Why is math required for a computer science degree?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hire IT engineers.

You don’t need CS degrees to be a programmer or engineer.

You need Math to do a CS degree at most universities.

Universities are a business and they make students take many classes that are not necessary.

You remind me of someone who climbed the ladder on her back - and who said you don’t need to know your job to manage people.

Wow! Incels on the college forum, they usually stay on the relationship forum.

My thoughts exactly!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math is an easy way to filter out incapable kids. Engineering is similar. If one can do math then one can do most other stem fields.

That is stupid considering we have a need for STEM people. We don’t need to weed we need to grow.

One does need to weed. There seem to be a lot of kids who have illusions about being engineers or something like that, but just do not have the chops for it. Basic math (some linear algebra or basic diff equations) is an easy way to filter for it, ideally before college.

Amazes me that parents are willing to pay 70k a year for these basic level classes that people have known about for centuries if not millenia, e.g. calculus, basic physics, etc. I went to decent high school in Europe and we learned most of the foundational stuff in high school, but we were sorted out earlier around 8th grade based on stem or other ability.

I've lived in Europe and seen this in two countries. It totally leaves out late bloomers and ends up being done largely based on background and parenting. Let's talk about how many immigrants end up getting to be on the university track.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP back again, the exchanges here are interesting. I appreciate the insights!
To the poster wondering if I was suggesting DC not pursue a STEM degree because Calculus took effort you misunderstood my question, or it was poorly asked. A PP suggested that the ‘poor professors be spared’ having a kid who is not “gifted” in math courses being in their CS (or maybe any STEM degree) courses. I wondered if that is a legit concern. Then a different PP chimed in and mentioned another current thread about CS degrees from LACs and noted those professors may be more supportive of a kid who doesn’t immediately get it. I am not entirely clear if folks who gain CS degrees (or physics, math, etc) do struggle in those courses or whether they just “get it”. I suppose it is a silly question, of course all growth is uncomfortable and challenging. I guess I worry about the “weed out” theory.

OP, former adviser in engineering from big state school here. You DC sounds awesome in that they know how to struggle through material. It means they will know how to study which is huge for anyone taking Calc through Diff Eq. The best advice I can give you is make sure DC starts the math sequence from Calc 1 where ever they go, especially if it is a big state school.

[Anonymous]

It's like saying you don't need to be able to read to do a job of factory mechanic. You don't even need to graduate from high school to be a mechanic. But if you could still think of any reason that you need to get any education at all if you just need to perform some simple mechanic work, you would have the same rationale why you need to learn math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any school with a strong computer science program but a weak math program should just rename their computer science department to software engineering.

Tbh, math and computer science should never have been separated, computer science should've been a concentration within math. But corporations set the demand for majors and would rather churn out code monkeys than innovative problem solvers.

What's the best training for someone who just wants to be a code monkey?

[Anonymous]

Ok, this thread is nuts. DH is a software engineer with BS and MS in CS. He was required to take high level math by the university, but he definitely struggled through it. He’s been working in the field for 20 years and never had to apply high level math. I guess he is a very well paid code monkey!
OP, your kid will be fine. Software engineers are in very high demand and are well paid. Even if his grades will be mediocre he will do way better than someone with all As in humanities.

[Anonymous]

This thread is nuts. OP is just being a good parent trying to get information for his or her kid. OP’s already stated s/he doesn’t have the computer science background. That’s why s/he’s here. If you don’t have anything to add, or can’t answer the question, just MoveOn. No need to be snarky.

[Anonymous]

logic(discrete math) is important to be a decent code monkey
Have you child take some real computer science classes, and he/she will understand
There are some python programming classes offered by community colleges in the summer for teens
DD 13 is able to answer this question, CS classes
Is offered at her middle school
It would be risky to think about majoring in something that you do no know

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math is an easy way to filter out incapable kids. Engineering is similar. If one can do math then one can do most other stem fields.

That is stupid considering we have a need for STEM people. We don’t need to weed we need to grow.

One does need to weed. There seem to be a lot of kids who have illusions about being engineers or something like that, but just do not have the chops for it. Basic math (some linear algebra or basic diff equations) is an easy way to filter for it, ideally before college.

Amazes me that parents are willing to pay 70k a year for these basic level classes that people have known about for centuries if not millenia, e.g. calculus, basic physics, etc. I went to decent high school in Europe and we learned most of the foundational stuff in high school, but we were sorted out earlier around 8th grade based on stem or other ability.

I've lived in Europe and seen this in two countries. It totally leaves out late bloomers and ends up being done largely based on background and parenting. Let's talk about how many immigrants end up getting to be on the university track.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP back again, the exchanges here are interesting. I appreciate the insights!
To the poster wondering if I was suggesting DC not pursue a STEM degree because Calculus took effort you misunderstood my question, or it was poorly asked. A PP suggested that the ‘poor professors be spared’ having a kid who is not “gifted” in math courses being in their CS (or maybe any STEM degree) courses. I wondered if that is a legit concern. Then a different PP chimed in and mentioned another current thread about CS degrees from LACs and noted those professors may be more supportive of a kid who doesn’t immediately get it. I am not entirely clear if folks who gain CS degrees (or physics, math, etc) do struggle in those courses or whether they just “get it”. I suppose it is a silly question, of course all growth is uncomfortable and challenging. I guess I worry about the “weed out” theory.

