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There's definitely a tension at top STEM schools (probably especially in CS) between assuming students have some baseline knowledge of whatever field and just t

by ghaff 11mo ago

There's definitely a tension at top STEM schools (probably especially in CS) between assuming students have some baseline knowledge of whatever field and just tossing them into the deep end of the pool and figuring out the practicalities on their own. I did take one of the MIT intro CS MOOCs at one point for kicks. Very good. But it was more or less learn Python on your own if you don't already know it (or how to program more broadly). That doesn't really happen in a lot of other disciplines other than some areas of the arts.

cylentwolf 11mo ago
I feel like most first intro classes in Computer Science is learn the coding language on your own. At first I was like why? Why don't they hold our hands while we do this. But since I have had some space to look back it really is a pretty good representation of our industry. You are going to need to learn new languages. So getting thrown in the deep end is a pretty good precursor for what work is going to look like.
- ghaff 11mo ago
  I don't totally disagree. On the other hand, based on the MOOC I took, had I been going in literally cold (as in college, new experiences, this is my chance to dive into CS and programming), I'd have been completely lost in a way that wouldn't have been the case in other engineering disciplines. Now, I'm sure some would argue "tough." What are you doing at MIT then? And certainly, there are SO many opportunities these days to get some grounding in a way that may not be as readily possible with chemistry much less nuclear engineering for example. But it is something I think about now and then.
  - griffzhowl 11mo ago
    Is the MOOC the same as the actual MIT course though? I went through one of the old Grimson Guttag Intro to CS courses on MIT OCW years ago, with zero programming background I found it a very gentle on-ramp with all the basics explained. I think it was this one, unfortunately archived now. I don't know the new one https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-00-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-fall-2008/ https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-00-introduction-to-computer-sc...
    - ghaff 11mo ago
      No idea how similar it was to what's taught in the classroom. Of course you have access to TAs and other students IRL. And I have no doubt that assumptions about prior exposure and skills have changed over time. I can only report that, had you dumped me into that content with those assignments, with no prior background I'd probably have been dropping that class. The online version was more Grimson on the algorithms and Guttag (who wrote the Python book) on a bit of the programming. But the emphasis was more on the algorithms.
  - somenameforme 11mo ago
    What makes you think this would not have been the case in other engineering disciplines? I'm also a CS guy so I can't directly challenge this on the whole, but my experiences in some classes outside of this in other domains didn't feel like they were 'comfortably' paced at all. Without extensive out-of-class work I'd have been completely lost in no time. In fact one electrical engineering course I took was ironically considered a weed out course, for computer science, as it was required, and was probably the most brutal (and amazing) class I've ever taken in my life.
    - ghaff 11mo ago
      Personal experience? I had basically a machine shop course in mechanical engineering in college. OK, it was a bit more than that but I had no "shop" in high school. Certainly nothing in high school anything that would have really prepared me for a civil engineering or or chemical engineering degree. I had actually done a little bit of fiddling around with electronics (and maybe should have majored in that). But certainly college would have been a whole different level. (With a whole lot more math which was never my strong suit.) So, yeah, these days I think there's a different baseline assumption for CS/programming than many other majors.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
- kenjackson 11mo ago
  This isn’t a bad idea, just not for the intro course. When I was an undergrad “programming language” was this course. You were given a brief introduction to brew languages and paradigms then expected to figure it out from there. But at this point you had a foundation of experience to build on.
throwaway20174 11mo ago
It's tough to for me to judge cause I've been programming for 30 years maybe I'm underestimating how hard it is, but I look at learning a new language very different that trying to understand the graduate level CS work I've seen at a top STEM school. Git, shell, basics.. even simple python if you have any at all programming experience - not nearly as hard as what they're teaching in the class. Most of the time something like that like learning latex or git basics.. they'll say.. you'll pick up what you need. They're not gonna spend 12 weeks on those subjects they aren't hard enough.
- ghaff 11mo ago
  Discrete tools are fairly easy. On the other hand, I think a lot of people here would laugh at the "text book" for the introductory FORTRAN course I took at said school. Of course, you were struggling with fairly primitive tools at the time as well. Made a typo? Time to beg the grad students running the facility for some more compute cycles. Although it's out of print I don't immediately see a full copy online. https://www2.seas.gwu.edu/~kaufman1/FortranColoringBook/ColoringBkCover.html https://www2.seas.gwu.edu/~kaufman1/FortranColoringBook/Colo...
andai 11mo ago
At one university I went to, the head of the CS department was quoted as saying "[We don't need to care about the job market,] Our job is to create researchers." I thought that was pretty strange at the time because like 5% of the students end up going into research. So that was basically like him saying I'm totally cool with our educational program being misaligned for 95% percent of our customers... Maybe it makes sense for the big picture though. If all the breakthroughs come from those 5%, it might benefit everyone to optimize for them. (I don't expect they would have called the program particularly optimized either though ;)
- ghaff 11mo ago
  Probably one of those thoughts you should self-filter (and the alumni association sure wishes you would). But it's also the case that (only half-joking) a lot of faculty at research universities regard most undergrads as an inconvenience at best.
  - andai 11mo ago
    It depends on the university, but the filtering thing is very true. In my experience, the more advanced the material, the worse the teachers are. Or more precisely, the improvement in teaching does not usually keep up with the increase in difficulty. (There appears to be no correlation, in fact.) Which implies that the better a university is (the more difficult the material), the more it relies on filtering rather than education. Which seems to be in line with how the top universities are perceived anyway as selection criteria, primarily places to get a network, rather than places to get an education. It's neither good nor bad, but it is a little sad :) --- I do notice that my assumption here is that the more difficult the university is, the better it is. I think this is broadly true, both objectively and subjectively, at least for my purposes.
- __loam 11mo ago
  Historically, the point of a university is not to be a jobs training program.
  - 11mo ago
hearsathought 11mo ago
> There's definitely a tension at top STEM schools (probably especially in CS) between assuming students have some baseline knowledge of whatever field and just tossing them into the deep end of the pool and figuring out the practicalities on their own. Pretty sure most college CS programs have an optional class for those new to programming ( Introduction to Java or C or Python ). But after that, you are expected to learn new languages/tools on your own mostly.
- ghaff 11mo ago
  Most? Probably. Not sure how common at what are considered top schools without looking at course catalogs. I expect if you're really new to programming, jumping into a CS program at an elite school could be a bumpy ride given 90% of the class will have a fair bit of experience and the class will be pitched to that level.
  - hearsathought 11mo ago
    > Not sure how common at what are considered top schools without looking at course catalogs. I am fairly certain 100% of the top CS programs ( and 99% that every CS program ) in the country have an intro to programming class for incoming freshman with no background in programming - usually Python, Java or C. MIT does. Besides, there are tons of material online to learn programming on your own. > I expect if you're really new to programming, jumping into a CS program at an elite school could be a bumpy ride given 90% of the class will have a fair bit of experience and the class will be pitched to that level. Agreed. But the challenge isn't insurmountable.
sharts 11mo ago
That’s generally how CS is taught at many top schools. If someone needs handholding just to figure out python then that’s bad news for the someone

