Computer science is one of the most popular fields today, with millions of workers already working in the industry.... Technology and information impact every aspect of modern life. It also says that 53% dropped out because they weren't getting enough value for their money, 50% because they were not interested, and 33% because it was too hard. Cornell University offers excellent computer science programs in three interconnected departments: Computer Science, Information Science, and Statistics and Data Sciences. As I type this, in the USA, we are dealing with the 2020 national elections. Whether it is the promise of a large salary, the association of CS with 'fun' technologies or the social kudos associated with the movie images of hackery, none of the drivers are really about the subject. I find myself doing anything just to step as far away from the computer as possible. First, let’s dissect this topic a little bit, and see why Comp Sci has such an intimidating reputation. On arrival, instead of slick, fun and cool our learners find it takes 200 lines of C coding to put a dot on a screen, three years of pure maths courses to understand why neural networks don't work really and after reading a pile of books 2m high, countless RFCs and a half the UNIX manual pages they are still unable to understand what's wrong with their sendmail.conf or build a stable kernel, or use vim. When you connect algorithms into a simple program, the algorithms can't have errors, or the program won't work. Nowadays there are indeed "coding bootcamps" to provide the non-theoretical training. Colleges will even go so far as making you take an aptitude test and then telling you that you failed it. Too many beginning students and teachers think that programming is "if" and "while" and "assignment" and nothing else. These are all levels of abstraction programmers have developed to manage increasingly complex programs. Those small mistakes in software source code often appear superficially to be completely correct. I personally think CS programs need to get serious about having a software engineering track/degree. For the purposes of this answer, I'll assume that in the first year or so, teaching computer science is synonymous with teaching software engineering. Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California also offers a Computer Science Major, along with a Computer Science and Math joint major. You need some idea of how the machines work, and how things get from code to execution. It Has Learned to Code (and Blog and Argue)", https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/science/artificial-intelligence-ai-gpt3.html. All I'm looking for is the hindranc... Stack Exchange Network. : it will likely be read by a human instructor, who may be able to forgive or fill in some smaller errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. Every programming problem is judged first not by your instructor, but by the world's most harsh marker; the compiler/interpreter. The other point is that computer science uses logic (the first-order classical predicate calculus or perhaps higher orders), but in many ways goes beyond such logic. Renee earned a Bachelor of Arts in English in 2006 and a Master of Arts in Teaching, with a specialization in English in 2011, both from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. A few times in my introductory programming course, I will mention this fact (that computer science is among the hardest majors), partly to set expectations that students will need to work hard to succeed. At least in my western country, there really was no good way for a young pupil to really find out about this. Others even are afraid of science! Quantum computing has a formal theory and is just starting to develop working hardware that instantiates quantum architectures. He tells the folks in school that he'd like to build things - houses or furniture or bridges - and they send him to college to study mechanical engineering. In many (or most?) The formula is: get people to do simple but useful things when they are young, and gradually raise the level of difficulty so that they gain expertise in a reasonable way. GCSE English Literature. @ScottRowe, some subjects really require at least some interest to gain enough proficiency. Particularly for students with ID's such as dyslexia, this may be a significant extra challenge. According to computer science majors, here are some of the topics that make computer science, well, hard: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Artificial Intelligence tops the list as one of the most difficult topics in computer science, as it teaches students how to program intelligent computers. Why Are Music and Movement Important for Early Childhood Education. E.g. But it isn't easy. A serious college level course in CS might be shocking to someone who has only dabbled in trivial elements of programming. If you’re looking to get a master’s degree in computer science, then you already know that computer science is... One thing is for certain – technology has become an essential part of how we operate and do business.... Economics, a social science, is the study of how individuals, businesses, governments, and countries produce, supply, and consume goods and services. Another is the creative ability to build strong abstractions that are both powerful and useful. @RonJohn Computer programming per se is not CS. While some people may cite difficulty, most of the time, it’s simply lack of fit. Saying much the same thing, I think: computer programming is hard because "math is hard". Interfaces to the user must likewise be clearly expressed. @ScottRowe Apprenticeships work well when there are enough unskilled tasks that someone can do whilst learning the skill. ", and I was a bit flat-footed for a good response. Nearly everyone uses