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Washington May Count CS As Foreign Language For College Admission
theodp writes On Wednesday, Washington State held a public hearing on House Bill 1445, which proposes a study "to allow two years of computer sciences to count as two years of world languages for the purposes of admission into a four-year institution of higher education." Among the questions posed by the House Higher Education Committee to a UW rep at the hearing was the following: "What's the case for...not just world language is good, world language is well-rounded, but world language is so super-duper-duper good that you should spend two years of your life doing them and specifically better than something else like coding?" The promise of programming jobs, promoted by Microsoft execs and other MS folks like ex-Program Manager Audrey Sniezek (ironically laid off last summer), has prompted Kentucky to ponder a similar measure.
10 PRINT "WTF"
20 GOTO 10
CS is about rationally mathematically describing a step by step algorithm , foreign language is about getting to communicate with human , foreign cultures, and getting a bit outside your own cocoon. They are not for the same purpose and practically have nothing to do to each others. Making such equivalence make no sense to me.
How about two years of critical thinking instead?
Assembler is coded the same in all 196 countries. So the next time you are on holiday just shift some registers to communicate with whomever, wherever you are!
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
I recall back in high school the foreign language options were Spanish, German, and French. In my field German might be the 4th or 5th most spoken language (with English being the first) but Spanish and French might not even crack the top 10. Two years of C++ would have been vastly more useful to me than the two years I wasted learning Spanish (in college I subsequently took C++ and forgot Spanish).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It's silly to equate CS or knowing a programming language to knowing a human language.
Assuming the reason for having the language requirement is to make sure students have exercised that part of the brain and not to make sure they have the communication skills that knowing a foreign language brings, it's not silly to change the requirement from "have 2 years of a human language" to "meet one of the following requirements: Have 2 years of a human language OR have 2 years of computer science."
Of course, if the reason for requiring a foreign language is to make sure the students know how to speak/read in English and one other human language, then it is silly to change the requirement.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Student's needed to take a foreign language course or a computer science course, for the BS Degree. Being that I was a Computer Science Major.... I didn't need to take Foreign Language.
In hind site, I kinda wish I did. Even though human languages are my worst subjects, and would probably have hurt my GPA, however I wished I was fluent in more languages, so my career isn't stuck in the english speaking world.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
when the ones who come with this idea only know one language and zero programming languages.
half the time, maybe less spent with a foreign language immersion group long before would do more than 2 years in high school. as for the code.org and all the rest of those faggots, i gave up listening to anything they had to say awhile ago.
And suddenly Americans are speaking foreign languages! Shall we continue Slashdot in German?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
All the MATH you have done should count too. And do not for get Sciences: Physics (Math), Biology (Latin), Chemistry (just plan weird!).
Learning a foreign language normally also gives you the culture with the language. The frame work in which it was created and used and LIVES!
If they are going to do this for CS they may as well do it for music. Musical notation and I suppose math are the only two notation systems that are consistent in any culture. (I don't particularly agree with the premise of the OP)
love is just extroverted narcissism
I can honestly say that I've never tried to communicate with other people by verbalizing code. I would have gotten a dirty look at best, from the kids, if I tried saying "for each ClothingItem clothingItem in Laundrybasket ClothingItems, if clothingItem has stains is true, apply prespotter, add clothingItem to WashingMachine."
Math isn't a 'foreign language', and you can't speak prolog to get directions or understand a native culture.
Forgive me, I had to.
Duh! That language requirement is because talking to people from other countries and cultures matters. And for that, you need to speak their language.
Now enter badly socialized geeks, in the person of those "Microsoft execs." They don't do relating to people well and think that issuing orders to machines ranks equal in importance to relating to people. They're also eager to flood the CS market with employees to drive wages down. No surprise there.
I might add that the "two years of your life" claim hints at just how stupid some legislators are. High school students are taking multiple course not just a language and they're doing other things with their life than go to school. Claiming the requirement means spending "two years of your life" on a language is a measure of just how stupid that particular member of the House Higher Education Committee is. Sadly, he (or she) probably thought that was an insightful comment.
Each year state legislatures across the country compete to see which can pass the stupidest laws. This is apparently going to be Washington state's entry for 2015Ã"Javascript as if it were Spanish.
A credit for computer "science" will also count as a replacement for biology, physics, or chemistry.
How are you going to replace studying a different culture, a different way of thinking, and the language used to express those things with programming?!
I'm a programmer, but no matter how I write my for loop or how I'm zip[ping]With it still all boils down to the same thing.
This is asinine on a major level, but Illustrates a comment I read in another thread. People love to fundamentally conflate programming languages with human languages.
