> - calculus if you want to do engineering

> - discrete mathematics if you want to do CS

I'd guess the vast majority of software development jobs are like "gluing one API layer to another" and "writing simple-to-complex CRUD apps". Neither calculus or discrete mathematics really helps if your goal is to simply make a computer read data from database X and display it in webform Y.

I found all of the math required by my undergrad degree to be totally useless in real life programming. Whether you need any math at all will highly depend on the application domain you get in to. The most complex math I needed as a code monkey was vector arithmetic (3D graphics) and trigonometry (ocean and aero mapping navigation).

The majority of MDs are reading charts or diagnosing the flu or allergies or stitching up a wound, why should they understand biochemistry?

This begs the question that they do. Probably safe to assume that most don't.

Just like it is safe to assume that most programmers aren't good at calculus. Or discrete math. Or proofs.

There is a move to get basic care into the hands of nurse practitioners and probably similarly most programmers shouldn't bother studying anything. If there is enough consumer demand to fill experience-based jobs then that's the market reality but it doesn't mean doctors who are meant to invent new cures don't need biochemistry or engineers who are meant to design new solutions don't need mathematics.

Most programmers will never design new solutions and are objectively terrible at their job.

> Most programmers will never design new solutions and are objectively terrible at their job.

I don’t think you know anything about professional programming if you think that makes them “objectively terrible at their job”. Sometimes businesses just need a website.

Exactly, why should they? Seems like a meaningless bar created for no practical reason, just like 90% of the other stuff everyone learns in school.

We're talking about doing CS as a degree in college, not coding in a job. You don't even need to study CS to get a coding job.

As an aside, those secretarial coding jobs will all go away within 50 years. They are only needed in the transition period where machines still depend on humans to talk to each other.

At that point education won't matter period.

If you're studying turing machines would calculus really be useful in your day to day?