High Intensity Computer Colleges? 321
JD asks: "Since I'm going to college in two years, I was wondering if there were any colleges that offer 'intensive' computer training. Most colleges offer computer programming in C++ and whatnot, but what about schools that offer programming in languages like ColdFusion, ASP, JavaScript, Java, and Perl, along with courses like system administration, unix, databases, and networking. A College that deals with all computers all the time with cutting edge machines and cutting edge topics." Sounds like a trade school. But are there trade schools that are this in depth? If so, are they exceedingly expensive?
Nothing Worth Learning Can Ever Be Taught (Score:1)
Re:hmmmmmm (Score:1)
Don't overlook other schools for MIT, CMU (Score:1)
Re:Do you want training, or an education? (Score:1)
University (Score:1)
http://www.liu.se/
Re:Don't bother (Score:1)
Not to detract from your point, which I agree with otherwise.
Problem with learning "the latest and greatest": (Score:1)
I've found it very easy, once I knew the basic concepts behind programming, which I was taught (and am being taught) in college, to pick up on whatever language I've been required to learn with little effort. Spending time learning the foibles of ASP or Visual Basic or PHP is great to do on your own time, but, as soon as you get your degree, you'll find that every language you learned backwards and forwards in college (besides, perhaps, the stalwart C) has been forgotten by everyone in the industry, who are using bigger, better, newer "technologies" to create with.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
well... (Score:1)
Good luck with your education, and remember, the only bad education is the one that doesn't interest you.
Re:Concepts, not Languages (Score:1)
Re:So is the CS Degree Necessary... (Score:1)
has said many times to me that he has never, ever had to show his degree to anyone. Nobody has ever asked him 'wait, you do have a college education don't you?' before hiring him.
But he is self driven, willing to start his own company and put in the hours (80 wk? more?) to make it pull off. And it is hard work,
I have seen him mess up some times.
So no, you don't need a degree if you are willing to get yourself on equal footing as those with the degree. Honestly (and my mum would kill me if she heard me say this), the degree isn't important as far as the piece of paper is concerned. What is
more important is your willingness to learn and your knowledge of the fundamentals. If you don't have a degree, you better have real-world experience going into a job interview. And you will still run into problems where you need to know things like how serial ports work, how network protocols work and the fundamentals of servers, operating system theory and threads/concurrancy/deadlock , etc. If you do not know java, you can learn in two days, assuming you know the fundamentals and are sufficiently motivated.
So, like many people here have said, don't think computer science is knowing to program C. Or any of the other languages of the week. You must know the fundamentals, and that is what a computer science program will teach you. If you are willing to learn the fundamentals on your own time (if you are sufficiently motivated), then the only thing a degree buys you is a college saying 'yes, we think he really does know this stuff and is qualified to work'
Re:Game Design Degree (Score:1)
GO CMURFC (Score:1)
PLAY RUGBY!
There's nothing like beating the pants off of PA/WV hicks who don't have anything to do at their hick schools except play rugby, and then coming back home after the game for a late night hack session
Seriously, I don't know how anyone can doubt the credentials of CMU as a CS school. Forget the fact that I got one hell of a CS education there - the simple fact is that of all of the people I have worked with since college, the very best software developers by far have all been from CMU (ok there was one pretty good Stanford guy too).
I have never worked with anyone who went to MIT -- where do MIT CS grads end up? Not in software companies if my experience is anything to go by
What is a CS degree is, and what it isn't ... (Score:2)
A CS degree is about teaching you the principles underlying a field. As such, it is intended to be very abstract. It is aimed at teaching you the logical system that underlies all computer science disciplines. There are many lessons that can only be learned in a controlled, academic setting. Therefore, the degree is not as concerned with whether the program is written in C++ or Java, but how a computer is language is constructed and how it meets its goals. The degree gives you the tools to quickly assimilate new technologies which means that going through the full 4 year ciriculum at an ACM accredited institution will make you a far better developer than simply learning each technology in an ad hoc manner.
