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Ivy League Computer Science Curricula Exposed
Doug Treadwell writes "Many people have wondered what the difference is between the Computer Science education given in the average public university versus one given in an Ivy League university (or a top level public university). There have also been discussions here on Slashdot about whether any Computer Science curriculum gives students the knowledge they need for the working world. As a computer science student both questions are very important to me, so I decided to answer them for myself and build a website to share what I found. I was able to find the required reading for hundreds of courses at Stanford, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, and Berkeley; along with some other institutions. This should also help answer some of those 'What should I read?' questions."
is not the education itself, but the doors it opens (because people see the name brand), and the connections you make (by knowing lots of other people who have open doors).
That's not to say that you can't get these things in other ways. But it is easier to get it in that manner.
My education at state college didn't open many doors, but I don't think that on average, the ivy league graduate has that many legs up on me.
Probably because nobody's seriously talking about creating a regulatory framework for them like physicians, lawyers, engineers, and (IIRC) accountants have. Any software project that is going to fuck up somebody's life or property in a bad way if it fails probably already has a physician, lawyer, engineer or accountant signing off on it so that somebody can officially take the blame if there's a problem.
I suspect we won't see any serious talk of regulating software designers or developers until there's some serious incident that injures or kills a lot of people, but that's just a wild guess. Were there any big events that led to the current forms of licensing of medical practitioners, lawyers, engineers, etc., or did those things just develop gradually over the decades/centuries?
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Big-Name universities have nearly a single goal in mind: Published Papers. This is what fuels their reputation. This tilts their approach toward high-risk-high-reward research. However, 99% of all graduates will need real-world skills for the here-and-now at non-R&D places, and this may be where State-U excels, or at least even.
Most State-U's generally have given up on the "research run", freeing them to focus on marketable skills. Big-name U's still struggle with this balance.
Table-ized A.I.
We have a total mishmash of pure theory and applied (like software design and databases) and end up producing a lot of very muddled code monkeys
CS hasn't changed then. When I did it (1991) they made us learn Ada, 68k machine code, Pascal, Statistics and Double Entry Bookeeping - that the was supposed to make us into 'Software Engineers'.
When I'm looking to recruit I actually prefer people who've worked their way up than those with CS degrees for this very reason.
What's the real difference between an Ivy League degree and a state school degree?
The Ivy League guys have a much easier time getting interviews.
Unfortunately the "license" epidemic is only growing. Interior Designers seriously are lobbying to government to require licenses for interior decorators...because think of how horrible it would be if your house wasn't sufficiently fabulous! The Economist did a piece on this, it turns out the # of professions requiring some type of licensing is increasing fast for the reasons you mentioned. And of course the politicians whose pockets are being lined by these special interest groups' money aren't really doing much to stop it(in fact they are part of the problem).
Monstar L
I'm a Brown CS concentrator, and I thought, and still think, that the program there is excellent. I can't imagine an academic department being any more supportive of its students, or any more interested in making its subject matter accessible and engaging to both first-year novices and senior-year concentrators. The Brown program integrates upperclassmen (and -women) in the running of the department in a way that creates a real community, by providing many, many opportunities for collaboration between professors and students, and by making undergraduates teaching assistants in a way that improves the quality of learning for all parties. It also gives its students a damn good education: it starts by building strong fundamentals in CS theory, mathematics, and practical systems engineering, and then builds on those fundamentals to produce very well-rounded CS graduates with a depth of expertise in a variety of sub-specializations (graphics, theory, systems engineering, operating systems, AI). Brown CS professors are demanding, rigorous and brilliant, but the majority also see their first priority to be to mould the next generation of Computer Scientists, and their second priority to be academic research.
I don't know how Brown's program compares to MIT, Carnegie-Mellon, etc. in terms of providing real research opportunities for undergrads (probably pretty well, in fact); it certainly does not have the same reputation for graduate studies. Brown CS does accomplish something that I think is even more difficult (and important) than simply providing a strong computer-science education, however: it makes computer science compelling even for those people (like me) who would never have even thought previously to dedicate their professional lives to computers. I would say that Brown CS may be the ideal undergraduate program in computer science; it inspires a devotion for the discipline that can last an entire career, and provides a rigorous and strong preparatory basis for further development, whether that development be provided by industry or by other, more graduate-oriented institutions like Carnegie-Mellon or Stanford. Randy Pausch's story about how he became a computer science educator is really illustrative. Randy Pausch's mentor, Andy van Dam, is only one of the many devoted men and women that make up the department.
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Speaking for the legal profession (based on my memories of lectures from a respected professor of legal history, so take this with a grain of salt), it was largely a discriminatory desire to maintain a (white male protestant) monopoly on the profession that led to the current manifestation of the state bar associations and their examinations.
Around the turn of the century (1900), large numbers of well educated East European Jews were transplanting to the U.S. Many of them had legal training and practice, and began to set up legal practices in the U.S.
At the time, the state bars generally only required a term of apprenticeship and/or a recommendation from a current attorney in good standing to accept someone into the bar. The fledgling ABA saw a chance to seize a good deal of power by convincing the states that the influx of immigrants was a serious risk, and they should begin following ABA recommendations for accepting new members.
These recommendations initially included graduation from an ABA-accredited law school (which eventually grew to require four years of college before law school) and an examination, including an ABA-approved portion on federal law and general legal principles.
Does this lead to better lawyers? Not really. The exams in many states (all except CA have followed the ABA's recommendations...CA does have the exam, and the multistate portion, but does not require an accredited law school) have become largely pro forma, with pass rates over 80%.
Suffice it to say that there are still plenty of barred attorneys who aren't very good at their jobs.
The realm of software and web design and network management and all the rest should be careful to avoid examinations and requirements designed primarily to produce a monopoly on certain career paths, as these can easily be used to increase the costs of services and keep out unwanted or threatening groups, without ever increasing the quality of services provided.
Just my two cents.
I still remember the day where we had the ACM-MCPC (an qualifying round of ACM-ICPC for the Midwest section of U.S.) contest in a November weekend two years ago.
Our university happens to be a host site, and because of that, allowed to have 3 teams to compete instead of two. For most other universities, people have to qualify to appear at the competition. For us, we do not have enough people. So that, the professor assembled two teams of three people from the CS department, which happened to have the highest G.P.A. in the department (3.8+ out of 4), and opened the other team slot for public. Nobody inquired in a week. So I decide to make a run for it, even though it looks weird for an EE student to compete in the ACM-MCPC. The professor let me choose my team members. So I assembled a team, all EE students, picked from my electronic class, with G.P.A. in the low 3.x/upper 2.x range, with some knowledge in basic C++ and data structures.
The C.S. teams receive heavy coaching and training for the competition. Us? heavy "training" in Counter-Strike:Source.
At the end we happen to rank in the upper 30's (35th if I remember) out of 120 teams in the entire region. For the other two teams in the C.S. department, one of them ranked just a few place below us, and one of them ranked closed to triple-digits.
So, our training has work so well that we beat the top guys in the CS department. This story is still being talked occasionally.
"The New Age. The New Beginning."