If something can be expressed in one or two grammatically incorrect grunt-sentences with small words, then it must be easy to program, right?!
.
Declaring CS to be a foreign language may have unintended consequences, like mandatory CS subtitles on TV shows and movies.
"What's the case for...not just world language is good, world language is well-rounded, but world language is so super-duper-duper good that you should spend two years of your life doing them and specifically better than something else like coding?"
Steve Jobs has this one:
“I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to [learn calligraphy]. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great....None of this had any hope of any practical application in my life. But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would never have multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.
If all you do is write code and never learn to communicate, you're going to end up writing code like Microsoft does (seriously, 16,000 lines in a single file? And there are plenty of other lengthy files too, that's not really an anomaly).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I'm inventing Klingon COBOL so one can get credit for both without changing the rules.
Table-ized A.I.
Well History, and Philosophy are almost completely unrelated but they were interchangeable as distribution credits at my college.
Being able to substitute a class for another class as an entrance or graduation requirement doesn't mean the subjects are functionally interchangeable. It juts means the people in charge think that neitehr is so important you can't skip it but both are importnat enough you should have at least 1.
When I started at the University of Minnesota in the late '70s I was permitted to choose between a "natural language" or an "artificial language", that is, a programming language. That's not currently an option at the University and I don't know when it changed.
I agree with 2 years of foreign language instruction being pointless. Unless you are going to be immersed in the language for a couple years, taking a single course for 2 years does not give you enough time to have a good grasp of the language. I'm in Canada, and just about everyone is forced to take french from grades 1 to 9, but very few people can actually speak or write the language well if this is the only exposure they've had to the language. Even after 9 years of instruction, I never read a single book in French, nor was I ever asked to write more than a couple sentences. My vocabulary probably consists of about 500 words if I had to guess, and I've picked up more that from reading food labels and other french signage than I have from actually taking classes. But boy did we know how to conjugate those verbs.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
It's been a while but I remember only two out of the 15 or so CS classes I took as teaching a programming language
Next up - making 2 years of sitting on the couch playing games equivalent to 2 years of physical education!
After all, if Reagan can try to classify ketchup as a vegetable ...
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Foreign language classes in most K-12 classes are so useless that they might as well be disbanded. In most schools, senior foreign language classes are about as difficult as very early elementary school classes in English. I had about 7 years of Spanish between middle and high school; barely learned a damn thing until my senior year when I read the grammar rules and decided to just start talking to a teacher who was actually fluent (ironically, not our Spanish teacher***).
***I also learned basic Esperanto and would respond to his Spanish with Esperanto. If you've ever heard spoken Esperanto, it sounds about as close to Spanish as Portuguese. Needless to say, he often couldn't tell that it was Esperanto.
No, this is great...
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Promote Esperanto.
I don't know what evidence exists for computer programming building general intelligence and language skills, but Esperanto does have some support.
Furthermore, Piaget suggests that only a small percentage of people will reach 'formal operations' capability by college age, a state of mental development that is essential for writing non-trivial applications. So, spending a lot of money getting a cat sprite to dance and counting that as a "language" is non-sense.
Finally, introducing Esperanto exposes a student to a lot of Latin-like root words, conlangs(constructed languages), linguistics and may get them interested in Lojban; all a backwards way of learning about grammars, parsers, context, etc.
Just like everyone should be taught the basics of chemistry and the basics of physics.
Not understanding how to code "Hello World" is equivalent to not knowing that hot things expand.
As such, computer languages should be a separate requirement in ADDITION to a foreign language, not instead of.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
If 2 years of CS is actually equivalent to a "World Lanuage" (whetever that is), since I can speak 3 langauges, where do I collect my free (2nd) CS degree?
Human languages are used to talk to humans.
Machine languages are used to talk to machines.
Communicating with both will be very important in the next century.
After that, the machines are so good at human translation that learning a human "foreign" language will be a niche hobby, like knowing how to create and maintain a full suit of armor. Sure, one can still do it, but almost nobody really does.
I didn't have a foreign language requirement for either college admission, nor college graduation.
I also needed 132 Hrs to get my BSc.
Better to learn Hindi in case Congress is bribed to increase the H1B limit to gajillion. Then you can fake being an H1B, or work in India as a B1H because all their coders would be in the US, creating local demand.
Table-ized A.I.
My 2 years of High School Latin ("At one time the land of Gaul was divided into 3 parts...") helped me with a medical terminology course simply because I was used to using non-english word roots, prefixes, and suffixes.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
There is no equivalence. One is all about logic and mathematics. The other.. language skills and dealing with the illogical, more human stuff. CS is all about strict rules that cannot be broken. Natural human languages are so full of inconsistancies and exceptions the rules barely exist. Learning a foreign language is about learning to wrap your mind around how a different group of people think and perceive the world not how to logically construct an algorithm.
