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Examples of classes I should not have had to take: - Kinesiology (fancy term for "PE" and/or "Health"): they had their chance in high school. By college, most
by tophat02 17y ago
Examples of classes I should not have had to take:
- Kinesiology (fancy term for "PE" and/or "Health"): they had their chance in high school. By college, most people know whether they're going to be "physical" or not. I had to take FOUR of these, each for only 1 hour of credit
- "Multi cultural studies": politically correct indoctrination course. By my observation, usually had the reverse effect of what was intended
- Political Science I & II: Just replace with a poli sci survey course. Interested students could take more as elective or major in it
- Economics and Accounting: Both of these classes are incredibly theoretical, dry, and boring - unless you happen to like the subjects, in which case you're probably majoring or minoring in them. Replace with ONE course about how not to screw up your personal financial life, since they can't be bothered to teach that in high school
- Physics I & II: I don't need two full semesters of physics. Again, just give me a survey course (that's all I'll remember anyway). The interested students can go on to learn more
- History I & II: We know, there's a lot of history to cover, but a whirlwind course would probably hold students' attentions more than two whole semesters
Oh, and, for Computer Scientists:
- The vast majority of people in computer science departments want to be programmers, NOT computer scientists. I recommend splitting this major into computer science and software engineering. Computer Science would be in the department of science and software engineering would be in the department of engineering. For software engineering students, I would collapse most of the computer science curriculum into one or two survey courses and use the rest of the time to teach solid, modern, software engineering concepts (configuration management, working in a team, requirements gathering, design patterns, methodologies, real-world programming, etc...)
- vaksel 17y agoForceful "PE" is pretty stupid, a person must come to the decision to work out on their own.
- rue 17y agoI think the idea is giving people the opportunity to work out, even a bit of a nudge, might set them on the right track. It could, for example, be a 20-minute jog and then trying out a different sport every "class."
- smokey_the_bear 17y agoFunny, some of the classes in college I regret not taking were PE classes. Judo, archery, kayaking. It would be nice to have a base skillset in more sports.
- tokenadult 17y agoEconomics and Accounting: Both of these classes are incredibly theoretical, dry, and boring I'm surprised you encountered an economics course that wasn't interesting. I find economics endlessly fascinating, and have asked here on HN http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=415683 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=415683 for recommendations about things to read on economics.
- bokonist 17y agoSince it wasn't mentioned in the thread: Man, Economy, and State by Murray Rothbard. By far the best economics book I have read.
- likpok 17y agoOne issue that I see with that is that sometimes even software engineers can benefit from a theory course (e.g., algorithms), which requires a whole bunch of other theory to really understand. And then you're back where you started, because that isn't really a few survey courses.
- dinkumthinkum 17y agoConfiguration management? Why not just teach "software engineering" majors how to use publisher and a laser printer to just print the degree off and be done with it?
- tophat02 17y agoI'm afraid I don't get your point (or your prickish tone, for that matter). Do you disagree that a course or section of a course teaching students about release management, merging, and reproducible builds from source artifacts is a useful thing?
- dinkumthinkum 17y agoI think the idea that we should give up CS education and have the whole degree program centered around using these kinds of tools and frameworks is a bit silly. Would it be a good course? Sure, absolutely, but not a degree program.