[nfbcs] Computer Science Career Questions

Tue Jan 5 15:46:05 UTC 2016

The ABET standards are pretty straight.  If you get a degree from an
accredited school in the U.S. the minimum requirements are one year of
natural science and Math.  If it is an Information Technology degree, you
can usually get away with Pre-calculus and Calculus I but a two-year school
may allow college Algebra/Trigonometry and then pre-Calculus.
I wouldn't doubt if the top 100 programs in the country that teach Computer
Science don't have two years of Math and two years of science though.  

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of John G Heim via
nfbcs
Sent: Tuesday, January 5, 2016 9:26 AM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: John G Heim <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Computer Science Career Questions

Are you sure about a Math degree requiring that much math? We hired a CS
major a couple of years ago and I am about as sure as I can be that he never
took calculus. Maybe he somehow passed it w/o learning anything. 
Working at a university, you see kids do that all the time. Lots of kids
seem to think college is about getting grades, not learning.

If they still require a lot of math for a comp sci degree, it's obsolete. I
was going to bring up the netmask thing myself as an example of needing math
to be good at your job. But except that it's binary, it's about the easiest
math there is. It's not really even math, it's arithmetic and it's the
simplest possible arithmetic, just zeros and ones. I can see some value in
the idea that taking lots of math helps you with problem solving but taking
calculus to help you calculate netmasks seems like huge overkill to me.
Personally, I don't know how people get through their lives not knowing
math. Statistics, probability theory, even calculus come up all the time in
my life. If you don't know math, when math problems come up, you don't
recognize them as math problems. But I'll admit it almost never comes up in
my job and I work for a math department.

In fact, I'll bet that the vast majority of IT professionals couldn't
calculate a netmask if their life depended upon it.

On 01/04/2016 09:03 PM, Vincent Martin via nfbcs wrote:
> The typical CS degree will have almost the same Math requirements as 
> any Engineering degree.  It is a part of the accreditation process.  
> You will normally take a Three semester / five quarter Calculus 
> regiment, discrete math, Linear Algebra and Statistics.  Depending 
> upon the school that you attend or the option you take, there may be an
additional course or so.
> If you do an IT degree, you can get by with less Math though.
>    
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Christopher 
> Chaltain via nfbcs
> Sent: Monday, January 04, 2016 8:40 PM
> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
> Cc: Christopher Chaltain
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Computer Science Career Questions
>
> I wouldn't have thought there would be a lot of math in a CS degree. I 
> actually have a Masters in Mathematics with a minor in CS, and all of 
> my CS courses were pretty free of math. Maybe that's because I just 
> got a minor, or I didn't need the math courses due to my major in math.
>
> I will say that if you go into IT then math will be useful. Network 
> addressing with netmasks and all really never made sense to me until I 
> started thinking of them as problems in binary math.
>
> I'd agree Linux is a good choice. The cloud runs on Linux, and a lot 
> of system administration in the cloud can be done via the command line.
> Working in the cloud will also keep you on the cutting edge and look 
> good on the resume.
>
> For programming languages, I'd say learn a good structural language 
> like C and a good object oriented language like Java. Also scripting 
> languages like Python will come in handy as a system administrator.
> IMHO, once you grasp a few languages, picking up new languages is a 
> lot easier, and you'll spend a lot of time just figuring out what the 
> various routines are you have available to you.
>
> I'd also agree that the projects you work on are key. Even more than 
> that, I'd say internship experiences are invaluable. When I interview 
> CS grads, I don't focus much on the course work, since that's pretty 
> much the same across the board. I really focus in on any internships 
> the candidate has had.
>
> Also, don't overlook what I call the soft skills. Good communication 
> skills and the ability to work in a team and work with customers is 
> key in today's IT world.
>
> Good luck in whatever you end up doing!
>
> On 04/01/16 18:30, rjaquiss via nfbcs wrote:
>> Hello:
>>
>>        I have a BS degree in Computer Science (1976). It had a lot of 
>> math courses most of which I didn't find very useful. I would suggest 
>> you learn C, C++, Possibly C# and Java. You should also know html,  
>> css and JavaScript. For sure learn Linux and Windows programming. It 
>> wouldn't hurt to learn about developing IOS applications for iPhones. 
>> I would try and
> take
>> some robotics courses if possible. When it came time for me to 
>> interview
> for
>> jobs, the thing most interesting to potential employers were the 
>> various projects I did. I wrote a cross assembler for the Zilog Z80 
>> microprocessor and also a cross compiler. The knowledge and 
>> experience you gain from
> doing
>> projects is invaluable. Hope this helps.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Robert
>>
>>
>>
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>>

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