Substituting one for the other makes about as much sense as substituting math for english or vice versa. A well rounded person needs math, logic AND language.
what about 1-3 years mixed class room / apprentice vs
4+ years pure classroom with lot's of fluff and filler at 20K+ a year
Many decades ago my HS "guidance counselors" told me that I would need two years of a foreign language to get into college. My first effort was Latin, which was the only grade school / high school course that I ever failed. (I'm my defense the teacher only knew two languages and they were Latin and German, he couldn't have passed English any more than I could pass Latin. Many others failed, and some students did pass and even excel, but most of those had previous exposure to another Foreign language earlier, the damn nuns never taught us a foreign language, they wasted too much time on teaching us their fairy tales.). So I switched and wasted two years in Spanish, which I got Bs in (dragging down my GPA slightly). In my senior year I applied to three engineering schools, including Carnegie Mellon and was accepted to all 3. I ended up going to Purdue.
I had a pretty full high school schedule. I had doubled up on sciences my junior and senior year, taking both Chemistry and Physics in my junior year and Chem II and Physics II in my senior year (there were only 7 students in the school with 600 seniors that took Physics II). I didn't have time for some electives that I would have liked to take such as mechanical drawing and drivers ed.
Then I went back to the high school guidance counselor, for who who I had a question. My question was: "You and your predecessor told me through all of my "counseling" that I would need two years of a foreign language to get into college. Now I've been accepted into three top engineering schools. Yet none of them ever asked or cared about a foreign language. What's going on? Why did you have me waste two years (actually three counting Latin) for something that nobody cares about? The counselor looked over my file, and my acceptance letters and my applications that I had brought copies of, and then said "Oh, you went into Engineering. You would have needed the foreign languages in you wanted to get into something other than engineering." All I could say was "you idiots, I've always said I was working to get into Electrical Engineering. You're not doing your job."
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Let me offer an amendment here:
No language shall be counted towards the foreign language requirement, for which an EBNF does not exist.
Wow, since when are formal and human languages the same thing? Oh wait, they aren't.
Sitting through 3 years of foreign language class was a utter waste of time for me. Would have gladly done double the amount of computer programming, physics, or electronics. (All of which I was also able to take, thankfully.) Three extra STEM classes in lieu of foreign language would be a big boost going into college and/or the job market. Computer Science departments could give a rip whether their students puede hablar español.
The trick is to make the courses relevant and interesting for the diverse abilities of teachers and students.
I know it will never happen but contributing to oss projects should count as volunteer time for admission/graduation purposes! it may not have the emotional appeal of dipping a soup ladle but I would argue is more beneficial to society as a whole.
Brilliant! I am so doing this to my kids tonight!
What else can you expect from a nation that decided they can legislate pizza into being a vegetable?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I'm going to skip over the whole "computer language and spoken language are two different things" argument, and focus on the quote. What's the case for forcing everyone to spend two years learning a foreign language? Is that really a better use of students' time than learning something else?
Yes. International conflict happens when societies misunderstand each other, and when they're able to dehumanize each other. The more we are able to understand the language and culture of our neighbors, the harder it is for misunderstandings to build to hatred to build to war.
Now, this isn't a sure thing, nor should it be. But foreign language learning can prevent wars. How many iPhone apps is that worth?
Nope, the reason is to make you a "well rounded individual". Which is to say to conform to the current administrator mindset. They would require it to be in Latin but as they have shifted away from hard classes to women's studies that is no longer helpful so any language of an oppressed peoples is fine with them.
...once the machines assume control. Then, machine language will be mandatory.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
They must be talking about C or ADA. They certainly qualify as foreign languages.
If this is valid, then they should also give foreign language credits for proficiency in music or visual arts. Analogies (of which this comparison is a case) only go so far before breaking down, that is why they are "Analogies" and not "through descriptions". I am actually disappointed that they jumped to CS without taking the obviously valid choice of a concept like this applying to mathematical expertise.
I speak English as a primary language, Russian as a secondary and Spanish as a tertiary and have a strong understanding of conversational Japanese. I have worked in IT and Computer programming since the late 1980s and other than being able to understand and communicate better with speakers of those languages to a greater degree than non-multi-lingual co-workers, understanding of Computer science does nothing to allow me to communicate any better with Russian, Spanish or Japanese speakers, with the exception of course that they are already experts in computer science, in which case, they would not necessarily be calling me for support.
