How many double majors were there for CS/ECE? 1. CS and Mathmatics? 15. What about double majors in CS and Chem? 5. CS and Bio? 6.There was even one guy who in three years managed to pull a CS degree, a Pysch degree and a hard science degree.
The NY-Times article seems to be addressing the problem of the sciences "losing" people to CS, but misses that many of the sciences are gaining many savvy programmers, which have now become essential.
Over the summer I got an internship at Fermilab, a high energy physics institute. What distinguished me from the other 300 or so people who wanted my spot? I could code. Although was involved in physics at Fermi, most of my major contributions were programs.
Some sort of computer science background is absolutely necessary to do physics now days. Reducing hundreds of gigabytes of CP-violation data into a single number is not something you want to do by hand. At Fermilab, computers outnumber the humans. The stereotypical physicist doesn't spend his days behind a blackboard, but rather behind a monitor searching for a correlation in mountains of data.
Scientists should be encouraged to learn Computer Science- not only may it help them with their science, but they might need it to get a job. Half or more of all Ph.D. physicists can't get jobs in physics. We should be happy if CS attracts people away from physics sooner rater than later.
Slashdot Mirror
How many double majors were there for CS/ECE? 1. CS and Mathmatics? 15. What about double majors in CS and Chem? 5. CS and Bio? 6.There was even one guy who in three years managed to pull a CS degree, a Pysch degree and a hard science degree.
The NY-Times article seems to be addressing the problem of the sciences "losing" people to CS, but misses that many of the sciences are gaining many savvy programmers, which have now become essential.
Over the summer I got an internship at Fermilab, a high energy physics institute. What distinguished me from the other 300 or so people who wanted my spot? I could code. Although was involved in physics at Fermi, most of my major contributions were programs.
Some sort of computer science background is absolutely necessary to do physics now days. Reducing hundreds of gigabytes of CP-violation data into a single number is not something you want to do by hand. At Fermilab, computers outnumber the humans. The stereotypical physicist doesn't spend his days behind a blackboard, but rather behind a monitor searching for a correlation in mountains of data.
Scientists should be encouraged to learn Computer Science- not only may it help them with their science, but they might need it to get a job. Half or more of all Ph.D. physicists can't get jobs in physics. We should be happy if CS attracts people away from physics sooner rater than later.
There's a copy here