Re:Why Many Computer Science Programs Are Stagnating
by angersock on Saturday July 04, 2015 @09:18PM
(#9832165)
So, part of the problem is that computer science in a lot of schools (and I'm a bit familiar with both Rice and University of Houston here, having interacted a lot with students and teachers at both) is really some weighted sum of: computer engineering, software engineering, computer science (theory), vocational programming (lol game development), computational/applied mathematics and statistics, and maybe web development.
Depending on the program, these are weight differently--for example, Rice has some excellent computer engineering (compilers, networking) and (for a while anyways) software engineering projects (here's a customer, here's your team, organize and deliver this semester, don't fuck up but we'll guide you). It also had some good coverage on the purer CS theory as well as applied math (the robotics and graphics courses are pretty awesome for this). Next to no web development was covered (which makes sense to me).
As a result, you can take a Rice grad and drop them into basically any project and expect them to be okay--they could get up to speed on the vocational aspects or whatever weird algorithmic stuff you needed.
What I'm concerned about, though, is that a lot of programs seem to be adjusting to meet the gold rush mentality of the current software era, and are neglecting to teach fundamentals and theory that make the difference between a middling-decent junior/intermediate developer and somebody suited to really do senior and architecture work.
Our industry, incidentally, is doing nobody any favors. This is at least partly because of the number of well-meaning and excited amateurs who continually reinvent technologies and sharpen axes. This pretty much guarantees that any school trying to be merely vocational has its work cut out for it, and will be out of date rather quickly.
Depending on the program, these are weight differently--for example, Rice has some excellent computer engineering (compilers, networking) and (for a while anyways) software engineering projects (here's a customer, here's your team, organize and deliver this semester, don't fuck up but we'll guide you). It also had some good coverage on the purer CS theory as well as applied math (the robotics and graphics courses are pretty awesome for this). Next to no web development was covered (which makes sense to me).
As a result, you can take a Rice grad and drop them into basically any project and expect them to be okay--they could get up to speed on the vocational aspects or whatever weird algorithmic stuff you needed.
What I'm concerned about, though, is that a lot of programs seem to be adjusting to meet the gold rush mentality of the current software era, and are neglecting to teach fundamentals and theory that make the difference between a middling-decent junior/intermediate developer and somebody suited to really do senior and architecture work.
Our industry, incidentally, is doing nobody any favors. This is at least partly because of the number of well-meaning and excited amateurs who continually reinvent technologies and sharpen axes. This pretty much guarantees that any school trying to be merely vocational has its work cut out for it, and will be out of date rather quickly.