My advice: Don't take this a justification to pad your skills on your resume. CS is CS, foreign languages are foreign languages. If that is not the case then I would be able to add "interpretive dance" as a foreign language skill and another programming language. Just remember the phrases for "to gently awaken another person" and "to violently rape another person" only differ by one subtle vowel sound in Japanese... speak carefully!
do you mean that CS language counts as language? You mean my Chinese and Japanese isn't good enough?
(Whips out smartphone and fires up real-time language translator...)
Man, remember waaaaaay back in 2015 when people were still bitching about educators mandating humans to learn a foreign language the hard way?
Things change over time. Perhaps so should our educational requirements.
Therefore, now I am bilingual. I speak BASIC and Fortran 4.
If you contributed code to duolingo during high school.
For Perl at least I can see their point, but for programming languages? Not so much...
Stefan Axelsson
Developers who don't know that computers are primarily tools for communicating with other people will write some of the 75% of applications that don't work out. Of course people who speak more human languages will have better insights into UI design and functionality, and produce better outcomes.
Computer languages are special, because they are designed for communicating with idiot savants, but they are real languages.
Foreign language graduation requirements are a scam to employ PhD and masters students in the linguistics department. I know a lot of about educational psych and language learning and there was little about the intensive foreign language course I had to take at the UW that could be mistaken as for prepping us for actual fluency. These classes are designed to allow students to pass a test, not speak a foreign language. It actually got easier as the summer went on because each grad student got more desperate for high reviews and thus more forgiving of mistakes.
Whatever you stance on learning foreign languages, computer languages give a window into a different way of logic. This is at least as educational as rote memorization of vocabulary and verb forms.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
When Microsoft outsources more programming jobs out of the US, it'll be more important for people to speak other languages if they still want a job at Microsoft.
Am I alone in seeing it as an absurd concern for state legislatures to ponder? If the price of having a "state university" is having elected politicians micromanage academic issues, isn't that a little too high?
If you think a foreign language isn't useful enough to justify then remove the requirement entirely. Don't just add random crap to the "foreign language" bucket.
Next up: playing on the school football team to count as a foreign language.
FORTRAN (just to pick one) is a language. CS is not. If Washington wants to do it right, they should substitute a computer language for a (spoken) foreign language or Latin on a semester-for-semester basis. Two years of a foreign language too much for you? Ok, you can substitute two years of Python.
Cuase I think I speak that....
The most important thing you learn when studying a foreign language may not be fluency in that language as such, but rather the confidence and understanding to learn yet another anguage when you do need it.
Admittedly, this only works with quality teaching and serious studying, and perhaps also an environment that values multiligualism. Think Sweden rather than Alabama.
I'm not a fan of foreign language requirements, but if you are a coder you should learn a foreign language. I've seen to many shitty coders that know nothing about encoding, localization, internationalization, times and dates formats, and other such things. If you are going to write apps in a increasingly global computer world, learn something about how other people communicate.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Why you ask? To drive down the price of developers.
--Good morning fellas; Hand me that thing; Boy, this work's hard; Guys, break's over.
My cousin went to Berkeley in the 90s. He took Ebonics as a second language there.
If that counts, why not Computer Science?
I'm a computer scientist and girls look at me as foreign all the time.
I received a business degree at a large state school in 2000.
A computer language counted as a foreign language in this program. Better yet, statistics counted as a computer language.
Therefore by just taking your core statistics classes, you covered your foreign language requirement for a business degree.
I still don't know how I got away with that one.
As someone who has learned both spoken languages and programming languages to fluency (whatever that might mean in this case) I can tell you that allowing CS to replace the requirement for 2 years of a spoken foreign language is a huge mistake. As if we don't have enough narrow minded jingoistic Americans running about scarcely aware of the cultures outside our borders. If you want a good IT job learn both. It is entirely possible. I took two years of both in high school, no problem. You may have to give up your goof-off elective for a couple semesters but it is certainly doable in most schools.
LOok here feller, evver buddy are a speshul bunkerfly, and desserts there diplomer just as mutch as u do. Kwit beeing an eleetist, u eelitist, u. Kwit triing to put roodblocks in there way, will u? Sumbunny shud call helth n humun servaces on yur ass.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I guess I'm ok then, as I read and speak English, Korean, Chinese (poorly), French and Spanish.
I was feeling bad about it, because as near as I can make out, the three languages most often spoken locally are Yokel, Ebonics, and Res-dog.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I shall Sally Forth, to wit:
: huh ."WTF";
BEGIN huh 0 UNTIL
Yet, who indeed is this Sally, and why is she so far behind? The questions stack up, and in reverse, I note. Perhaps she is Polish.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Back in the 80s my computer programming classes counted as foreign language as far as my college's requirements were concerned.
