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Univ. of Florida Announces Plan To Save CS Department
New submitter WIGFIELD7458 writes "This appears to be a major change in plans that will save the Computer Science Department. Thanks to everyone in the Gator Nation and beyond for speaking out! The battle isn't over yet, but this is very encouraging news. I would urge the students, faculty, and alumni of UF to continue to express your support for the essential academic mission of your university."
If you are the Park Service, and your budget gets cut, one ploy is to close the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Monument, not some campground in South Dakota, hoping to get a reaction and thus get the money back.
Sounds like the University of Florida did the same thing.
Why would you even consider getting a CS degree here now?
The Plan:
1) Triple the tuition for traditional students (i.e. nerdy males).
2) Give full scholarships to nontraditional students (i.e. attractive females).
3) Allow nontraditional students to earn extra credit by pretending to be interested in traditional students.
4) Profit!
A couple bright CS profs drew up a play on the palm of their hands, and presented it to the UF board.
"Our CS students should gain practical work experience while studying at UF, by developing and enhancing a web site to bring together the community of fans of Gator football and (men's) basketball. This will be no run of the mill web site, but will feature the latest in interactivity, wikis and forums, video clips, and inside access to coaches and athletes..."
Everybody else go deep!
Univ. of Florida Announces Plan To Save CS Department
Please tell me that a complex plot is involved, possibly involving George Clooney in disguise.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
damage to credibility is already done.. just keep your stupid football team.. no one in their right mind would go there for a CS degree now
Science fiction writers (fundamentally artists) rarely write about a poem or some business major (businessman maybe but not an MBA) who changes the world. It is most often some cool technology. If you look back into history there are undoubtedly influential works of art, like it or not writings like the bible have had a profound effect. But the reality is that inventions like electricity, medicines, etc have changed the world for the better over and over. Right now the technology is computers and their related technologies like robots that are setting the world on fire.
The primary focus of any healthy society should be to churn out the most skilled STEM students possible. We still need barbers and bankers but keep in mind that Taiwan churns out something like 55,000 Electrical Engineers a year. I have no idea if they are glorified electricians or the next Tesla but it certainly shows that they know where to focus their efforts.
Plus look at what happened to the world economy when it had too many MBAs around?
The mere thought of cutting the CS department shows the thinking of a group of weak minds. These are the sort of people who don't save any grain for the next spring's planting.
A computer is a very specific electronic tool. Why does it require its own department? Universities don't have a "Automobile Science" dept. They don't have a 'Radio Science" dept. They don't have a "Television Science" dept. They don't have a "Pharmaceutical Science" dept. If you want to enter those fields, you study mechanical, or electrical, or chemical engineering, etc. Isn't a good Computer Science degree an engineering degree consisting of mathematics and electrical engineering and some software engineering principles thrown in? I'm not sure Computer Science needs it's own department. A computer science department is really a relic of an older time when people thought computers were made of pixie dust and performed magic. In reality it's just math and electrical engineering.
no accreditation just list the school and tell people the full story that you did your classes and the school messed up. Also sue for a full refund.
Actually, there are plenty of "pharmaceutical science" programs out there. Oh, and Computer Science is not just math and electrical engineering - for one thing, there is nothing "engineering" about computer science; for another, the focus of computer science is on a very narrow part of mathematics (mostly theory of recursive functions and category theory) and the sort of courses required for a real math major, like analysis or analytical geometry, would be relevant to less than 1% of all programmers.
No. I speak as someone with a MS in CS, so I may be a little biased, but saying CS should just be Math & Engineering is much like saying Physics is just applied math, or chemistry is applied physics. While one is built on the other, there are basic tenets taught in CompSci that would never come directly out of Engineering or Math. While there is a lot of overlap, subjects such as Data Structures or Autonoma Theory (off the top of my head) are VERY different than anything that would be thought of as engineering or math. Core concepts such as these affect the very way that CS majors view the world. It is a different level than just applied math & engineering.
This signature is a waste of 42 characters
Computer science isn't about computers. It's about computing. Computer science is not computer or software engineering.
Many computer science departments teach some elements of software and computer engineering, and I've heard many in the US are actually software engineering departments, but that's not what CS actually is.
Yes, computer science itself is very mathematical, but so is physics.
Arrest them
They don't have a "Pharmaceutical Science" dept.
