| ??? 01/24/08 04:03 Modified: 02/01/08 00:43 Read: times |
#149892 - wow, things have changed Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Jeff Post said:
David Gal said:
I guarantee you that at 95% of schools in the US (including the top ones) you can escape with a B.S. in CS and never code a line of C. You can walk away only knowing Java. Granted things may have changed since I got my BSCS (not really that long ago), but still...how do you justify that 95%? Do you have data to back it up? 95% is an educated guess. I remember my first course in high school in computer science was in C++ (that was in 2001). That was an "AP" (aka supposed to be like first semester of college) course. The next year the AP curriculum changed to teach Java in order to reflect what the universities were doing at the time. A simple poll of my friends at the various universities indicates that this is true as well. I can say that at least 10 universities (with presumably prestigious reputations) Java is taught without fail as the intro course. Certainly 10 is not even close to .1% of the universities in the country, but it's indicative of the epidemic. If at least 10 of the "top 20" school are doing it, you can bet that the rest are as well. In addition it's just something that'd discussed/known among faculty/students these days. Java is just what's taught. But you're right, I don't have real number to back up the 95% The math classes you refer to aren't requirements anymore. You don't need to know calculus to be a CS major anymore. Math requirements for my CS degree: Calc through multi-variable, Probability and Statistics (upper division), Finite Autonoma, Analysis of Algorithms, Finite Math, Discrete Math (2 courses), and others I don't recall at the moment. The university I attended doesn't even have a particularly good reputation. Any place that doesn't require at least that much math is not granting a CS degree. Call it a computer technology degree or information technology or whatever, but it's not computer science. WOW!!! That's quite the math requirement! No way is that true today. I think 1 discrete math class is recommended in general (though not required) and one linear algebra class is required. Multi var calc is without question not a requirement as is finite math, stats, probability, etc. Damn, no wonder the older guys are so smart :) |
