[goosehonk]

As a person without a CS education but with 30 years of industry experience, including several of The Bigs, I urge young people to get an education in anything but CS. The number of CS degree holders, even the masters and doctors, who struggle with statistics, linear algebra, or even thermodynamics and basic accounting is pretty dispiriting. Get an education and learn to program computers. Two separate things in my humble opinion.

[geebee]

I'm stunned to hear that. Well, not the part about basic accounting, or maybe thermodynamics, that I believe. But stats and linear algebra? I've worked at or attended several UC schools, and they all require calculus through linear algebra, vector calc, basic differential equations, and probability theory as part of the CS major. I myself was a math major and a grad student in Industrial Engineering, but we were all in the same core math sequence together.

Sometimes you go ahead and walk the fine line of the no true scotsman argument - a degree without this basic math isn't CS. And any "reputable" CS degree - and by "reputable" I don't mean top 10 or even top 50, I just mean a fine university with a proper curriculum - will absolutely have this requirement.

[Leherenn]

Do you think other degrees, outside of maths or physics maybe, makes you better at the things you listed? It seems unlikely to me, and the fact people struggle with this is more representative of the general population than of the degree itself I would say.

It might depend on how the degree is taught I guess, mine had very little actual programming.

[goosehonk]

I'll never have personal first-hand experience with another kind of degree program, but my engineering program taught thermodynamics, accounting, technical writing, and ethics. I am looking right now at the Stanford CS undergraduate catalog and there are no requirements for technical writing, ethics, etc in here at all. Even the senior year writing requirement can be satisfied by working for Facebook for six months, which is disturbing and, frankly, explains a lot about why these kids can't write.

[filoleg]

Your comment seemed really strange to me, because I remember that even back at Georgia Tech, we had both technical writing and ethics requirement for anyone in the CS program, so I decided to doublecheck the facts you listed about the Stanford CS program.

Where did you get your info from? Because I just checked the Stanford CS curriculum requirements for Bachelors degree, and it clearly has "Computers, Ethics, and Public Policy" requirement, along with a senior project requirement (that would, I assume, includes writing), as well as 3-5 credit units from the list of approved "Technology in Society" courses.[0]

0. https://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/schoolofengineering/comp...

[goosehonk]

The senior project is the one I mentioned that can be fulfilled by CS210, working at “our industry partners” in lieu of actual university coursework. The “tech & society” catalog is a joke. Look at the courses. Archeology? Fine as an elective.

My engineering program required an upper-division course from the philosophy department on the development of rigorously ethical systems of thought.

[Nasrudith]

That assumes that those mediocore "fizzbuzz test failers" tiers would do better in the domain with another degree. The problem may be in their capabilities predegree.

[goosehonk]

I don’t think I’m assuming that. They’ll just be a more rounded person.