by ghaff 11mo ago

cylentwolf 11mo ago

I feel like most first intro classes in Computer Science is learn the coding language on your own. At first I was like why? Why don't they hold our hands while we do this. But since I have had some space to look back it really is a pretty good representation of our industry. You are going to need to learn new languages. So getting thrown in the deep end is a pretty good precursor for what work is going to look like.

ghaff 11mo ago
I don't totally disagree. On the other hand, based on the MOOC I took, had I been going in literally cold (as in college, new experiences, this is my chance to dive into CS and programming), I'd have been completely lost in a way that wouldn't have been the case in other engineering disciplines. Now, I'm sure some would argue "tough." What are you doing at MIT then? And certainly, there are SO many opportunities these days to get some grounding in a way that may not be as readily possible with chemistry much less nuclear engineering for example. But it is something I think about now and then.
- griffzhowl 11mo ago
  Is the MOOC the same as the actual MIT course though? I went through one of the old Grimson Guttag Intro to CS courses on MIT OCW years ago, with zero programming background I found it a very gentle on-ramp with all the basics explained. I think it was this one, unfortunately archived now. I don't know the new one https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-00-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-fall-2008/ https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-00-introduction-to-computer-sc...
  - ghaff 11mo ago
    No idea how similar it was to what's taught in the classroom. Of course you have access to TAs and other students IRL. And I have no doubt that assumptions about prior exposure and skills have changed over time. I can only report that, had you dumped me into that content with those assignments, with no prior background I'd probably have been dropping that class. The online version was more Grimson on the algorithms and Guttag (who wrote the Python book) on a bit of the programming. But the emphasis was more on the algorithms.
- somenameforme 11mo ago
  What makes you think this would not have been the case in other engineering disciplines? I'm also a CS guy so I can't directly challenge this on the whole, but my experiences in some classes outside of this in other domains didn't feel like they were 'comfortably' paced at all. Without extensive out-of-class work I'd have been completely lost in no time. In fact one electrical engineering course I took was ironically considered a weed out course, for computer science, as it was required, and was probably the most brutal (and amazing) class I've ever taken in my life.
  - ghaff 11mo ago
    Personal experience? I had basically a machine shop course in mechanical engineering in college. OK, it was a bit more than that but I had no "shop" in high school. Certainly nothing in high school anything that would have really prepared me for a civil engineering or or chemical engineering degree. I had actually done a little bit of fiddling around with electronics (and maybe should have majored in that). But certainly college would have been a whole different level. (With a whole lot more math which was never my strong suit.) So, yeah, these days I think there's a different baseline assumption for CS/programming than many other majors.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
kenjackson 11mo ago
This isn’t a bad idea, just not for the intro course. When I was an undergrad “programming language” was this course. You were given a brief introduction to brew languages and paradigms then expected to figure it out from there. But at this point you had a foundation of experience to build on.