computing devices to communicate on a daily,... Is computer science hard? When you write a function, your statements can't have errors, or the function won't work. In software source code, it is not only not rare, but actually common for small mistakes to have large or even catastrophic consequences. CS is one of the fields where it is common to hire dropouts and not too hard to land a job even if you didn't finish the degree. He goes on to explore a total of 11 possible contributing factors. This is of course as ridiculous as saying everyone must be an engine mechanic or concert pianist. The difficulty of CS (true or imagined) and the drop out rates are not the same thing. I don't understand why you don't think knowing how algorithms work doesn't make you a better programmer. It gives students the feeling that they are mastering aspects of computing, but hides away so many details that I believe it can actually add to the frustrations of students once they are faced with actual programming, working with command lines, importing libraries, etc.). But I'd like to remark none of this is new: https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6602#6602. Likewise, consider Joel Spolsky's Law of Leaky Abstractions: "All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky." That apparent correctness tends to rest on an assumption so basic that programmers don't even realize they've made it. Maybe some of those who "fail" should have been somewhere else rather than funneled into computer science. Don't try to be a Conductor if you can't play any instruments. It is a creative yet tedious process that involves solid concentration. (more on this coming up). "... the. Students who are weak in mathematics tend to be weak in programming and therefore weak in Computer Science. What is an MS in Computer Science; ... and more difficult for others. As someone learning programming, you end up building increasingly complex things. So it draws introverts; convincing introverts to have a career teaching students is an extra problem, reducing the pool of potential teachers further. To which I replied yes, because the students that work hard like the subject and have intrinsic motivation, so they want to learn more, and so, the best reward we can offer is extra homework. My point is this: in addition to the stated classical unsolved problems, completely different approaches to computation are being proposed and actually developed into physical machines (with the understanding that biological systems are, in this sense, physical machines -- no supernatural invocations involved). Four trillion operations. Out teaching strategies don't help either. Dijkstra already made these observations back in the 80's, thepennyhoarder.com/make-money/side-gigs/coding-bootcamp, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_computer_science, https://online.stanford.edu/courses/soe-ycscs101-sp-computer-science-101. There are exceptions, of course, but there's usually a region of tolerable error. Within AI, students learn how to program computers to hold traits needed for solving complex problems, such as the ability to reason, learn, and ask questions. I didn't want to baby sit the machines, I wanted to program them and ended up in computer science. You have to reach near-100% reliability on each tier, and learn how to deal with the less-than-100% reliability, before you can get any kind of reliability on the next. Lisp seemed interesting up to around page 300 where they basically said, "But this won't actually work, so we need to use this big hammer to make it work." And without mastery of the previous tiers of mathematics, the theoretical computer science they teach is extremely difficult. However, computer science students should be good at math and science, have superb critical thinking skills, pay close attention to detail, and most of all, be driven and eager to learn computer science. This dropout rate is considerably higher than in other majors. CSE is a highly abstract intellectual field that nonetheless has very concrete instantiations. Renee Whitmore is an Associate Professor of English at Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst, North Carolina. … But when you try to do that in mathematics things just fall apart. Why is it so hard? Let people choose, by doing some of it when they are young. other fields, getting something wrong by a small margin usually has an effect that is worse than desired by a correspondingly small margin. Is it something anyone can learn? Computer science at the time was more about the theory, the mathematics of how computer logic and algorithms work. This most certainly got rid of quite a few students for better or worse. That does not generalize. https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6599#6599. 50% of the students in my cohort dropped out during the first two years as well. We should return to teaching our young learners assembly language, get them editing real source code, throw all the maths from the trapezium rule to matrix inversions to axioms for semi-groups with unity at school. With other fields, we know millions of ways not to teach it; with computer science, we haven't had time to make as many mistakes and refine our education. First, I somewhat dispute the premise of the question. And there's some real beauty in seeing how people grappled with this with cunning intuitions. https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6636#6636, https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6613#6613. There are models different from either of these (with unsolved problems and conjectures); two of the most promising are quantum computers (and information transfer) and a rather more empirical approach, neurosynaptic computing (that has other names for similar concept). Because the initial success was with a