OP, former adviser in engineering from big state school here. You DC sounds awesome in that they know how to struggle through material. It means they will know how to study which is huge for anyone taking Calc through Diff Eq. The best advice I can give you is make sure DC starts the math sequence from Calc 1 where ever they go, especially if it is a big state school.

PP makes a good point. Anyone who IS a mathematician is familiar with struggling, PAINFULLY at times, and I felt that part of the problem with the kids who ended up getting weeded out (more on that) were the ones who couldn't tolerate the struggle.

I also felt that when I struggled with a programming problem, it was very much the same as struggling with something in math, and the way through was pretty much the same: wrestle in the weeds for a long time, feel frustrated, get up and walk away and sometime after that the light turns on, you go back and solve it. I would also argue that the thinking processes involved with math help train the brain to handle the thinking processes involved with coding.

And the people I met who were working with cutting edge computer research were using high level math as the foundation for defining the problems and solutions.

[Anonymous]

^^I forgot to mention the weeding (this was a state school that emphasized engineering programs of all kinds)--90% of kids who were taking calculus listed some form of engineering degree, including computer science, as their intended major. The number of kids taking the sequence steadily dropped, which also meant their majors changed. The filtering component seemed obvious to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any school with a strong computer science program but a weak math program should just rename their computer science department to software engineering.

Tbh, math and computer science should never have been separated, computer science should've been a concentration within math. But corporations set the demand for majors and would rather churn out code monkeys than innovative problem solvers.

What's the best training for someone who just wants to be a code monkey?

bootcamp
but just know that you will always be competing against a new younger batch of code monkeys and offshore Indians
and when the older code monkeys get fired and fail all their jobs interview because they never learned how to problem solve,
they'll complain over the internet about a CS bubble or how there isn't enough jobs in CS and how job interviews are useless

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math is an easy way to filter out incapable kids. Engineering is similar. If one can do math then one can do most other stem fields.

That is stupid considering we have a need for STEM people. We don’t need to weed we need to grow.

One does need to weed. There seem to be a lot of kids who have illusions about being engineers or something like that, but just do not have the chops for it. Basic math (some linear algebra or basic diff equations) is an easy way to filter for it, ideally before college.

Amazes me that parents are willing to pay 70k a year for these basic level classes that people have known about for centuries if not millenia, e.g. calculus, basic physics, etc. I went to decent high school in Europe and we learned most of the foundational stuff in high school, but we were sorted out earlier around 8th grade based on stem or other ability.

I've lived in Europe and seen this in two countries. It totally leaves out late bloomers and ends up being done largely based on background and parenting. Let's talk about how many immigrants end up getting to be on the university track.

Agree that neither system is perfect. Some in the US like to tout anyone can go to university here, but in the last decade or two, that's meant moving morE HS level classes into colleges. In Europe they like to tout about early tracking into vocational or university routes, but it can pretty classist / dependent on parenting / access to experiences just like in the States. Some of the more brilliant IT developers I worked with struggled with math in traditional classroom settings, but were great hands on learners who learned by developing on their own computers and networks / took them apart / rejiggered them. After that, textbook math and logic made more sense to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP back again, the exchanges here are interesting. I appreciate the insights!
To the poster wondering if I was suggesting DC not pursue a STEM degree because Calculus took effort you misunderstood my question, or it was poorly asked. A PP suggested that the ‘poor professors be spared’ having a kid who is not “gifted” in math courses being in their CS (or maybe any STEM degree) courses. I wondered if that is a legit concern. Then a different PP chimed in and mentioned another current thread about CS degrees from LACs and noted those professors may be more supportive of a kid who doesn’t immediately get it. I am not entirely clear if folks who gain CS degrees (or physics, math, etc) do struggle in those courses or whether they just “get it”. I suppose it is a silly question, of course all growth is uncomfortable and challenging. I guess I worry about the “weed out” theory.

OP, former adviser in engineering from big state school here. You DC sounds awesome in that they know how to struggle through material. It means they will know how to study which is huge for anyone taking Calc through Diff Eq. The best advice I can give you is make sure DC starts the math sequence from Calc 1 where ever they go, especially if it is a big state school.

Just wanted to comment on the struggle vs "gifted" aspect.
I'm an engineer, and I absolutely struggled through high level math. I was fine in high school calculus, but I was never one of those "math kids" that just inherently get everything. And I struggled a lot in college. But I'm not a happily practicing engineer and very good at my job. Yes, the high level math classes are week out classes, but the weeding isn't generally "only keep the kids who get everything easily the first time" Instead the weeding is for "only keep the kids who really want this and are willing to put in the effort to learn the material"
To be an engineer or computer science major you don't need to be hands-down-all-out geniuses. You just need to be reasonably smart and willing to work hard to solve problems. (Which is, in the end, why math is important for CS. It teaches you to think and helps you structure critical problem solving.)

Also... going out on a limb here... you keep referring to DC instead of DS or DD. If, in fact, your child is a girl, I'd encourage you to be especially wary of any input that she's not a "mathy" person or that she's not smart/technical/whatever enough to do CS. Study after study show that people underestimate a girl's math ability compared to a boy's, and that given the *exact* same profile, teachers/parents/professors are less likely to encourage a girl in STEM.

[Anonymous]

Great points, pp. ( 9:56).