throwaway20174 11mo ago

It's tough to for me to judge cause I've been programming for 30 years maybe I'm underestimating how hard it is, but I look at learning a new language very different that trying to understand the graduate level CS work I've seen at a top STEM school. Git, shell, basics.. even simple python if you have any at all programming experience - not nearly as hard as what they're teaching in the class. Most of the time something like that like learning latex or git basics.. they'll say.. you'll pick up what you need. They're not gonna spend 12 weeks on those subjects they aren't hard enough.

ghaff 11mo ago
Discrete tools are fairly easy. On the other hand, I think a lot of people here would laugh at the "text book" for the introductory FORTRAN course I took at said school. Of course, you were struggling with fairly primitive tools at the time as well. Made a typo? Time to beg the grad students running the facility for some more compute cycles. Although it's out of print I don't immediately see a full copy online. https://www2.seas.gwu.edu/~kaufman1/FortranColoringBook/ColoringBkCover.html https://www2.seas.gwu.edu/~kaufman1/FortranColoringBook/Colo...

andai 11mo ago

At one university I went to, the head of the CS department was quoted as saying "[We don't need to care about the job market,] Our job is to create researchers." I thought that was pretty strange at the time because like 5% of the students end up going into research. So that was basically like him saying I'm totally cool with our educational program being misaligned for 95% percent of our customers... Maybe it makes sense for the big picture though. If all the breakthroughs come from those 5%, it might benefit everyone to optimize for them. (I don't expect they would have called the program particularly optimized either though ;)

ghaff 11mo ago
Probably one of those thoughts you should self-filter (and the alumni association sure wishes you would). But it's also the case that (only half-joking) a lot of faculty at research universities regard most undergrads as an inconvenience at best.
- andai 11mo ago
  It depends on the university, but the filtering thing is very true. In my experience, the more advanced the material, the worse the teachers are. Or more precisely, the improvement in teaching does not usually keep up with the increase in difficulty. (There appears to be no correlation, in fact.) Which implies that the better a university is (the more difficult the material), the more it relies on filtering rather than education. Which seems to be in line with how the top universities are perceived anyway as selection criteria, primarily places to get a network, rather than places to get an education. It's neither good nor bad, but it is a little sad :) --- I do notice that my assumption here is that the more difficult the university is, the better it is. I think this is broadly true, both objectively and subjectively, at least for my purposes.
__loam 11mo ago
Historically, the point of a university is not to be a jobs training program.
- 11mo ago

hearsathought 11mo ago

> There's definitely a tension at top STEM schools (probably especially in CS) between assuming students have some baseline knowledge of whatever field and just tossing them into the deep end of the pool and figuring out the practicalities on their own. Pretty sure most college CS programs have an optional class for those new to programming ( Introduction to Java or C or Python ). But after that, you are expected to learn new languages/tools on your own mostly.

ghaff 11mo ago
Most? Probably. Not sure how common at what are considered top schools without looking at course catalogs. I expect if you're really new to programming, jumping into a CS program at an elite school could be a bumpy ride given 90% of the class will have a fair bit of experience and the class will be pitched to that level.
- hearsathought 11mo ago
  > Not sure how common at what are considered top schools without looking at course catalogs. I am fairly certain 100% of the top CS programs ( and 99% that every CS program ) in the country have an intro to programming class for incoming freshman with no background in programming - usually Python, Java or C. MIT does. Besides, there are tons of material online to learn programming on your own. > I expect if you're really new to programming, jumping into a CS program at an elite school could be a bumpy ride given 90% of the class will have a fair bit of experience and the class will be pitched to that level. Agreed. But the challenge isn't insurmountable.

sharts 11mo ago

That’s generally how CS is taught at many top schools. If someone needs handholding just to figure out python then that’s bad news for the someone