Actually, they do. It's called a pharmacy college.
http://www.cop.ufl.edu/
They have it because they recognize that certain things, like chemical reactions and computers, but unlike a television, have a great deal of theoretical knowledge as well as practical knowledge. A chemical engineer or chemist would make a poor pharmacist, just like an electrical engineer would make a poor computer scientist or network administrator.
Tech / TV / CARs need a TECH / vocational school. The hard fact is that they really don't fit that well into a 2-4-6 year College plan. It is the relic of an older time that they try to fit into. Now it's real issues when you have places like TRIBECA FLASHPOINT ACADEMY that is a 2 year tech like school. Some of the class plans are Film + Broadcast, Recording Arts, ECT but the issues is that it's only 2 year (that should be good to get a job)
But at one TV channel they want a 4 year degree in communications to work master control? Now I think that master control is a very tech job and communications is not a tech class plan and you can learn all you need and more as well likely other parts of the tech side of the back end and how it works.
Might have been a Boston high school or something, but it's kind of irrelevant to WHERE.
The principal/school board were faced with big budget cuts, and so instead of cutting arts and sciences or liberal arts, they cut all the sports programs. They did this because they knew that parents would complain more loudly about the sports being cut than educational programs.
Sad state of affairs, though our public education system is pretty dismal nowadays, at least in the US.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Actually, there are plenty of "pharmaceutical science" programs out there. Oh, and Computer Science is not just math and electrical engineering - for one thing, there is nothing "engineering" about computer science; for another, the focus of computer science is on a very narrow part of mathematics (mostly theory of recursive functions and category theory) and the sort of courses required for a real math major, like analysis or analytical geometry, would be relevant to less than 1% of all programmers.
15+ credits of mandatory I/II/III advanced math courses in a CS degree that are "relevant to less than 1% of all programmers"...doubtful there has ever a more pointless credit filler associated with a degree.
I was on the path of CS until I hit that rather pointless math brick wall, and chose an MIS degree instead. Figured I find value in the MIS business courses a hell of a lot easier in the real world than CS math courses I would (literally) never use again that would cost me thousands.
The think that made CS departments exist is the great body of the knowledge that involves it and good part of it is specialized.
This was stated in the last front page article, but top schools (MIT, for example) have combined CS with other departments. Can't Florida be like these other schools?
A good programmer is a bit of a polymath. He (or she) needs a broad scope of knowledge, not just to do a specific task, but to analyze and discover ways to get that task done using a specific set of tools. The best comp sci schools don't just teach pure computer science, but also teach how to improvise, how to improve, how to manage, and how to think. Comp sci folks need to know not only how to fix a problem given a set of instructions under a specific scenario, but how to recognize the nature of the problem in the first place and tackle it in the right direction. That is why computer science is considered a four or six year degree program, instead of a vocation like a PC technician is.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
When I first read about their CS department going away, I wondered immediately if there is more to the story than meets the eye. At my university we have a hugely dysfunctional CS department - many faculty blatantly abuse their tenure. They just got their MS program cut, in fact, but nobody's complaining because everyone knows it was a lousy program due to lousy faculty. I have to wonder if there are reasons for dismantling the program that go far beyond budgetary issues. If it were a healthy department I doubt it would be on the chopping block in the first place. But, I speculate.
Getting rid of a department doesn't mean you get rid of all the courses being taught, nor does it mean you even get rid of the degree. I suspect many if not most faculty will be absorbed into other departments if they do end up deleting the department. For instance, many CS faculty could end up in engineering or math.
All I'm saying is these situations are generally more complex than they appear on the surface. Yes, public universities are in bad shape these days, but one thing I've noticed having watched this happen around me is that situations like this really bring to light some of the existing problems that were there all along but were manageable until the axe came down.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
A program that fails to properly educate != a program being cut for budgetary concerns.
This is a matter of having a fine car but not affording the monthly payments as opposed to having a clunker car that's breaking down. One gets repo'd, the other gets you a ticket.
I hope the CS department teaches the students how to operate a burger joint, else they will be on the street as unemployable...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Perhaps they should had closed the CS department if their faculty is trolling Slashdot all the time. Why aren't you trying to get grants, or teaching undergrads?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Perhaps they should had closed the CS department if their faculty is trolling Slashdot all the time. Why aren't you trying to get grants, or teaching undergrads?
If you don't get 30 FPs in the first seven years, no tenure.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Can't remember the last time a maths lesson covered the most efficient way to search for a string in a large body of text, or parallel programming techniques, or any of a million and one REAL COMPUTER SCIENCE techniques that have little relevance elsewhere.
