a lost art (2015)
by AnimalMuppet on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @01:36PM
(#17655188)
What's the point of a chemical engineering degree? It's to learn to be a chemical engineer, but it's not a trade school degree. Far from it.
And there's degrees in chemistry, for those whose goal is to study the way atoms interact with each other. That's different from chemical engineering, where the goal is to efficiently produce the desired molecules at scale, without blowing up the factory. Two different degrees, with two different focuses, in the same general area.
In the same way, I think that computer science needs to be a separate, different degree from software engineering. At the moment, CS is trying to be just one area, but I suspect that it's often inadequately preparing those who are going to go on to be software engineers - who are in fact the large majority of CS grads. (They may also be inadequately preparing those who intend to stay in theoretical computer science, but I have even less information about that.)
And there's degrees in chemistry, for those whose goal is to study the way atoms interact with each other. That's different from chemical engineering, where the goal is to efficiently produce the desired molecules at scale, without blowing up the factory. Two different degrees, with two different focuses, in the same general area.
In the same way, I think that computer science needs to be a separate, different degree from software engineering. At the moment, CS is trying to be just one area, but I suspect that it's often inadequately preparing those who are going to go on to be software engineers - who are in fact the large majority of CS grads. (They may also be inadequately preparing those who intend to stay in theoretical computer science, but I have even less information about that.)