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My point was perhaps more on how much you actually get exposed CS as a subject before deciding it as something you would like to pursue in the future, unrelated
by sammyh 7y ago
My point was perhaps more on how much you actually get exposed CS as a subject before deciding it as something you would like to pursue in the future, unrelated to actual skill or interest in it. As an oversimplified analogy, in general, would anyone consider becoming a professional musician without having being exposed to instruments or music as a creative art form i.e. something you can actually learn and do? A hypothesis would be that if CS curriculum would be added more heavily to prior education, the amount of people majoring in CS would also rise.
- ghaff 7y agoYes, in music (and much of the arts), there's an expectation that if you're enrolling in a program at school you have some degree of prior exposure. But mechanical engineering? Chemical engineering? Economics? I'd argue that kids going into those fields may have read a bit and maybe tinkered a little at the periphery. Maybe in the case of ME they were in a robot competition. Etc. But, in the case of pre-calc physics in HS for example, it barely gives a hint of what being a physics major would be like. I actually don't know how much exposure to programming there is in HS. I assume essentially no "CS" per se but then, they wouldn't have the math for the most part. But I'd argue there are actually a lot more opportunities to get exposure to computer-related stuff than there is for other fields. (To the degree, per my other comment, that there is something of an expectation at many schools that incoming students, like music majors, will have done so.)