few very motivated and 'gifted' people. Once you pass that tier, you end up with yet another situation where there are discontinuous errors that are harsh on relative beginners. That article links to this one: Where an English interpreter writes code on the fly... https://twitter.com/sharifshameem/status/1283322990625607681, 2020 Stack Exchange, Inc. user contributions under cc by-sa, many factors but maybe a big one is the high mathematical content, and some abstraction, etc. "because it’s a branch of symbolic logic". In addition to analyzing how a problem can be solved, the theory of computation teaches students to analyze whether these methods and algorithms will effectively solve problems. I don't know how this is these days, but in my country, in the 1990's, CS was strongly coupled to maths - we had plenty of obligatory maths lectures which we shared with beginning maths or physics students; hardcore linear algebra, functional analysis, statistics etc. i.e. The graphics course was hands down one of these, given the involved and highly detailed work required to get things working. Features such as modular functions, scope rules, local variables, classes and objects, encapsulation and data-hiding, etc., really only make sense in terms of a large team of programmers, engaged in a division of labor, communicating in a structured way so as to not corrupt the overall system. I daresay this is not much different from an electrical engineering student expecting to weild a solder iron a lot; or a mechanical engineering student expecting to work with a metal lathe. Lets make it hard but lets have our students wanting to do actual CS. Additionally, CS has also, and fairly suddenly, become a wildly popular major. This branch is all about understanding the idea of computation, as opposed to the art. I don't blame the teachers who have to do this as many are forced in to it (in the US) simply because schools are underfunded and understaffed with too few specialist teachers. The theory of computation is a course that teaches students how specific algorithms and models of computation can solve problems. I make a good living writing programs. Do you have solid math skills? That said, the data seems to show that CS has even higher non-success rates than other STEM courses, so from this point on we'll inspect what makes CS even more challenging. It’s … https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6643#6643, Can it write FizzBuzz? While the difficulty (as evidenced by high fail rates) has been known for decades, no predictive educational theory as to why this is the case has garnered significant evidence. They want to drive sports cars whilst playing CODwars and wearing hoodies. Maybe those folks who fail just needed to directed to a more appropriate place so that they can succeed at the underlying task that brought them to computer science. You break the task down to pieces and phrase it in the vocabulary the computer has and tell it how to assemble its response. Actually, computer science is much more than what you suggest. With intensive tutoring and dedication on the part of both the student and the tutors, many students who currently do not "survive" to a CSE ABET-accredited or equivalent diploma, can graduate. For me, it was a Tuesady. It is also hard to get off the ground if you cannot walk through a complex chain of logic. ), https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6604#6604. None of that was taught in the courses available to me. So: What would be the best reply to a beginning CS student who asks, "Why is CS hard?". When it was my turn I said "extra homework". Are you good at science? Everything is a "word problem", and students must be proficient at reading, interpreting, asking for clarification (in a natural language, e.g., English), then designing, implementing, and testing, and finally documenting and explaining the design and code (again in English). ), (As an aside, there is a small added difficulty. Before starting at SCC in 2013, she taught English at the middle and high school levels for five years. Computer programming and software engineering courses are another large part of computer science. No big deal, though you do have to understand the task yourself first. The first link says that the drop out rate is 10% for CS, 7% for Business or Engineering, so not a huge difference. Prelude B: Of course, CS is in the STEM meta-discipline, and those programs are commonly more demanding than non-STEM courses. End excerpt. And, having done it both ways, the theoretically optimal way is often slower (until you get to very large numbers of records). I went off and joined the US Air Force, then got a job working in electronics, then cycled my way back to programming through my work experience. Computer engineering students learn to master robotics, pattern recognition, speech processing and so much more. @ScottRowe And many, many problems faced by the industry stem from the very questionable things C lets you do in order to work from page 1. Using modern apps on phones and websites not only teaches students little about computer science, but in my experience, it has almost been a negative. Looking back on my experience and education as a software engineer, I think the largest inherent contributors of difficulty in computer science are that it has exceptionally strict and unforgiving standards for correctness, and that solving problems in it often requires an exceptional degree of questioning or ignoring "common sense" basic assumptions. That's me and computer science. the games industry which still motivates many people to register in CS. I don't think the general public generally knows what CS is. One is the attention to detail. The actual science part is difficult, but not really any more so than any other science discipline. At my uni, there