[bakuninsbart]

Doing weed out courses on purpose I think is elitist and unnecessary, but computer science does require understanding of some hard topics. Linear algebra, theoretical computer science and the like may have very high failure rates, but are a necessary pre-requisite to become a computer scientist.

[morby]

I wouldn’t say linear algebra is a necessity to being a computer scientist. At least, not the full linear algebra content. Knowing matrix math is enough.

[mywittyname]

It's not completely necessary. But I will say, as someone who began their career as an 18 year old "self-taught developer" then completed a CS degree at 30, I found linear algebra to be the most useful bit of knowledge that was missing from my kit.