As a Computer Science student myself, personally, I think this list is waaay too broad. Most of these skills are quite literally entire subfields of Computer Science in and of themselves, and have...
As a Computer Science student myself, personally, I think this list is waaay too broad. Most of these skills are quite literally entire subfields of Computer Science in and of themselves, and have little or nothing to do eachother. If your goal is to study web design and development for example, what are you going to do with knowledge in robotics? I feel like putting students through such a broad curriculum winds up making students with knowledge a mile wide and an inch deep so to speak, and in Computer Science, I don't think it's very valuable to have a ton of novice skills that doesn't connect or build on each other in any coherent way. It also puts a tremendous amount of pressure on students to learn an insane amount of things, and leads to these massively bloated resumes which makes it really difficult to find out what they actually do know.
I feel like it'd be a lot smarter to move a small number of these into a "core" category, like programming, entry level CS concepts like evaluating algorithm efficiency, and move the rest into a groupings system, like a tree. Want to study web development? You'll probably also want good skills in networking, maybe database administration, and system maintenance. Want to work in embedded? You'll probably want some good courses in computer architecture, assembly and C programming, and cybersecurity, since it's critically important for embedded devices to work safely and reliably. Prefer to work in data science? You'll want good statistics and discrete math knowledge, parallelism, and some graphics / data visualization knowledge.
Just like a tree, everyone starts at the same root and then branches out into sub branches and leaves until they get to the field they want. I think that's a lot healthier than expecting someone to have mastered 15 different programming languages, 4 rounds of Calculus, discrete math, and electromagnetic physics, mechatronics, cybersecurity, parallelism, computer graphics, data analysis, artificial intelligence, user interface design, and everything else in this list.
Learning most of that list I'd say is very useful, but like @Silbern said, it is way too broad. What I disagree with: engineering core: I have to take an engineering core as part of my software...
Learning most of that list I'd say is very useful, but like @Silbernsaid, it is way too broad.
What I disagree with:
engineering core: I have to take an engineering core as part of my software engineering program... I have to say, the most use I got from the calculus and electromagnetism course was how to manage a charged course load. I have to disagree with the computer scientist having to learning engineering math specifically. Most engineers already take a bit of programming or use technical software, communication between computer scientists and engineers should not be hard to the point where you end up needing a jack of all trades.
Software engineering: I don't think a group of three is broad enough. You need a group big enough that one or two people are not able to carry the project all by themselves. Last year we were coupled in groups of ten students and had to build a fully fledged student course planner that would actually allow you to see the courses you're taking and to add/remove/drop courses as well as checking prerequisite fulfillment. What was different about that project was that we had to divide the group into smaller groups ourselves, with some people handling documentation/reports, front-end, back-end, testing, etc. None of us knew all of the inner parts of the program, but the parts we worked on, we knew well. We really learned the importance of group work and communication after that course.
I'm curious though, is there anything that any of you would add
Using linux as your daily driver. It's been almost a year since I installed it and never looked back. The author recommended it within the realm of sysadmin, but even if that doesn't interest you, once you get used to it things become much smoother than windows. Referring back to that course I talked about, I was one of two people that was using Linux in the group. The other guy was swamped handling back-end bugs and features. When it came time to perform unit and penetration testing, the guide given to us just had some screenshots of a command line with some commands so it fell on the only other guy who knew what it meant to handle it. I'm seeing more and more internships asking for applicants who have some experience or even prefer Linux over Windows. I can see why.
So I think the tricky part about this list is that its purpose is being misunderstood by some of the people commenting. My impression is that this is a Computer Science professor saying "these are...
So I think the tricky part about this list is that its purpose is being misunderstood by some of the people commenting. My impression is that this is a Computer Science professor saying "these are the topics that an undergraduate/graduate Computer Science major should expect to learn about during their degree program". The author confuses this a little bit by mentioning multiple things about employment, but I think they're actually talking mostly about the academic work itself, and it's more like "when someone sees that you have a CS degree, they will probably assume that you at least have a general idea about all of these concepts".
As it is, it seems like a pretty good summary of the things that I learned doing my Bachelor's CS degree, though we definitely didn't learn that many different programming languages, but this was also ~15 years ago (I can only remember using Pascal, C, C++, Java, and assembly).