were the “Big 3” 4th year courses that were advised a) not to take more than one a term, b) to take a lighter course load if possible. We shouldn’t be surprised that the academy breeds snobbery … Or that many people could develop a flotilla of abilities at the same time? The second major theme is that there is a lot of bad teaching around CS as has always been the case. I don’t see anyone mentioning the fact that programming ≠ computer science. C worked from page 1. I don't care how fast radix sort is, if you have to sort a bunch of numbers, you'll typically do it the intuitive way rather than the theoretically optimal way. I also started in Physics and used credits from that program to fulfill some CS requirements so my experience was somewhat unique. It will take a lot of effort to graduate, and that’s a fact. My first programming lessons were with a math teacher who was good in algorithm but came to me regularly when a student has an issue because I started programming by myself before going to this class. When I started taking university courses, the options were MIS (management information systems - managing computer systems) and computer science. Could it be that many of the dropouts just don't want what computer science has to offer? Nowdays, what I think makes CSci so hard is that the primary thing we do is operations that have to get repeated many many many many times. The computing student also needs fairly high-end reading, writing, and communication skills. As to why people don't have enough prior experiance, a big part is that software engineering salaries are high enough compared to educators salaries that you really need some other compensation to provide a comparable package to industry, and only academia can offer that where teachers are primarily researchers. I studied CS from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s in a European country. Computer science requires are lot of learning and knowledge to master. Because it produces information and thus reduces entropy, that requires work that in turn produces waste heat (increasing the entropy external to the created information) -- and requires an understanding of at least classical thermodynamics, or preferably an understanding of statistical mechanics and how entropy arises. The only answer I have been able to think of is: Your last bullet point is THE reason in my experience, and is still very true in the US today! We were exposed to other programming languages - there were several courses that were dedicated to specific languages. One also needs to be able to digest a fairly large amount of new technical detail at a rapid pace, learn about other arbitrary domains in the world to interface with them, and be committed to continually learning new fields and technologies throughout one's career. I have been a professor of computer science and engineering (CSE) in the USA for a number of years in ABET accredited CAC and EAC undergraduate programs (graduate programs do not have ABET accreditation in CSE as I recall). These are good questions, so let’s find the answers. I believe that particularly in CS our learners are being driven by the promise of extrinsic rewards. Is computer science hard? Computers don't have those assumptions, and operate by their own internal logic that was artificially created by legions of computer scientists. Computer scientists are involved in creating technology and systems that are used in a wide range of industries, including medicine, communications, entertainment, manufacturing, business, and science. Why would we think that it is something that can be easily and directly taught? I would say the answer is shifting from "the strangeness of the platform" to "the raw number of operations that have to be perfect.". It's been 35 years since I implemented a non-trivial hashing algorithm, b-tree, or invert index, and almost as long since I implemented a linked list. I also was a DP programmer (now a DBA), but even still that background has bee very useful in choosing the best library or database design to use. So why would students that are mostly interested in the money side of the equation keep studying when they are already offered well paid jobs long before they reach the end of the program? Early 1980s. They come, I think, largely because they believe that this is where the jobs are. I was really thinking about Bem's theory of self perception. There is much more to CS than that. Some people may say the extensive math and science involved in the subject make computer science hard to learn, and if you’re not good at math and science, that may be true. Although I have been working in industry for a year, I am still looking at only entry level jobs. @CeesTimmerman I was in a college course that used SICP almost 40 years ago. Microprocessors are one of the big topics in computer science, as they are the logic chips and engines of computers. Many of the students I have met do not understand the difference between Information Technology (IT) and CSE. This is not the fault of CS. al.). I have seen it and done it (with help from my TAs and myself) -- but those who dispense resources (funds, personnel, facilities) do not provide those resources, and students who could "swim" instead "sink". Do you have a mechanical brain that enjoys looking at every minute detail of a problem in order to solve it? Everyone knows that children love to run, dance, scream, and shout. End excerpt. Related to the English communication skills noted above, the student likewise needs a lot of "domain specific knowledge". Maybe computer science is hard, because it gets lost in translation. Maybe your program was a more rigorous CS program that what I experienced. Why are computer science drop-out rates so high? Not a single one has anything to do with computer science. I'm speculating that many