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What Math Courses Should We Teach CS Students?
Coryoth asks: "If you're taking computer science then getting as much mathematics as you can is probably a good idea. Ultimately, however, there are only so many math courses you an squeeze in. Given that, what areas of mathematics should we be teaching CS students for maximum benefit? Traditionally university math courses are structured around the needs of the physical sciences and engineering, which means calculus is what gets offered. While a decent calculus course can teach a certain amount of formality in reasoning, wouldn't CS students be better served with a course in mathematical logic and foundations with its greater degree of formal reasoning and obvious connections to fundamental concepts in computer science? Are courses in abstract algebra and graph theory going to be useful to CS students? Should courses in category theory (yes, it applies to computer science) be required of students going on in theoretical computer science? In short — what areas of mathematics are going to be the most useful and most applicable to computer science students? What courses were of the most value to you?"
Any decent CS course at a reputable university will probably include most of the basic maths curriculum of a 1st/2nd year mathematics degree + additional maths relevant to Computer Science courses (ie. courses on algebra, geometry, complexed numbers, calculus, CS related discrete maths that is tied to the formal aspects of sofware engineering, and statistics). In my experience, this covers more than will ever be relevant to any job in the computer industry - unless you go into some scientific specialism. I don't see why any students doing reputable courses will need any additional mathematical material, since what is covered in most good UK courses is already over 1/4 of the curriculum. It is certainly necessary to cover the matrix algebra and basic geometry aspects if you are going to be programming graphics, and I can see many applications in the real world for statistics, but otherwise i've found little application for any of the mathematics that I studied at university.
Most of my CS profs had math degrees.