However (and I think this is what most people are focusing more on), that's very different from "these are the topics that will be important to you as a non-academic, working developer". There are so many things on this list that I spent a lot of time on in school but have been completely unnecessary after graduating. I probably took at least 4 or 5 calculus courses, but now I seriously doubt I could solve a multivariate calculus problem to save my life. I'm sure it's important in some jobs, but it sure hasn't been in the ones I've taken.
I’m just starting in that area and basic high school math has been a major weak point for me. When people say you don’t need math to study CS and other related majors they usually mean that you...
I’m just starting in that area and basic high school math has been a major weak point for me. When people say you don’t need math to study CS and other related majors they usually mean that you don’t need to be a math genius, but a firm understanding of the fundamentals is clearly required. Most learning materials will use math in their examples at some point, and you can’t learn calculus without it. I’m currently on college break, and decided to study exclusively math in that period. Every “no prerequisites” course actually requires math in some shape or form. I finished high school more than 20 years ago. And for this kind of stuff I’m not good at reading between the lines.
The link has good points, but I feel I won’t even get to address any of them if I don’t get better at math.
Your degree means shit in the real world of IT and IS support, unless you want to be a manager. It's not a fast track to a great paying IT job. Get real world experience and pass Industry...
Your degree means shit in the real world of IT and IS support, unless you want to be a manager. It's not a fast track to a great paying IT job.
Get real world experience and pass Industry Certifications.
I thought I was pretty clear in a simple fashion. Your desirability and success in IT/IS support isn't going to come from a college degree. I've lost count of how many applicants I've talked with...
I thought I was pretty clear in a simple fashion.
Your desirability and success in IT/IS support isn't going to come from a college degree.
I've lost count of how many applicants I've talked with who kept pushing "my BA in Computer Science..." blah blah blah. Yea, but when I ask you simple IT/IS related questions you can't answer them.
CS majors don't go into IT. IT majors go into IT. Because they're IT majors lol. It's a non-sequitur because what you said has very little to do with the article.
CS majors don't go into IT. IT majors go into IT. Because they're IT majors lol.
It's a non-sequitur because what you said has very little to do with the article.
So, at least in the US, you don't get a major in Information Technology from a reputable university or college. You only get something titled that from a "scam" (I hate to call them colleges or...
So, at least in the US, you don't get a major in Information Technology from a reputable university or college.
You only get something titled that from a "scam" (I hate to call them colleges or universities) company like what ITT Tech used to be.
Well, software development does full into IT/IS... I've interviewed a lot of people with CS degrees who thought that alone qualified them for IT/IS jobs. I'm talking over a three hundred over the...
Well, software development does full into IT/IS... I've interviewed a lot of people with CS degrees who thought that alone qualified them for IT/IS jobs. I'm talking over a three hundred over the past 20 years.
As a Computer Science student myself, personally, I think this list is waaay too broad. Most of these skills are quite literally entire subfields of Computer Science in and of themselves, and have little or nothing to do eachother. If your goal is to study web design and development for example, what are you going to do with knowledge in robotics? I feel like putting students through such a broad curriculum winds up making students with knowledge a mile wide and an inch deep so to speak, and in Computer Science, I don't think it's very valuable to have a ton of novice skills that doesn't connect or build on each other in any coherent way. It also puts a tremendous amount of pressure on students to learn an insane amount of things, and leads to these massively bloated resumes which makes it really difficult to find out what they actually do know.
I feel like it'd be a lot smarter to move a small number of these into a "core" category, like programming, entry level CS concepts like evaluating algorithm efficiency, and move the rest into a groupings system, like a tree. Want to study web development? You'll probably also want good skills in networking, maybe database administration, and system maintenance. Want to work in embedded? You'll probably want some good courses in computer architecture, assembly and C programming, and cybersecurity, since it's critically important for embedded devices to work safely and reliably. Prefer to work in data science? You'll want good statistics and discrete math knowledge, parallelism, and some graphics / data visualization knowledge.
Just like a tree, everyone starts at the same root and then branches out into sub branches and leaves until they get to the field they want. I think that's a lot healthier than expecting someone to have mastered 15 different programming languages, 4 rounds of Calculus, discrete math, and electromagnetic physics, mechatronics, cybersecurity, parallelism, computer graphics, data analysis, artificial intelligence, user interface design, and everything else in this list.