I did Maths & Computer Science. Coding Theory - mathematical base but almost 100% computer science applications. Graph Theory - 50-50. Logic - Almost entirely computer science.
There really is a vast distinction there that, if you don't grasp, probably means you are neither a mathematician or a computer scientist.
But that account, we should merge CS into EE and Maths. And Chemistry is really just applied physics, so merge that into Physics. And then merge Physics into Maths.... and what you end up with is a) Maths and b) Art. And then some git comes up with a course on mathematical fractals, or a chemical explanation of the arrangement of pigment on paper and you just end up teaching "University" as one large course.
Please, go look through a decent uni's CS-only courses in the later years. If you see anything there marked as a CS-course that a mathematician would have more than a passing interest in, shout.
That a good programmer is a bit of a polymath is exactly the reason why a separate CS-department is bull, think about it, what the CS-department does is take good programmers and separate them from the actual problems their programming is supposed to solve and *BANG* you have a linux distro without any reason for existence growing from your university basement and people arguing if the screen should be blue or red.
This happens all the time imho.
In my home state of NJ the education system is chock full of small school districts, each with their own set of administrators and highly paid superintendents. My hometown put on the ballot a tax increase to cover junior high sports, the Knowledge Bowl, and various and sundry interesting programs. It passed.
Now, if they put on the list "a secretary we don't need and a huge raise for the principal" I doubt it would get passed.
Cities also do this with threatening police and firefighters. Even the most die-hard libertarian sees the need for police and firemen. They never give you the option to cut all the waste you wouldn't mind doing without.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
That statement sounds like contentless spin. I would like to know just what the misunderstanding is. Yes there still will be a CS *program*, but my (mis)understanding is that the university has started a restructuring that will drive away the best CS researchers and experts, leaving only perfunctory instructors. And it is quite likely that the damage has been done. The best, well-funded CS researchers have now gotten the message of the lack of institutional support and are by now seeking jobs elsewhere -- the best always have somewhere else to go. The rest will comprise a CS program based on mediocrity. I didnt hear the prez or dean take a stand against mediocrity in cutting edge CS research.
No, that's the reason that CS departments are incorporated into larger universities instead of being stand alone institutions.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Yeah, you're biased.
There's a reason most of the top engineering schools have merged the Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Computer Science departments. That reason directly contradicts just about every claim you have made.
I honestly cannot imagine a CS job that wouldn't benefit from at least a working knowledge of Calculus.
Helpdesk monkey or entry level perl developer, sure. But not actual CS. But then again, you can get those jobs without a degree. You've essentially wasted 4 years of your life.
I'm thinking you're confusing CS with.. something else. Not sure what, but your idea of what CS majors do seems to be way off from reality. It's probably better you switched when it got difficult.
Actually I find that Computer Science is one of the most narrow disciplines. Compare computer science, say to the curriculum that a Chemical Engineer gets:
Physics 1 year
Calculus 2 years
Numerical Algorithms
Control Theory
Organic Chemistry 1 year
Physical Chemistry 1 year
Thermodynamics
Mech and Electrical Engineering intro
Separation Phenomena
Unit Ops
Process Economics
etc.
It can be used for many careers - some of the people I know who went through that are now in geology, or used it as pre med.
but it seems like once a month that some redneck son-of-the-soil in the deep south decides they want to axe public funding for science or healthcare. The united states is starved for competence in the technology field; its a grande accomplishment for most people to add facebook and gmail to a cellphone. its shamefully ignorant to think you can axe the computer science department of any university and somehow improve budget conditions long-term in your state. Florida saved a few million dollars here, but in 20 years when programming and computer science hasnt dissipated as a form of economic prosperity and tax revenue for states, they can look back and salute the inbred geezers that stood by and watched this happen, and the hilbilly who pandered for a few more votes as his state swirled round the bowl. I liken this prof as a gandolf at the pass. lets hope he succeeds.
/dev/dsp. The occasional clicks they hear will serve to placate the elderly voter, as it succors a distant memory of when they used to elect george bush and approve things like axing public healthcare.
on the bright side, states with academic technology programs like computer science can help to provide useful transparent voting machines for states like florida that simply pipe the voters choices to
Good people go to bed earlier.