I work as a software engineer at a company where most of the developers have not had the four year CS degree. The lack of this foundation leads to many headaches and poor designs. While the 4 year degree isn't as sexy as one would hope, it will make a far better programmer and open your eyes to things that you would not otherwise see. Finally, the upper echelon jobs in this field require at least a BA/BS in CS if not a MA or PhD, and that is where the umber cool stuff is occurring(i.e. XEROX PARC, ILM, Watson, etc.)
Pick a good CS school; Learn languages on your own (Score:1)
As a rule of thumb to start with, universities which have their Computer Science program under the same school or department as Engineering are preferable over ones which associate it with their Math department.
Make sure the Computer Science program you attend has a curriculum [acm.org] with sufficiently difficult classes in
I got my BSCS (1988) and MSCS (1991) at California State University, Chico [csuchico.edu]. As a northern California native who does not come from a wealthy background, I had to focus on state schools in my search for a college to go to.
Fortunately, you can get a good education from a state university. But you have to check how well-funded the Computer Science program is and the quality of its curriculum. At least for the 23-campus CSU system [calstate.edu], one university can be world class in a few majors and mediocre in everything else at the campus. California's UC system [california.edu] is better funded (and therefore better at more subjects per campus) but more expensive. What you want to know is whether they're good in Computer Science. Depending on where you live, some of these comparisons will hopefully be helpful in what to look for.
I was lucky that the nearest CSU campus (CSU Chico) to where I went to high school had a good curriculum and reputation in Computer Science, not to mention that their MSCS program is available via satellite [csuchico.edu] across North America. And I run into CSU Chico grads all over the industry now.
MIT has no Database course(s) (Score:1)
I tried searching MIT's website to find out what textbook(s) they use for their database courses and guess what? They don't have any!
Perhaps they have renamed their database course to "information storage" or something dumb like that and I couldn't find it on their web site. Have you ever searched a course catalog for "information storage". You'll hit every fucking CS class they have.
Don't discount NCSU (Score:1)
As an example, I'm currently in an assembly class. Now, is there any reason for me to use Turbo Assember for Intel systems in the future. Not terribly likely, but it does teach me how to be careful, clever, and even elegant in my programming. The professors are very interesting, and very helpful. I'm really becoming a much better coder than I could be learning on my own or in a trade school.
I'm looking forward to going into the upper level AI and OS courses as well as programming theory.
Unfortunately I'm currently having to deal with Physics II and Calculus III, which I find barely relevant, and very tedious. Still you get the whole well rounded education bit, and if I would pass this stuff the first time around I wouldn't have to deal with it ever again.
Plus, we have a kick-ass theatre program.
/Advertisement>
Masters (Score:1)
Les the Book
Colleges (Score:1)
Specific languages isn't that important, but I really wish Hope would get more intensive on C and C++. The push has been to move towards Java as a teaching language (not bad idea).
Do you want training, or an education? (Score:5)
general concepts. What you describe is training,
not an education. if all you want is training,
you would be better off with vendor classes,
and maybe community college.
An education teaches you things much more
important that the skill, language, and software
of the week. It teaches you how to think. Learning
how to think about algorithms, logic, parsing,
and other traditional computer science topics
really does help with those real world
applications.
If you learn Java, you learn Java, but if you
learn the concepts of Object Oriented design
and programming as well as the language, then
you're much better prepared when the language
of the week changes. If you take a GOOD databases
class, you will learn database concepts in such
a way that you can apply them to current and
future database systems, instead of being tied
to one system you were trained on.
Just remember, learning how to think is much
more important in the long run than learning
vendor specific skills.
Re:Do you want training, or an education? (Score:1)
The purpose of college... (Score:1)
I probably would have never learned about serious algorithms or turing machines on my own, but classes do push you to learn these things. Down the road they are helpful. Whatever do, don't get into college expecting it to teach you a trade. Don't become a code monkey.
