jvz@sdcsvax.UUCP (John Van Zandt) (10/22/84)
I agree with John Bass that it is important for students to have hands-on experience to reinforce book-learning. And I do believe that schools should have the best, most up-to-date tools on which the students should be able to practice. What I object to is the selection of any one specific example as a MUST to be taught. From an educational point of view we do not know what are the best examples to use, or even how/when the examples should be presented (a friend of mine once told me that his understanding of mathematics came from a childhood interest in how to use gears to do mechanical work). Also, I have found that students who have an extremely detailed understanding of any one system, from the hardware up to the system software tend to grasp book-learning much better than students who have just an acquaintance with a state-of-the-art system. It might turn out that detailed knowledge of a system is the most important aspect, and that the type of system is not the relevant factor. As far as employers seeking newly graduating students, I especially find it annoying when employers rank students based on a very specific set of training. Usually what this means is that the employer does not have a good set of criteria by which to judge the qualifications of a candidate and so settles for a checklist approach (I realize the flames this might cause). John Van Zandt University of California, San Diego ...!ucbvax!sdcsvax!jvz
thomas@utah-gr.UUCP (Spencer W. Thomas) (10/29/84)
There is a very interesting comment on Computer Science education in the latest CACM. The editorial (by Denning) is based on discussion at the Snowbird 84 meeting (of chairmen of PhD granting CS departments). The meat of it is summed up in a single sentence: "Computer science stands alone among science and engineering disciplines: Our curriculum has the technology in the core courses and the science in the electives!" Most CS departments have, as their core curriculum, programming courses. The courses teaching the fundamental ideas underlying what we call Computer Science are generally electives. If, on the other hand, you look at a field such as Electrical Engineering (or Chemistry, or Physics, or ...), you find that the fundamental ideas are taught in the core courses, usually with an associated lab which teaches the "technology" of the discipline. Denning concludes: "... that computer scientists have no clear picture of the nature of their own field, which leads those from other disciplines to confused perceptions about us. We are projecting an illusion that we are mostly technicians and that our field has nowhere the same intellectual dept as the physical sciences or engineering..." I would be interested in seeing further discussion of his ideas (set forth "in full" in the editorial) on the net. I do have an ulterior motive - I am on our department's curriculum committee, and we are trying to do a major revision of the undergraduate curriculum this year. =Spencer