A computer is a very specific electronic tool. Why does it require its own department? Universities don't have a "Automobile Science" dept. They don't have a 'Radio Science" dept. They don't have a "Television Science" dept. They don't have a "Pharmaceutical Science" dept. If you want to enter those fields, you study mechanical, or electrical, or chemical engineering, etc. Isn't a good Computer Science degree an engineering degree consisting of mathematics and electrical engineering and some software engineering principles thrown in? I'm not sure Computer Science needs it's own department. A computer science department is really a relic of an older time when people thought computers were made of pixie dust and performed magic. In reality it's just math and electrical engineering.
That's like saying that astronomers are nothing more than opticians who have taken some astrophysics courses.
The SCIENCE of computING, of creating ever more intelligent machines, of how to build better ARCHITECTED machines based on a better understand of the nature of data, its inherent structure, and methods to transform its usefulness (algorithms, etc) is far, far from "just math+engr" with a little software. It is definitely a field of its own that has continued and will continue to grow in importance to our lives, economy and survival.
Computing is a very specific form of math and computing engineer is mostly about implementation, not the underlying theory of computing and information representation and processing. Every university has separate (and powerful, well-developed) Economics depts as well even though a major fraction of economic is also "just math". Same with Statistics depts... Same with much of theoretical physics, "just math"....
I'm stuck trying to think of how one might explain to a TV repairman that their work is similar to know how to optimize code for GPU processing.
I think your analogies are like comparing a chemical specialist to an car-engine design specialist because they both work with oil.
Tech / TV / CARs need a TECH / vocational school.
That depends on what you're trying to do with the "Tech / TV / CARs" -- if you're trying to repair existing ones, then a vocational school may be a good option. If you're trying to design new ones from scratch (or even design significant modifications to one that already exists) that I'm going to use, I'd kind of like at least one (ideally most) of the designers to have advanced engineering or science degrees.
That's why the May 2011 data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (the first set of data I found; I didn't dig for more recent data) indicates that "automotive service technicians and mechanics" (occupation code 49-3023) made an average annual salary of $38,560 while "mechanical engineers" (17-2141) made an average of $83,550.
What skill is more valuable for the practical man working in the computer field than expertise in slashdot multi refresh and first post technology?
But they don't then combine all the degrees and ditch "pure" CS, which was the point.
Media attention seems to have saved the CS department whereas their researching and teaching did not.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Universities don't have a "Automobile Science" dept. They don't have a 'Radio Science" dept. They don't have a "Television Science" dept. They don't have a "Pharmaceutical Science" dept. If you want to enter those fields, you study mechanical, or electrical, or chemical engineering, etc.
Others have already pointed out the flaws in your other examples. I thought I'd offer a link that shows why the one I bolded is a spectacularly bad example for the argument you're trying to make:
Pharmacology Departments World-Wide
(You may also find the Wikipedia article on pharmacology useful to understand why it's a rather large field of study.)
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Let's see here...Computers are typically more complex than automobiles and radios. That's just the hardware. The programs themselves are another level of complexity, on top of that.
"In reality it's just math and electrical engineering." -> And flying is just flapping your arms really fast.
I am John Hurt.
There's a reason most of the top engineering schools have merged the Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Computer Science departments.
It's called "compromising for budgetary reasons". That doesn't mean it's the ideal approach.
"There's a reason most of the top engineering schools have merged the Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Computer Science departments." -> Yes, they want them to work together. Electrical Engineers are the bottom of the pyramid, Computer Engineers the middle, and Software Engineers / Computer Scientists the top. Were it not for the people "below" us, actively developing things, typically in conjunction with us, we'd still be programming computers with vacuum tubes.
I am John Hurt.
CS majors have to go through two-a-days and learn the finer points of being tackling dummies.
10 Are you ready for some football?
20 Go To 10
I disagree; having any sort of thorough knowledge about computers requires at least some education from almost all parts of the STEM curricula. Any person who actually gives a shit about computers should know (with at least some rudimentary level of competency) a whole spectrum of things from semiconductor theory to abstract models of computation. The set of sciences and fields of mathematics you need to now master to have a solid understanding of the operation of a computer is mind boggling.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
and what you end up with is a) Maths and b) Art.
To add to what you said, why not just merge everything under "education"? Because when a given subset of a category becomes large enough, that subset becomes its own category. CS is an example to a specialization becomes popular enough to not just be a 'option' under a category, but to become its own category.
