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This will probably blow over once the impact of The Social Network has faded. Enrollment will go back down to near what it was before. I'm finishing my CS degr

by learc83 14y ago

This will probably blow over once the impact of The Social Network has faded. Enrollment will go back down to near what it was before. I'm finishing my CS degree at Georgia State (after a 6 year hiatus) and all of the lower level classes the last 2 semesters have been filled to the brim with people who had no idea what they were getting into. When you select CS as your major, there should be a popup box that asks if you're aware CS involves math.

wh-uws 14y ago
I'm from Atlanta and went to Georgia Tech man good luck on your degree man.
javert 14y ago
When you select CS as your major, there should be a popup box that asks if you're aware CS involves math. I disagree that this is good advice to give someone considering a CS major. Math is not fundamental to CS. CS is fundamental to CS. Most of a high school/college math curriculum is not that closely related to most of what happens in CS. In general, there is some "mathiness" to CS, but it is of such a different flavor to "the math you learn in school" that I don't think making a comparison is useful (it certainly would not have been in my case). I have bachelor's and master's degrees in CS and am pursuing a PhD in CS.
- troymc 14y ago
  The foundations of CS are things like sets, logic, formal languages, Turing machines, computability... all math. Maybe you didn't learn that stuff in "math class" but that doesn't mean it's not math.
  - javert 14y ago
    I would say that logic is fudamental to math and cs. I disagree with mathematicians that claim that math is prior to logic. Formal languages, turing machines, and computability are computing science, which we call computer science. Computing science may be part of math, but math is not fundamental to it. In other words, you need logic as a basis for those examples, but otherwise, they are not dependent on other mathematical knowledge. I don't think sets are all that important in cs (but I disagree with mathematicians who try to base everything on set theory).
    - learc83 14y ago
      You're correct that most of computer science (except for the explicit mat classes you're required to take) doesn't inherently rely on existing math knowledge. However, they way computer science is taught does assume prior math knowledge. Thinking back to the very first example algorithms in my intro class--we had to impliment addition, multiplication, then heron's square root method. Very basic math, but that was around the time many students dropped the class.
- learc83 14y ago
  In the intro CS class a very large percentage of students were completely baffled by division when converting between binary/hex/octal. It was the basic arithmetic/algebra that gave them pause, not logic. Additionally you need to take at least 4 classes that are actually in the math department to finish the degree.

by learc83 14y ago

wh-uws 14y ago

I'm from Atlanta and went to Georgia Tech man good luck on your degree man.

javert 14y ago

When you select CS as your major, there should be a popup box that asks if you're aware CS involves math. I disagree that this is good advice to give someone considering a CS major. Math is not fundamental to CS. CS is fundamental to CS. Most of a high school/college math curriculum is not that closely related to most of what happens in CS. In general, there is some "mathiness" to CS, but it is of such a different flavor to "the math you learn in school" that I don't think making a comparison is useful (it certainly would not have been in my case). I have bachelor's and master's degrees in CS and am pursuing a PhD in CS.

troymc 14y ago
The foundations of CS are things like sets, logic, formal languages, Turing machines, computability... all math. Maybe you didn't learn that stuff in "math class" but that doesn't mean it's not math.
- javert 14y ago
  I would say that logic is fudamental to math and cs. I disagree with mathematicians that claim that math is prior to logic. Formal languages, turing machines, and computability are computing science, which we call computer science. Computing science may be part of math, but math is not fundamental to it. In other words, you need logic as a basis for those examples, but otherwise, they are not dependent on other mathematical knowledge. I don't think sets are all that important in cs (but I disagree with mathematicians who try to base everything on set theory).
  - learc83 14y ago
    You're correct that most of computer science (except for the explicit mat classes you're required to take) doesn't inherently rely on existing math knowledge. However, they way computer science is taught does assume prior math knowledge. Thinking back to the very first example algorithms in my intro class--we had to impliment addition, multiplication, then heron's square root method. Very basic math, but that was around the time many students dropped the class.
learc83 14y ago
In the intro CS class a very large percentage of students were completely baffled by division when converting between binary/hex/octal. It was the basic arithmetic/algebra that gave them pause, not logic. Additionally you need to take at least 4 classes that are actually in the math department to finish the degree.