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There's no way a field of study should be telling you what to do with your study. Computer science has always been about application-level creativity, its about
by greendestiny 19y ago
There's no way a field of study should be telling you what to do with your study. Computer science has always been about application-level creativity, its about studying the methods by which computers can be made to do useful things. Coming up with these useful things is your job.
- amichail 19y agoSo how come we have people studying art, music, and writing in university? And note that such studies do not normally involve learning about the chemicals used in the paint, the electronics used in sound equipment, or the software architecture of the word processor. At the very least, students should be taught how to be social scientists so that they could figure what sorts of apps are likely to succeed in a particular environment.
- brent 19y agoI believe what you're referring to then is the need for an increase in informatics programs (like at my school www.informatics.indiana.edu). However, I should stipulate that this is use of a computer to do tasks related to information, not computer science per se.
- amichail 19y agoYou don't need to call it computer science. However, as far as I know, such undergraduate degrees don't exist.
- brent 19y agoYou didn't look at Indiana. http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/academics/sample_curriculum.asp http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/academics/sample_curricul... This is the undergraduate informatics curriculum which, as you'll notice, strictly includes social science courses throughout the first two years.
- greendestiny 19y agoI'm utterly unconvinced that formal studies in art and writing produce great artists. While I imagine it gives a lot of interested people, some of whom with great talent, an opportunity to explore their skills, the research and accumulated bodies of knowledge are mostly a cataloging of the works of talented people and not a how-to guide. Formal studies in computer science teach the accumulated knowledge of building systems with algorithms. Its like learning the language, the grammar and vocabulary, a great writer needs. You're right, it is like learning about the chemicals in the paint, or more importantly the properties of your paint, your canvases and the brushes and techniques other artists have used. My point is that that is the useful knowledge. Don't confuse universities offering a socially acceptable outlet for aspiring artists as a model for study and learning. You can probably build a great application without being a great computer scientist, but why would computer science want to be one of these sham fields of study when their are real tools and knowledge to be discovered.
- amichail 19y agoSo you think the work done at the MIT Media Lab is completely useless? http://www.media.mit.edu/ http://www.media.mit.edu/ See for example: http://smg.media.mit.edu/ http://smg.media.mit.edu/
- greendestiny 19y agoThe media lab has very high standards for the computer science (or other field) knowledge of its students, and they produce great computer science research. Yes they orient their (entirely graduate) program around creativity - but at its core they expect real research in fields like computer science or psychology. Your criticism of computer science, that they should eschew algorithms and theory in favour of applications, is entirely at odds with the media lab. I don't understand why you want academia to steal your thunder so to speak, and take on the job of creating applications.
- amichail 19y agoI used to be in academia and perhaps I would have stayed if it were more creative at the application level.
- Goladus 19y agoI studied music. I took a 1-credit course in composition, and sang in the choir. The rest was studying history, theory, and technique.