Learning most of that list I'd say is very useful, but like @Silbern said, it is way too broad.
What I disagree with:
engineering core: I have to take an engineering core as part of my software engineering program... I have to say, the most use I got from the calculus and electromagnetism course was how to manage a charged course load. I have to disagree with the computer scientist having to learning engineering math specifically. Most engineers already take a bit of programming or use technical software, communication between computer scientists and engineers should not be hard to the point where you end up needing a jack of all trades.
Software engineering: I don't think a group of three is broad enough. You need a group big enough that one or two people are not able to carry the project all by themselves. Last year we were coupled in groups of ten students and had to build a fully fledged student course planner that would actually allow you to see the courses you're taking and to add/remove/drop courses as well as checking prerequisite fulfillment. What was different about that project was that we had to divide the group into smaller groups ourselves, with some people handling documentation/reports, front-end, back-end, testing, etc. None of us knew all of the inner parts of the program, but the parts we worked on, we knew well. We really learned the importance of group work and communication after that course.
Using linux as your daily driver. It's been almost a year since I installed it and never looked back. The author recommended it within the realm of sysadmin, but even if that doesn't interest you, once you get used to it things become much smoother than windows. Referring back to that course I talked about, I was one of two people that was using Linux in the group. The other guy was swamped handling back-end bugs and features. When it came time to perform unit and penetration testing, the guide given to us just had some screenshots of a command line with some commands so it fell on the only other guy who knew what it meant to handle it. I'm seeing more and more internships asking for applicants who have some experience or even prefer Linux over Windows. I can see why.
So I think the tricky part about this list is that its purpose is being misunderstood by some of the people commenting. My impression is that this is a Computer Science professor saying "these are the topics that an undergraduate/graduate Computer Science major should expect to learn about during their degree program". The author confuses this a little bit by mentioning multiple things about employment, but I think they're actually talking mostly about the academic work itself, and it's more like "when someone sees that you have a CS degree, they will probably assume that you at least have a general idea about all of these concepts".
As it is, it seems like a pretty good summary of the things that I learned doing my Bachelor's CS degree, though we definitely didn't learn that many different programming languages, but this was also ~15 years ago (I can only remember using Pascal, C, C++, Java, and assembly).
However (and I think this is what most people are focusing more on), that's very different from "these are the topics that will be important to you as a non-academic, working developer". There are so many things on this list that I spent a lot of time on in school but have been completely unnecessary after graduating. I probably took at least 4 or 5 calculus courses, but now I seriously doubt I could solve a multivariate calculus problem to save my life. I'm sure it's important in some jobs, but it sure hasn't been in the ones I've taken.
I’m just starting in that area and basic high school math has been a major weak point for me. When people say you don’t need math to study CS and other related majors they usually mean that you don’t need to be a math genius, but a firm understanding of the fundamentals is clearly required. Most learning materials will use math in their examples at some point, and you can’t learn calculus without it. I’m currently on college break, and decided to study exclusively math in that period. Every “no prerequisites” course actually requires math in some shape or form. I finished high school more than 20 years ago. And for this kind of stuff I’m not good at reading between the lines.
The link has good points, but I feel I won’t even get to address any of them if I don’t get better at math.
Your degree means shit in the real world of IT and IS support, unless you want to be a manager. It's not a fast track to a great paying IT job.
Get real world experience and pass Industry Certifications.
Er, forgive me but this seems like a complete non-sequitur. What are you talking about?
I thought I was pretty clear in a simple fashion.
Your desirability and success in IT/IS support isn't going to come from a college degree.
I've lost count of how many applicants I've talked with who kept pushing "my BA in Computer Science..." blah blah blah. Yea, but when I ask you simple IT/IS related questions you can't answer them.
That kind of thing.
CS majors don't go into IT. IT majors go into IT. Because they're IT majors lol.
It's a non-sequitur because what you said has very little to do with the article.
So, at least in the US, you don't get a major in Information Technology from a reputable university or college.
You only get something titled that from a "scam" (I hate to call them colleges or universities) company like what ITT Tech used to be.
You get CIS, CS and sometimes IS majors.
Well, software development does full into IT/IS... I've interviewed a lot of people with CS degrees who thought that alone qualified them for IT/IS jobs. I'm talking over a three hundred over the past 20 years.