> might leave behind students that have not yet been exposed to any programming
And good riddance. If you make it to university without exposing yourself to your subject as a matter of passion (and few subjects are more easily approached by hobbyists than programming) you're going to waste your time there.
University is a not a "school" you attend for learning a subject. You can't show up for English Literature if you have never read a novel. You show up at the music department if you don't already play an instrument very well. You can't show up at Zoology if you can't tell a reptile from a mammal. You can't study Economics if you've never heard of Keynes. And you can't study computer science if you can't program a computer.
This was not always the case for programming, but it certainly is today, and I'm not convinced it wasn't too in 2001.
Plenty of computer science students at my (SICP-using) university had never programmed before attending, yet they're great at it. Your attitude is especially damaging to female students, who are even less likely to lack programming experience. Computer science isn't even about programming all that much.
> You can't study Economics if you've never heard of Keynes.
Surely you won't get onto an Economics degree course if you haven't already studied economics in high school? I'm from the UK and there you can study Economics from 15.
Also, surely the interview will ask you about your background knowledge of economics, and if you didn't know who Keynes was you're unlikely to get an offer.
Your presumption that all education systems are similar to your own is not valid, relative value or effectiveness not withstanding. The reality is there are quiet distinct differences generally and between US and Uk in particular.
In the US, a bachelors degree takes 4 years, consists of extensive 'general education' requirements outside of the emphasis area, and generally start with intro courses that are more in depth than what would have been studied in high school. So a background in the particular area is not required.
That's definitely not the case in the UK. For example, the guidelines for applying for Economics at Cambridge state:
"The Faculty does not have standard requirements for subjects other than Maths: in particular A level Economics, though useful, is not a prerequisite."
(FWIW I did mathematics as an undergrad but I considered CS and spoke to CS faculty at various university open days, from what I remember they all considered maths to be the only essential A level for admission.)
High school education in the US typically requires a 1 semester economics course, at most. A one semester or one year government/civics course. Two years of history (US and World, the latter typically being very eurocentric). In the sciences, college bound students will have taken (usually) one year each of biology, chemistry and physics. On the math front they'll have gone through trigonometry, perhaps pre-calculus. For foreign languages they'll have usually taken two or three years of some language (almost universally available: French, Spanish; common: German; some regions or schools will have more options available). For literature (also known as language arts or English) they'll usually have taken three or four years. The first is often a refresher on composition, with reading really being intended only to provide material for discussion and writing assignments. The second and third courses are often region/time specific (American Lit, British Lit, World Lit from 300AD-800AD), the fourth (again, for college bound students) will involve more complex novels and writing assignments.
Knowledge of specific economists is not the norm in the basic college prep curriculum in the US. Students in the IB program (relatively rare, available in major cities so the majority don't have the option) or the AP program will have studied the subjects to a greater depth. At least equivalent to freshman/sophomore college courses in the subject.
For a bachelors degree the students will apply to schools and get in based on: GPA, SAT/ACT scores, extracurricular activities, interview (not used for the average university), and essays. Some schools put all freshmen into the same pot and require them to apply to their major after their freshman year. In that case, it'd be similar to your "Don't know Keynes? Probably won't get an offer." situation. However, that's also not the norm. And once at the school the students can usually change major with ease.
Many of us went into college without the privilege of having a good idea of what we wanted to do with ourselves.
In addition to that, among my circle of friends, it's common to know people who switched majors mid-school because they stumbled upon something they found more interesting - isn't that great? They thought they loved something, but found something they loved even more. Or, I guess they should have just been given the boot instead.
I couldn't disagree more. I started with 'Hrm, this particular attitude could be considered exclusionary for underprivileged kids' and you responded with what appears to amount to 'haha, fuck those guys!'.
I hope that you never make it to any position of authority or influence within education.
That's an extremely elitist and exclusionary attitude you have there. Your post is also "begging the question". According to you, people interested in said subject should already be experts by the time they reach university. This is of course flat out wrong, as there are many counterexamples of people mastering and contributing new knowledge of a subject, many many years after attending university. I think you need a reality check.