If you are the administration and your goal is merge the Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), and the Department of Electrial and Computer Engineering (ECE) and you know that poltics in both departments will resist your call for a merger you instead try a the football version of the statue of liberty play.
With one hand, the administration fakes a "pass" proposing that both departments cut their CS funding causing the defenders for separate CISE and ECE departments to get out of position as they scramble to cause outrage that their funding for CS will be cut. While everyone is looking at the "passing" hand, then with your back hand you toss the ball to people in the department more sympathetic to merging the departments who have been moving on this proposal all along hoping that they can now outrun the opponents defending the original play who are now caught out of position.
This probably explains why so few people working in software engineering have a computer science degree and those that do typically aren't very good software engineers. Most real world software engineering really has very little to do with math or science. It's much more akin to digital carpentry.
My
Honestly, Slashdot...how does crap like this get a score of 5?
.. like saying Physics is just applied math, or chemistry is applied physics.
When I was at University, my Physics professor told us "chemistry is just outer orbital physics".
Nonsense. I've looked at the curriculum in Computer Science. Absolutely minimal basic science. One semester of physics, chem and calc which if you were any kind of high school student you would be able to place out of anyway. How can you do more than lightly scratch the surface in something like semiconductor theory with one semester of physics and no physical chemistry or thermodynamics?
While there is a lot of overlap, subjects such as Data Structures or Autonoma Theory (off the top of my head) are VERY different than anything that would be thought of as engineering or math.
Discrete mathematics is no longer mathematics? Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automata_Theory) says
In theoretical computer science, automata theory is the study of mathematical objects called abstract machines or automata and the computational problems that can be solved using them.
Nope, no painful memories. I was never teased by a cute Asian female double Math / Computer Science major because she got a 100 and I got a 99.
Nope, never happened.
Let me get this straight because you're being kind of an ambiguous, which combined with your absolutist attitude, makes you a dick.
Please tell me you have examined the curriculum of all computer science departments, worldwide, and made your determination that way?
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Why not? A CS degree is almost the same as a math degree, and most good schools group it either with the math department or the engineering department (though, typically this is not a good idea, since CPEs/EEs look down on CS).
That is a complete and utterly ridiculous lie. I'm so sick of hearing this BS being repeated. CS students and their curriculum are nowhere close of being considered capable of doing real rigorous mathematics or solving complex applied and abstract mathematical problems.
Personally, I don't even see the reason for CS program to even exist. System side, AI, and Computer Vision is easily done by CE; the 'theoretical' work in the field is mainly done by mathematicians; and you don't need a 4 year degree to write web apps, web design, and general code monkeying that miscellaneously grouped with it. Hopeful this is the beginning of a tend in the right direction.
Wow, I've been working on network protocols and performance for nearly 20 years, and I've only encountered a little calculus in a handful of research papers. It's never been necessary for my work. In fact, I have a hard time imagining the kind of work that would require calculus.
Numerical analysis? Sure, but you'd probably want to bulk up on the math for that kind of work anyway.
I was required to take three semesters of calculus for my CS degree. I think that any educated person should have a basic understanding of calculus, so one of those was not a waste, but I sure wish that I'd spent those two extra semesters learning more graph theory or computability or information theory or just statistics, any of which could've come in handy. As it is, meh.
Yes. Physicists are not civil or mechanical engineers. Computer scientists are not software engineers. They're separate disciplines, and shouldn't be conflated. But for some reason people like to do it when talking about CS.
Think of it this way - first year physics students and first year engineering students both learn Newtonian mechanics. The civil engineering students then go on to learn about solving real world problems using Newtonian mechanics. The physics students learn other things, like relativity and quantum mechanics, and also learn about doing research to advance our knowledge of physics.
Computer science and software engineering students both start learning things like data structures and common algorithms for doing things like sorting. Software engineers then concentrate on using these things to solve real world problems. CS students go on to learn other things like algorithm optimization, more advanced math, quantum computing algorithms, and also learn about doing research to advance our knowledge of computer science.
There's no reason why you'd think a physicist should be able to design and build a bridge. He's familiar with the basic concepts, but not the detailed application. The engineer, on the other hand, probably doesn't have a detailed knowledge of advanced physics, nor the details of how to do physics research.
Likewise, a computer scientist is familiar with the data structures and algorithms that a software engineer uses, but not the details of actually designing and writing large programs. The software engineer probably doesn't have a good knowledge of advanced CS concepts, nor would you expect him to know a lot about doing CS research - developing new algorithms, for example.