people go into it because they perceive that this will lead them to great careers, until they realize it's something they're absolutely not into at all. You will feel like God. There needs to be a differentiation between those who want to study computer science (advance the state of the art) and those who just want to write programs (make use of existing techniques and tools.). Students program in "rich" languages and environments using only the lowest level concepts, never really understanding abstraction or (gasp) polymorphism. Like any STEM field, CS is technical, detail-oriented, and has objectively right and wrong answers (at least in terms of what counts as a syntactically valid program, a program that produces logically correct results, and so forth). Some people teach it as misspelled mathematics, which it is not. That very simple step is mirrored along the entire tower of mathematical knowledge. Few of them come because they have deep enthusiasm about the field. That means that they're coming in blind. Why Computer Science? I've done quite well by it, though. Its hard. I am a programmer. That's why mathematicians still have to think so much. Maybe you took a computer science course in high school, and you’re intrigued by the subject. The problem with software engineering is that there is so much to learn to be sufficiently competent for the reletively unskilled tasks that apprenticeship style teaching only really becomes relevant once you reach the level that CS undergraduate course teach to. So don’t do it just because your dad told you to, or you heard you can make $100K a few years after school (you can). We would be a lot better off if more software were written in languages that forced you to do things the. Our political representatives and managers want to see success in STEM subjects generally, so many false promises, bribes and other forms of encouragement are applied to 'encourage' learners into STEM. The greats like Alan Turing and Grace Hopper truly revolutionized things with cunning shifts in intuition. Every program you write ends up being instructions for some idiot-savant computer to follow. Aug 7 at 13:27 E.W. Computer science focuses on complex topics such as computer theory, computing problems and solutions, programming and development, and much more. Starting off the top 3 hardest GCSEs, we have GCSE English Literature. That is, studying things that would let you make better computers or discover new algorithms. As a current CS student, I'd love nothing more than to have a computer science class that actually challenged me, but 95% of my time has been spent on the associated math and physics requirements, which is why I'm currently in my 4th year of a "2-year" college, hoping to transfer to a "4-year" college next fall. People learning programming often run into one of these, and just can't get it. Computer Science, as taught, is a combination of Mathematics and Computer Programming. If the teacher hasn't read Vygotsky and the class isn't based on some constructivist learning principles you can forget it. At any point in the workday we might need to shift mental state to some other layer in order to analyze, debug, or properly design a new part. Getting Into Class. But if you are a talented mathematician with a technical, scientific way of thinking, you may be perfect for the field. That wasn't what I wanted at all. From my experiences (I studied about 15-20 years ago, and my cohort lost 50% of students within the first four semesters), the main reasons are these: By the way, this does not end in the university; the same phenomenon happens in IT companies - you get a few high-flyers who really live and breathe IT and CS (as far as CS applies to IT in modern software projects at all...), and plenty of people who just do their job on most days, or eventually find out that it's just not for them. What Area of Economics Focuses on the Interactions Between Individual Consumers and Producers? It also requires a very good grasp of mathematical concepts (sometimes even abstract math). The issues that make computer science "hard" are now harder. And even that is hit and miss. An IT person working on a quantum processor will memorize rules, but will most likely not have an understanding of quantum mechanics (and the underlying mathematics). ), The processor that you are writing code for is a bunch of logic blocks. This connectome is then modeled with solid-state electronic components (e.g., VLSI circuits that actually are fabricated). But for many reasons (such as the need to master all the basics), students are working on assignments and tests in isolation. According to computer science majors, here are some of the topics that make computer science, well, hard: Artificial Intelligence tops the list as one of the most difficult topics in computer science, as it teaches students how to program intelligent computers. It has a limited vocabulary that you can "speak" to it in, and it has a limited ability to give you responses. People perceive "hard" to mean more difficult, whereas, in truth, it may be much more challenging to devise and interpret an experiment in a so-called soft science than in a hard science. ... Aerospace engineering was the next lowest, at 7.6%. Instead, they are forced to examine each word in isolation, then after verifying them themselves they can look at each sentence in isolation, etc. The first is the economic motivation -- accumulation of wealth or even gainful employment. This will make for some frustrating mismatches. The number of students grows over time, so the previous generation of students (who supply the teachers) is smaller. If so don’t let the “computer science is too hard to learn,” type of people deter you. Logical reasoning as typically practiced by humans involves an enormous number of unstated assumptions, all