*
* If it's not 6809 ASM, it isn't ASM at all
* And octal is only for people who are missing two fingers.
* Hexadecimal uses ALL your fingers and 60% of your toes!
*
STRING FCC "PDP 11s are for wankers",4
LDX #STRING
JSR >$CD1E
JMP >$CD03
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I didn't even know it was a language! Can you communicate through T-baggin now?
Obligatory
I've seen too many foreign language zealots that know nothing about English grammar, spelling, and syntax.
Indeed.
You know nothing, Tigger.
That is a bunch of high velocity rotational movement you've exhibited when what you really are saying is that you want the rest of us to SUFFER. Maybe I don't feel like suffering.
You know nothing, Click OnThis.
I met several young Anglophone Canadians doing summer jobs in regional Quebec, which meant leaving their families and friends for a month or two in order to experience a 'foreign' culture within their own country.
Their experience is that you have to work at it. But such an occurrence is atypical, with vacations more likely to be taken in, say, the Okanagan Valley rather than Gaspe Peninsula.
(Forgive the intrusion; I mention this as a citizen of a fellow commonwealth realm, even more monolingual.)
Unfortunately, for many jobs University is the only option.
If the state of Washington had its way, it would only count if you were some "diversity candidate" or a student from the Third World.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Why is the government deciding the requirements for entering degree programs not the respective university?
But that's not a good reason to water down the standards. I don't want my doctor to have taken shortcuts in med school, so similarly I don't want the people who design medical devices, airplane control systems, and other such devices to have taken shortcuts getting into or out of school.
As a few ACs have colorfully pointed out, foreign language in high school is useless. You can go in, take the course, pass with flying colors, and not be able to speak or read beyond knowing how to greet someone.
I imagine computer science education in high school is equally useless, so the change is of no real consequence.
Actually, while as I think that both programming and knowing a foreign language is important, I also believe that if students know more than their peers, that knowledge should be reflected in his/her GPA. For example, if a student takes Calculus BC in her/his senior year, that grade should weigh more the student who took Calculus AB and more than the students who took pre-Calculus and a lot more than those who did not take math at all. My high school clumped everyone in the same basket. One of my friends was Hispanic, and took Spanish. He would joke as to how that was his one and only easy "A". Indian and Chinese kids take Spanish, but do not get an "A," grade nor are able to get credit for their specialized language knowledge. Actually, the foreigners were punished twice, as they had difficulty understanding the fine nuances of expression. One of the Indian kids joked around that Americans did not speak English properly [e.g. did not know the difference between who and whom and used I instead of me and wear a "Think Different" logo], and thus should have had their grades discounted. I often pointed out that I knew a lot of things that weren't tested for on exams. Even looking at trigonometry class, I saw that the exams were too limited. The questions asked were standardized. The are lots of problems to be investigated which are just a bit more challenging. My biggest reasons for my lack of great success was that I would make careless mistakes. I have a learning difficulty [creative hyperactive] in being able to work with routine and mundane problems. I think I could have done much better had they thrown in some moderately difficult problems. Interestingly, I would take the "math geek" exams. The biggest drawback on those is that they were too difficult. However, I think everyone should have taken them too!! Just north of NYC, Orange and Rockland county gerrymandered sections of town to be Jewish districts and the curriculum was taught in Hebrew. If it is a good idea, then why stop there. I am sure that sections of LA could be Chinese districts, parts of Harlem be Spanish districts, parts of Oklahoma be Cherokee, and parts of Alaska be Inuit!
All told a lot of the humanities courses need to be elective. There are arguments against doing that but they're outweighed by the reasons to do it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
There is no programming language to ask this very question.
There's no way the feminists will let this fly..
Actually, when I was working in Japan back in the day for a well-known consumer products company, I was surprised to hear the old-timers speaking flawless English (some of them even spoke German), while most of their younger colleagues (those who had not had the benefit of attending university overseas) struggled with the most basic of English phrases (the company management had set a 10-year goal of becoming an English-language company).
With WA state trying to implement laws to increase ladies in CS I'm interested how this will effect the numbers on males in languages.
The problem is that we as a society have never really sat down and determined what is essential for doctors and nurses and engineers to learn.
...because part of that is studying another country's culture, and that's important too, but make it count for 1 tech and 1/2 a math credit (a semester's worth of math; thus doing it for 2 years would count as 1 math credit, and 2 tech credits...if they really want to encourage this, that's at least along the right lines of what they should do). Remember that technically, as has been pointed out in previous comments, math is a "foreign language" too (because it has syntactical and grammatical rules that need to be adhered to).