Tony wrote - >I don't worry too much about the people who go into CS expecting >vocational training --- such people can very happily be steered >towards excellent technical training outside of universities. But I >suspect that CS is often a let-down to students who expect it to be as >relevant as, say, engineering or business --- especially if they take >any AI courses. :-)
The head of the math department at the engineering college with whom I had some interaction explained to me that his department's role was in the first place in service to the general education goals of the college, which meant, as a practical matter, supplying the math courses tailored to the needs of an engineering student. There were math majors whose needs were being serviced as well, but not enough to justify the resources devoted to the math department, stand alone. He seemed well reconciled to that role for his department - despite the fact that the course content in his department tended not to be where his own mathematical interests were most focused. Does this have any relevancy to where the CS department may be evolving - as CS and programming skills become more and more relevant to a wider range of pursuits. As, for example, noted by Rob Malouf's recent post: """ We're not training our students to be programmers, we're just trying to give them the basic computational skills necessary to study language, genes, etc. """ There is - as I think John pretty much put - learning to program - to program, and learning to program - to learn. My own experience is more toward the learning to program to learn - in my case - mathematical ideas. But ultimately, to get to where I want to get, I realize that "basic computational skills" are not sufficient - that I need to get somewhat beyond the basics. I think that the linguist, or geneticist might also find the same to be true - eventually. Where are those needs to be services under current academic structures? Art _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