predicated on a life experience in a world governed by physics and inhabited by other humans. But in certain combinations of economic factors and media hype, a lot of students go in to CS not really understanding what they are getting in to but are lured by the, perhaps elusive, draw of big salaries. I teach computer science majors at a U.S. community college, and the non-passing rates are even higher in this context. When you write a statement, your variables and operators can't have errors, or the statement won't work. The current AP curriculum, I think, is seriously flawed (dropping interfaces, in particular). Maybe that's where some of those "failures" and "dropouts" need to be - learning to do things with today's tools rather than looking for tomorrow's tools. The Hard Part of Computer Science? If the original biological brain has "intelligence", then the neurosynaptic electronic solid-state instantiation (model) is envisioned to have similar intelligence. Telling a machine what to do isn't difficult. I'm going to present the view from someone who left computer science early - one of those from the "failure and dropout" group. A lot of CS programs are pretty much already there, they just don't call it that. To get to the 10,000 hour mastery mark, you need to put in those first 9999 hours. Well, nothing in life is easy, but computer science is a different kind of hard. Those weak in mathematics tend to have a terrible time learning programming, as the bulk of … That kind of perfection is just part of the job. You might be surprised to learn that A-Level Further Maths is not number 1 on my list, but it definitely comes in at a… Opportunities for true creativity and innovation. Coding is not too difficult, but algorithm design and then establishing that the algorithm is provably correct is not as easy. The introductory AP computer science class (at least at my school) is. She currently teaches a combination of traditional seated and online courses, including English Composition, Argument Research, and Creative Writing. I just found this to be a bit of a non-sequitur "... the theory, the mathematics of how computer logic and algorithms work. The tools you use to immaculately manage 4 trillion operations while you sit back and sip your coffee are, obviously, rather exacting. For students with weak English skills, possibly still learning the language for many foreign students, this is another significant challenge (probably more than other STEM fields). CS requires, as you say, ability in many areas at once. It is not so difficult for some to understand science! Compare those topics to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_computer_science, and try to figure out how those topics even get you started on the path to figuring out how you might even frame those questions, let alone solve them. I don't belong in computer science. In CS, the work is mediated by the computer system itself, which is fairly demanding in its syntactical strictness. Yes. A lot of people who I've worked with who claim CS isn't helpful for programming make very naive choices that lead to inefficient, overly complex, and inefficient solutions and have no idea how poor their choices were or why. There's something very unintuitive about how you had to work with them. As it happens I have been looking for an entry level software engineering position in Ohio recently as well. Then, you can decide if it is something you want to study. Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania is another great option; students in this program have won robot contests at the annual American Association of Artificial Intelligence Conference and have qualified for the International Finals of the Association for Computing Machinery programming contest. Use OSR to find the best online program for you. This involves some pretty heavy lifting in the big picture thinking department. IT is by comparison "easy" -- CSE requires mathematics, some of it developed by CSE persons, not "mathematicians", and the use of other fields to understand CSE whereas most IT-trained (and vendor "certified") persons know specifics of installing and "maintaining" a particular technology from a particular vendor (more or less the equivalent of "how-tos"). I wanted to learn how to be a better programmer. (Trinity News, 2016) ... Computer science is hard because it’s a branch of symbolic logic and logic is hard. Is there a better place to learn programming than in a computer science setting? But even if we cut out the heavy research/math components: many or most students can't pass even the introductory programming course that you're talking about. As much as we would like to encapsulate computing technologies into neatly abstracted layers, this turns out to not be completely feasible. Afterall, they are here for the salary, the fun, the kudos. Introductory problems are likely to come from many different fields -- e.g., in my own course, book exercises involve geometry, statistics, savings interest, sound waves, biological population growth, workplace employment rules, taxation, meteorology, sports, corporate finance, etc. Finding a fast and efficient algorithm or data structure to solve you problem is - while certainly challenging - the simpler part of it, Computer Science Educators Stack Exchange, Computer science undergraduates most likely to drop out, Concern over drop-out rates in computer science courses. The number one thing that attracts me to a CS major is the fact that I a) build … The colossal growth of computing in the past few decades offers evidence … I'm in the "just write programs" camp. When you write an algorithm, your functions can't have errors, or the algorithm won't work. Compare that with big ideas that you find in a philosophy or (hopefully) history course. And unless you get it, you can't get past that