Ask Slashdot: CS Degree Without Gen-Ed Requirements? 913
davidjbeveridge writes "I'm interested in getting a CS degree. I've been programming since I was 13, and like many of us, taught myself. I am familiar with a number of languages, understand procedural, functional, and object-oriented paradigms; I'm familiar with common design patterns and am a decent engineer. I learn quickly. I work 2 jobs and I have a life. I want to get a CS degree from an accredited school (a BS, that is), but I have no interest in wasting any of my precious time taking classes in English, Philosophy, History, Art and the like. While these fields are useful and perhaps enriching, they will not contribute to making me better at my job. Moreover, I attended an excellent high school that covered these fields of study in great detail, and I feel no need or desire to spend more time studying these things. I want a BS in Computer Science with no general education requirements. Any suggestions?"
Re:You underestimate the value (Score:4, Informative)
+1 I don't think this person is looking for a college education, I suggest they seek out a vocational school. This will be funny when a google search before a job interview pulls up this post. I don't hire engineers that aren't interested in learning.
You don't need Gen-ed (Score:2, Informative)
You don't want to work in fiance where the highest paying programming jobs are, so you don't need economics courses.
You don't want to write games, so you don't need physics, English (story telling), art, or movie courses.
You don't want to work in the "green" industry, so you don't need biology, chemistry or physics.
You don't want to work for a business (or own your own), so you don't need business courses or accounting courses,
You won't ever write proposals, specifications, reports or presentations, so you don't need English courses.
So where are you going to work?
Re:US-only problem? (Score:4, Informative)
What percentage of the degree is taken up with Gen-Ed? If it's just 1 or 2 courses, then maybe it's not that bad.
About a third. With a 4 year degree, the final two years will be entirely related to your subject matter. Of the first two years, even of the general education courses, some of them will be computer related, and therefore relevant.
If you really want to get technical about it, beyond the computer related general education courses, all of the math, science and English courses relating to writing are also at least somewhat relevant. A lot of computer science is math related, especially the subjects of discrete math, and some venturing into probability/statistics, etc. A course in ethics could certainly find application in a computer science career, and understanding the workings of government shouldn't be written off either. All told, the number of completely unrelated courses would be very few, and you might find that a class in something completely unrelated to your major could actually be a welcome change of pace when you're burning out with 4 other classes.
-Restil
Re:US-only problem? (Score:2, Informative)
Exactly Backwards (Score:3, Informative)
Americans are groomed from a young age to not give a damn about anything outside of America.
While a fun myth to spread, the reality is far different.
I have a number of friends with kids of all ages. All of them learn quite a bit about other countries, other places across the globe.
In fact the opposite is true, that so much attention is being focused on learning about things all over than kids are not being bought the history of where they are. Learning more about all aspects of American history is pretty important to understand the context of modern choices and existing social structure.
Now it might be true that in college where kids have more self determination, they are not really thinking much about things outside the U.S. But that's when they are basically an adult and it is their choice if they wish.
Re:US-only problem? (Score:5, Informative)
Many decades (or even over a century) ago, it wasn't like this. A kid finishing 8th grade (about 12-13 years old) had roughly the education of a typical high school graduate these days.
This is just wrong. In the area of math, you can look at studies like http://www.maa.org/features/faceofcalculus.html [maa.org] that show that the level of calculus education in high schools has tripled over the last 30 years, and has actually reached the point where a majority of incoming freshmen math students have already taken calc; in 1950, that was almost nonexistent at the high school level (let alone 8th grade). The state of science education in US middle schools and high schools was even more pathetic prior to the 1960s; a combination of Sputnik-inspired funding efforts and the legal demise of prohibitions on teaching of evolution and the like were among the key movers in stimulating science education. More generally, the AP program didn't even exist until the late 1950s.
One enlightening thing to do is to flip through math assessment tests like the American High School Math Exam from 1950 through present; the difference is pretty stark. In the 50s and 60s, the limit of difficulty is the kind of "a train leaves Chicago going X miles an hour while another leaves Los Angeles going Y miles an hour" questions that are more common for 7th graders (or even bright 5th graders) today.
And that's ignoring the fact that in 1960 over 60% of the population didn't even make it to high school graduation, compared with about 20% today; see for instance http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/life_12.html [livinghistoryfarm.org]