It's hardly elitest to say that one should show just the slightest interest in the field they are entering college for - enough so to just pick up a simple book and work through it. I had the same experience, students who had no prior experience not only held back classes for those with much more, they tended to fail miserably in labs and exams.
How, for instance, is the average high schooler going to do anything beyond the most basic research in Aerospace Engineering before getting to college? They may have studied physics and calculus, but without access to the tools of a decent shop they can't build much, and most of the worthwhile texts are written assuming a level of understanding of math (specifically calculus and differential equations) and physics (fluid dynamics, statics, dynamics) that they are unlikely to have encountered. Should they not go into AE as a result and stick with the math or physics that they do have some background in?
It is amusing you bring this up, as AE was my major before switching to computer engineering in the 3rd year (Embry Riddle Aeronautical University). I was extremely excited about it in high school. I bought this book -
Started reading it and the math was way above my head. So I went to my calc teacher and he acknowledged the material was beyond my reach. But then he pointed me to materials to help and offered his time to explain the basics.
This was before there were countless free high quality learning materials online.
Are you going to learn differential equations, statics, dynamics, etc... in high school? Maybe. Probably not. Who cares? That doesn't mean you can't start.
Build a model rocket. Build an RC plane. Dive into more accessible subjects like linear algebra. Learn matlab or octave. I could go on forever.
You would not believe the amount of AE students that struggled - and I mean struggled with Ds through intro to programming with C. I helped many with their homework. Get a leg up and start on that!
This strikes me as in principle somewhat wrong and in practice quite wrong. If American universities expelled everyone whose declared major was not a matter of passion, they would in general be pretty empty.
No I am saying that college is not about "goalposts". I truly now believe that college is not something that should be done solely to further ones career (hence, passionless students). Instead it is something you do because you are genuinely interested in a subject and want to further education. Otherwise you end up in the situation we are in.
If the goal is to have a job, there are better ways of accomplishing that than taking on student debt and pursing something you are not that interested in (or spending lots of money trying to figure out what you enjoy).
That could not be more true. I went to a high school that didn't offer any programming or CS courses, and I didn't even know what coding was until I bought myself a Java book on a whim the summer after my senior year of HS.
At college I started as a Bioengineering major, because I really wanted to make medical devices. I took a CS class in the Spring of my Freshman year and realized that it "clicked" for me and I could go forward with it.
I am now graduating as a Bioengineering and Computer Science dual major and moving to a full time software engineering job at Google next year. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn something entirely new, and I worked my ass off to catch up with the kids who had been coding since they were 12. I don't think that I'm an impostor in the world of CS and I have the additional perspective of not always having known that this is what I want to do.
I started programming my second semester of college, and I just got a full time position with Microsoft starting this summer after I graduate so I beg to differ.
"And good riddance. If you make it to university without exposing yourself to your subject as a matter of passion (and few subjects are more easily approached by hobbyists than programming) you're going to waste your time there."
Guess those kids that cannot afford a computer are S.O.L. in your world.
Most subjects are easier to approach than computer programming just because of cost of entry.
>> University is a not a "school" you attend for learning a subject.
Except for the Keynes thing, the stuff you're talking about is included in classes that every 12-year-old has to take. The analog would be using a computer rather than programming a computer.
And good riddance. If you make it to university without exposing yourself to your subject as a matter of passion (and few subjects are more easily approached by hobbyists than programming) you're going to waste your time there.
University is a not a "school" you attend for learning a subject. You can't show up for English Literature if you have never read a novel. You show up at the music department if you don't already play an instrument very well. You can't show up at Zoology if you can't tell a reptile from a mammal. You can't study Economics if you've never heard of Keynes. And you can't study computer science if you can't program a computer.
This was not always the case for programming, but it certainly is today, and I'm not convinced it wasn't too in 2001.