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> I wish more CS curricula would start with digital logic and stay there for a little longer before going into the full stored-program computer. That used to be

by II2II 2y ago

> I wish more CS curricula would start with digital logic and stay there for a little longer before going into the full stored-program computer. That used to be the norm. I remember sneaking[1] into a few of those courses during university. Loved them. The problem is that most computer science students viewed them as useless. They wanted to take, what they thought of as, useful courses. If it wasn't C++, it wasn't useful. Even the computer science students who were interested in pure math, these were computer science courses after all and the university offered a separate software engineering degree, didn't see them as useful. A slight tangent: one of the courses I had the most fun wasn't even a computer science course. It was a philosophy course that spent a lot of time on computability. Cramming a bunch of genuinely interested social sciences students into the same room as a bunch of genuinely interested computer science students made for an absolutely amazing course. In contrast, the computer science department version of the course was populated by a majority of students who were only interested in the mandatory credit. It made for an astoundingly terrible course. (These thoughts are from the perspective of a mid-1990's physics graduate.) [1] Sneaking may not be the right term here. People in the department knew that I was doing this, to the point where I managed to get access to department computers and even managed to take a course for credit, with special permission from the professor and without the prerequisites, but the administration certainly didn't know about it since I didn't even bother with the official "auditing a course" route.

eszed 2y ago
This right here is what a university is for, and why it's useful to cram a bunch of people with widely-varied specialities into a shared physical location. It's about exploration of knowledge through cross-polination of ideas. Social science and computer science students in those classes learned things from each other that they wouldn't have otherwise. We see over and over again through history (Renaissance Italy, Bell Labs, Romantic-period Berlin, early-Google's cafeterias) how cross-disciplinary conversation inspires innovation. The "useful" classes are necessary, but if institutions (or students) stop there then they have missed the whole point. They're treating class-work as office-work, and making that the summit of their ambition.
- II2II 2y ago
  You're certainly correct about learning from each other, but I think it went beyond the cross-pollination of ideas. I took several higher level courses in other departments that were intended for majors in the other department, yet attracted students from across the university. They were always more lively than the homogeneous courses, introductory courses, and "bird courses". I am bringing that up because a lot of universities mandate interdisciplinary courses, yet sabotage their value by letting students limit themselves to introductory courses or even offer special courses directed towards non-majors. Students frequently attend those courses for an easy A, but never let their preconceptions be challenged or bothered to challenge the ideas of others. (That said, I don't really blame students for treating universities as vocational schools. I'm pretty sure the ones who went straight for the grades found more success in their professional life simply because they didn't let intellectual curiosity interfere with their professional goals.)
  - eszed 2y ago
    I agree with all of that. I acquired a reputation at my (very small - maybe it only works there?) college for showing up for classes for which I wasn't (on paper) qualified, and sweet-talking professors into letting me attend (sometimes for credit, sometimes not. Some of those were among my best experiences, too. I gestured at it, but didn't quite complete the thought, in my first comment: a cross-disciplinary culture is essential between professors and departments, not just students. If universities are to be engines of innovation, and not glorified job-training centers, then experts have to form social bonds, and have out-of-band conversations, and develop projects together, too. "Didn't let intellectual curiosity interfere with their professional goals" is spot-on as an indictment of our entire culture, at the moment.

by II2II 2y ago

eszed 2y ago

This right here is what a university is for, and why it's useful to cram a bunch of people with widely-varied specialities into a shared physical location. It's about exploration of knowledge through cross-polination of ideas. Social science and computer science students in those classes learned things from each other that they wouldn't have otherwise. We see over and over again through history (Renaissance Italy, Bell Labs, Romantic-period Berlin, early-Google's cafeterias) how cross-disciplinary conversation inspires innovation. The "useful" classes are necessary, but if institutions (or students) stop there then they have missed the whole point. They're treating class-work as office-work, and making that the summit of their ambition.

II2II 2y ago
You're certainly correct about learning from each other, but I think it went beyond the cross-pollination of ideas. I took several higher level courses in other departments that were intended for majors in the other department, yet attracted students from across the university. They were always more lively than the homogeneous courses, introductory courses, and "bird courses". I am bringing that up because a lot of universities mandate interdisciplinary courses, yet sabotage their value by letting students limit themselves to introductory courses or even offer special courses directed towards non-majors. Students frequently attend those courses for an easy A, but never let their preconceptions be challenged or bothered to challenge the ideas of others. (That said, I don't really blame students for treating universities as vocational schools. I'm pretty sure the ones who went straight for the grades found more success in their professional life simply because they didn't let intellectual curiosity interfere with their professional goals.)
- eszed 2y ago
  I agree with all of that. I acquired a reputation at my (very small - maybe it only works there?) college for showing up for classes for which I wasn't (on paper) qualified, and sweet-talking professors into letting me attend (sometimes for credit, sometimes not. Some of those were among my best experiences, too. I gestured at it, but didn't quite complete the thought, in my first comment: a cross-disciplinary culture is essential between professors and departments, not just students. If universities are to be engines of innovation, and not glorified job-training centers, then experts have to form social bonds, and have out-of-band conversations, and develop projects together, too. "Didn't let intellectual curiosity interfere with their professional goals" is spot-on as an indictment of our entire culture, at the moment.