Co-worker and classmate Jonathan sent this article to me yesterday: Want to be a computer scientist? Forget maths and asked what I thought.
Jonathan took a ‘traditional’ computer science undergrad, so I don’t know if he’s aware that I never took discrete math as I went through my program. Did it hinder me at all? There’s not really any way to tell. In one of my java classes, they mentioned Big O Notation once, but I cruised through that one lecture none the worse. Heck, I was thankful not to have had to take math.
Then I got into my grad program and ‘Theory of Computation’ was one of the first courses I took. It also has turned out to be one of my favourites. I really enjoyed the theoretical aspects, the fact there was no definitive ‘right’ answer to the problems we looked at. (To be honest, I think that is why ‘traditional’ math never appealed to me, I’m not a fan of ‘the single best answer’.) What’s sad is that our MSCS program has actually retired the course, replacing this course of theory with the more practical “topics in computer science”: UML, patterns, etc. Who knows, perhaps the belief expressed in this article is more accepted than I would have thought.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I completely agree, Theory of Computation was a great class and I was really sad to see it cancelled as well. It’s an important subject to learn and I think I got more out of it than any other class during my entire time at Franklin
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I wanted to take theory of comp, I took it as an undergrad and them dropping it still seams odd to me. I love how Matt talks about school in past tense, gloating about how he’s done. Subtle, but I cought on!