[versteegen]

Having studied CS and maths to post-grad, I think you exaggerate. Although a CS course might use these tools, they didn't in my experience go into explaining or defining them. The only use of linear algebra I can remember was in analysis of recurrence relations for algorithms, and for some graph theory. And I had one CS course on multivariate generating functions (formal variables) but most CS students would have been terrified of that. Abstract algebra is also used in combinatorial or search algorithms, but they would never use terminology like "ring".

[aleph_minus_one]

> Having studied CS and maths to post-grad, I think you exaggerate. Although a CS course might use these tools, they didn't in my experience go into explaining or defining them.

I studied computer science (and mathematics) in Germany. I am very certain that this was taught to computer science students, even though (compared to the lectures for math students) the lecturer did not get very deep into these topics.

> most CS students would have been terrified of that.

This is a feature, not a bug. :-)

Seriously: In Germany, the "math for ..." lectures often are intended to be "weed-out lectures" so that students who simply are not qualified for their major get to quit their degree course fast (either by realizing that the degree course is too hard for them, or by (typically) failing math exams so that they get exmatriculated), so that they don't waste many semesters on a degree course which they simply are not suited for.

[StilesCrisis]

Do you think weed-out courses are a good thing? If these courses are so important, they should be taught in a way that students can understand. If they made it to college, and can program, they're clearly smart and motivated.

[aleph_minus_one]

> If they made it to college, and can program, they're clearly smart and motivated.

You clearly write from the perspective of the US-American university system.

In Germany, basically everybody can enroll into a computer science program at a university, assuming the person has a Abitur (Allgemeine Hochschulreife) certificate (these terms are difficult to translate into English) from the grammar school [1]. So, "have it made to college" is like "not having been a complete failure in school". [2]

So, making it to the university is no achievement in Germany, and also no sign of motivation either.

> If these courses are so important, they should be taught in a way that students can understand.

These courses are taught in a way that students can understand, but not in a way where you can afford to slack off.

It is basically a consensus in Germany that a university is clearly a wrong place for you if you are incapable of closing knowledge gaps on your own (for example by reading books from the library), and you don't have the self-motivation to sit over the lecture material for hours to finally understand it.

So yes, I would say that among the possible options, weed-out courses in mathematics are in my opinion likely the least bad one.

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[1] In years where there was an insane demand for places at the university to study computer science such as during the dot-com bubble, there were some restrictions (numerus clausus), but for computer science, this was always the exception to the rule.

[2] There exist good reasons for puns like "Abitur: nichts gerafft und doch geschafft" (Abitur: Didn't get a thing, yet still passed) or "A-bier-tur" (a portmenteau of "Abitur" and "beer", which suggests that even pupils who are more into drinking than learning typically get their Abitur certificate).