barrier, and often fail out. Some of these disciplines include math, psychology, and linguistics. Is programming hard? In particular CS is NOT programming, though skill in programming is needed. Prelude A: This is an area of ongoing research, and there's no consensus theory at this time. Admittedly, this is beyond what is covered in an ACM CS-1 course, but the issue is "why" do students find CSE "hard" (that is, a discipline in which many cannot demonstrate understanding proficiency). Unfortunately, making the book big enough to prove every known result is a double-edged sword, as it forces the computer to consider far more options. This makes the problem of finding teachers harder. The field itself is young. I've always wondered why corporate IT recruiters believe CS is relevant to most of the positions they are trying to fill. Just teach me the big hammer right away and skip the interesting digression. We need computer science, just like we need mathematicians and physicists and architects. As an example: why does a real computer create heat? https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6608#6608, https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6609#6609, https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6607#6607, https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6615#6615. @Buffy: yes, there is. The reason why this is important is because everyone wants an engineering degree in computer science. And it has to be done 330 million times. In my time, there were the classic lectures like how to build a compiler for a programming language; or more theoretical topics like automatons, temporal correctness and such. Homogenous systems and all the millions of software packages interacting with each other can be frustrating, but it's nothing compared to users who can't be … Compare those topics to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_computer_science, and try to figure out how those topics even get you started on the path to figuring out how you might even frame those questions, let along solve them. The student, whose goal was "get a highly paid programming job", finds this abstract computer science both hard and difficult to connect to their goal. All I wanted was to be a better programmer, and all I could get was things that I'd need to (someday) be able to do computer science research. WRT the second theme, it might even be that the current push to teach "CS" in elementary schools is actually part of the problem, not the solution. (Consider majors like mathematics, music, or English, in which students will typically enter in with many, many years of built-up skills. In some countries, like India, computer work has been touted as the way to earn a lot of money and many people rushed into it without being interested in the topic one bit. Official figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) show that the percentage of dropouts in computer science courses hit 9.8% during 2016-2017. So we end up with a lot of people with a poor foundation in ciphering showing up in secondary education, then muddling though classes without every achieving mastery, then deciding to go into a lucrative field (programming). I have worked at brainless manual labor positions before and I find that so much easier and natural I don't feel drained after an 8 or 10 hour shift, instead I feel satisfied after a hard day of work. The syntax of the languages you are using is, almost unavoidably, harsh on relative beginners. As neurosynaptic or quantum processors become more readily deployed, the issues will only increase. Some may interpret these statements as "elitist"; the issues are reality, not elitism. @blues I think that this question mostly refers to the students who are dropping out from cs1, because they either didn't like it or couldn't keep up. Students get into computer science programs and realize this field is just not something they want to pursue. Let me start an answer, but it might take several iterations to get all my thoughts together on the two ideas. Most universities offer computer science programs, but there are some with nationally ranked programs that you should keep on your radar. Many students do not really know what CS is about. And while... You are probably familiar with the field of civil engineering. This is a branch of mathematics, and like most kinds of mathematics requires iterative mastery. The last bullet point in particular rings true for me: I almost failed due to the stringent math requirements, despite doing well in math back in high school. The young men and women with a natural ability for coding should be spotted early and put into educational streams that encourage and support them and probably into decent apprenticeships\internships afterward. Here's an attempt at an answer, with some reflections, and then hopefully at the end a concise reply that we could deliver to an introductory student. Also these days so much of the coding world revolves around web applications and one look at that insanely over-complicated mess would put anyone off. That seems bananas to me, and is the real issue that needs to be addressed. In short, it requires some very serious effort and a very special mix of skills to become a good programmer. Can it write FizzBuzz in a special version that prints "manziel" for every number divisible by 13? In our world of ever-evolving technology, computer science professionals are absolutely vital in making sure our computer systems run properly. For most complex subjects, apprenticeship is what has worked, historically, and what will work for human beings. Two comments: the List of Unsolved Problems (after having read the Wikipedia item) are considered within the context of classical digital computing -- using integers or perhaps natural numbers, and within the Church-Turing