jpdres10@usl-pc.UUCP (Green Eric Lee) (11/09/87)
In message <15924@clyde.ATT.COM>, jona@moss.ATT.COM says: >In article <134@usl-pc.UUCP> jpdres10@usl-pc.UUCP (Green Eric Lee) writes: >> currently there is no such thing as "computer >>science" on the BS level. >in a situation to go out into the world, work on a team that designs and >implements a computer project of some sort using Software engineering ^^^^^^^^^^^ >techniques and algorithm analysis techniques than I strongly disagree. OK. Let's first define engineering. What do engineers do? They design things, of course. They don't do science, usually. That is, they usually only use the underlying science to solve practical problems, instead of doing the actual research that discovers new scientific principles. You just said yourself that what a person does with a BS is design and implementation. Engineering. Not science. >>Let's face it, when someone hires someone fresh out of college with a >>BSCS, they aren't hiring him/her to do "Computer Science". They're >>hiring him/her to WRITE PROGRAMS. >This is unfortunately too often true - in fact many people confuse >computer science with computer programming. It doesn't take a 4 year >degree from an enginneering school to write (most) computer programs. Again, only too true, just like it really doesn't take a 4 year degree from a Business Administration program to become a manager. One friend, a professor in the business school here, insists that his job is to keep his students off the street for 4 years so that when they graduate, hopefully they won't still be drooling on their bibs and playing with blocks (a very cynical view, but, often, all too true). However, since most places won't hire a programmer unless they have a BSCS or equivalent, the question is moot. Besides, I really did enjoy all the non-CS courses that I got to take, even if the only Spanish I have left from three semesters of it is "Habla Espanol?", and of course knowing a bit about the science behind "computer science" can't actually HURT you. >Again, I'm interested in knowing what qualifications you require of a >computer scientist? It can't be an M.S. - from my experience, there are I personally haven't the foggiest notion what a computer scientist does, I'm just a humble engineer, someone who designs things using the principles that these "computer scientists" have discovered. However, I'd have to say that it really depends on the university. Here, for example, prospective PhD and MS candidates must first take an accelerated version of the undergraduate core curriculum, if they don't have equivalent undergraduate work. I know a couple of people who just got a MS here, and they seemed quite knowledgable about their particular specialties. I seriously doubt if having a PhD would make them any better "computer scientists" in their particular field. >>an engineering art just like all the rest of the engineering arts, and >>should be treated as such. Liberal Arts, it ain't! >I don't understand this statement at all. Well, hopefully I've cleared that up a bit. Since we're talking about design and implementation, we're talking about engineering. Engineering usually isn't considered to be part of the realm of liberal arts colleges.... HOWEVER, one thing that really MIGHT be of use would be programs like the University of Arkansas has for its Engineering students, where they spend the first two years of their college career at one of a variety of liberal arts institutions learning arts and sciences, and then the last three years at the University of Arkansas where they learn the design and implementation aspects of their specialty. If liberal arts institutions wish to survive in a world that has gone crazy, cooperative ventures with engineering colleges, such as the one above, is much more useful than attempting to do something they're not very well suited for, i.e. an engineering science that requires a lot of expensive lab equipment. -- Eric Green elg@usl.CSNET from BEYOND nowhere: {ihnp4,cbosgd}!killer!elg, P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509 {ut-sally,killer}!usl!elg "there's someone in my head, but it's not me..."