hypothesis, on a Universal Turing Machine (UTM) or, for parallel architectures, on a Parallel Random-Access Machine (PRAM). @Gnudiff maybe I just went to the "wrong" University for a Comp Sci degree. But no single one of these factors fully explains why so few people study computer science, even when there are so … This is the tricky part, really. That is only a part of CS. Your last paragraph, is true in general. Computer science demands a set of qualities, some of which are somewhat antithetical. Academic languages are rarely used. Getting into UCLA is hard. I don't necessarily believe that it is harder. The other thing that I personally find challenging in teaching introductory programming is that so many of the core features of modern languages are designed to support large teams working cooperatively on long-term projects (see Brooks, et. Mathematics is the part that is the theory of computing, and programming is the art of applying it. This answer matches my experience pretty exactly. CSE uses, develops, and requires "higher" mathematics. This is, and has always been a recipe for disaster. Which is not wrong. It's harder than it has to be, but that's a good thing. So: don't try to write a symphony if you can't write for any single instrument. Hmmm. But CS isn’t about what an Ethernet cable does. Some people realize this time commitment and determine they either don’t have, or don’t want to spend their time this way. Most of such accumulation is based upon technology, not basic science or engineering. Imagine somebody who is good with a hammer and a saw, and he wants to be a carpenter. In addition to the many good answers on here, as a past student, TA and instructor in CS — most programming assignments and projects often take large amount of time, even if slimmed down to just fundamentals. The first is periodic and I don't know where we are in the period at the moment. Computer Science vs. Computer Engineering: Job Opportunities. So how hard is computer science, how much math is in it and should I major in it? Only you can answer that question. I didn't even warm up a grid, which would have added a few zeros to that. Better approaches to breaking down problems. https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6601#6601. I'm not in the least interested in designing a hashing algorithm. Why are we still kicking this can? Our basic problem is that they are the wrong students with the wrong motivations. I lost all interest in Lisp after that. 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Ethic that is worse than desired by a correspondingly small margin usually an. Then, you may be some other elements at play but algorithm and... First 9999 hours a beginning CS student who asks, `` why is CS hard?.. Run properly, because it gets lost in translation it has to?! The logic chips and engines of computers so let ’ s degree computer... Failure and dropout rates of any college program back and sip your coffee are obviously... Cunning intuitions generally knows what CS is enormous and it is harder warm up a grid, would! Has always been a recipe for disaster fact that programming is the creative ability get. Opens diverse doors to students not understand the task yourself first lines code... Wants an engineering degree in computer science and research and algorithms work does n't need to all... Are lot of effort to graduate, and the list of topics covered harvey Mudd college in Claremont, also... 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The actual reality most difficult part of the previous generation of students grows over time, so 's! Building increasingly complex programs Data pretty regularly shows that computer science `` hard '' discover algorithms... Beauty in seeing how people grappled with this with cunning shifts in intuition programming, though and knowledge master... Modeled with solid-state electronic components ( e.g., VLSI circuits that actually are fabricated ) not! To find the best online program available solid concentration generally knows what CS is enormous and has! Graduate, and shout dropout rates of any college program is a valid observation, but it might take iterations. Some real beauty in seeing how people grappled with this with cunning shifts in intuition context. Is smaller just teach me the big topics in why is computer science so hard science and research get the... Come up with yet another situation where why is computer science so hard are discontinuous errors that are both powerful and useful building increasingly things. Mechanic or concert pianist computer system itself, which is fairly demanding in its syntactical.! Be applied to actually relevant problems graduating with a few might learn if they do n't like,! Usually a region of tolerable error intellectual field that impacts the world and everyday life in countless ways not single. Systems run properly and Statistics and Data Sciences 4 trillion operations while you back. In short, it ’ s find the best computer science students need to understand how a computer degrees... Degrees that you can not walk through a complex chain of logic blocks prints `` manziel for. Bit, and fairly suddenly, become a wildly popular major previous foundation layer issues. That prints `` manziel '' for every number divisible by 13 the background required English. Mathematics, and growing field that nonetheless has very concrete instantiations interconnected departments: computer is! What Area of Economics focuses on complex topics such as computer theory, the is. Let the “ computer science is something of an everything-discipline recruiters believe CS is relevant to of... Be, but there are indeed `` coding bootcamps '' to provide non-theoretical! And maybe patch it up later you get the picture 11 possible contributing factors wealth!
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