Don't freak out when your CS prof doesn't know how to install a hard drive or doesn't know the hottest new language. Odds are they know the principles, and given time, they could learn any language or technology in a few weeks. Their interest is in teaching you fundamentals so that you can refine your skills in practical ways in your own time. I like what Mark Twain said about these matters:
"I never let my schooling get in the way of my education."
Duane Gran
Try a Community College (Score:1)
The University I went to a few years ago didn't have any sort of "practical" computer training. They were teaching mostly theory and while some classes used C++ (oooh, how revolutionary for 1995) students had to learn to program on their own.
I found that the small community college in the area had excellent classes in things like Network Administration, Graphics Programming, X Windows Interface Design, etc. People with two-year "certificates" from this community college were getting jobs at the University once reserved only for academics with higher degrees.
The C++ class I took at the community college was taught by one of the full-time programmers who worked on Mosaic and other NCSA projects at the time (oops, guess I just gave away the University and community college I'm talking about...).
The X Windows class was taught by a professional X programmer from Motorola. These classes taught me more in one semester than three years of Computer Science classes at the University.
Also, my brother is getting execllent expierence in things like Adobe Photoshop, Quark and Dreamweaver in a small state school getting a "visual communications" degree.
Investigate community colleges and smaller state schools, they tend to be geared more towards the "pratical" expierence that many are now looking for.
True, smaller schools don't have the resources of large institutions, but in the days of PCs as powerfull as 5-year-old supercomputers, that doesn't matter as much anymore. Still, if you're interested in optimising algorithms for more than 128 processors, you're better off at a big school, but if you're looking to get some "hands-on" knowledge of practical computing topics, smaller schools tend to have less formality and more practical expierence.
----
Re:Worth of these things? (Score:1)
--
Worth of these things? (Score:2)
--
Re:I AM one of those kids with a genius level IQ (Score:1)
First, I agree a school can't necessarily teach you to think. It can make you a better thinker by showing different ways to approach a problem. But, you still have to have the potential to start with.
What you are describing though are bad teachers, not that school can't teach you anything. You also have the data points to show that not all teachers are like that. What you don't have is the background of coming into a school with good teachers, and not being "one of those kids wih genius level IQ." I don't know if I am one of those or not myself. I like to think so, but I had a pretty humbling experience at my school with a lot of people who were a hell of a lot smarter than me.
The other thing is I had a similar department to your CS department, except for me it was the math department. At my school everyone has to take math through Differential Equations (anyone from that school can probably guess it now.) The classic example that matches some of your story was Differential Equations there were two sections and I got the worst one (couldn't take the other due to morning practice). I basically failed the first mid-term because all the professor did was write proofs on the board, and then assign homework that was application. Strike 1: Not giving practice for what you are teaching. Then, the tests would be on the homework type problems. Striek 2: Not testing what your teaching. The only thing that got me through is I got together with people in the good section to work on homework. I went to the mid-term reviews that were taught by the good professor, and would learn and understand about 4 weeks worth of material that was totally incomprehesnible before in about 2 hours. I ended up with a B-. But, the fact that I could learn enough in 2 hours to pass the class from a good teacher, that I couldn't in 3 hours/week of class from a bad teacher taught me a lesson about how much a teacher can influence the learning process.
On the other hand I had a CS professor who taught Algorithms and Theory of Computation. The way I see it these could have been two of the most boring and uninteresting classes ever. But, because of the quality of the teacher and the work he did I learned a lot in those classes, that I continue to apply today. (Thanks Ran).
Dastardly
Who I Hire... (Score:1)
What I really need are clever, hard-working people who don't believe that they are the center of the universe because of their new degree. They need great communications skills, and the ability to cope with overwhelming projects and concepts.
You shouldn't have a shopping list of facts to learn or applications to master. You should be looking for a place that will put you through hell and, in the process, teach you:
-that you can learn way more than you ever thought
-how to learn for yourself when there is no teacher (and get paid while doing it!)
Re:Do you want training, or an education? (Score:1)
Very true. If you go to a decent four year accredidated College / University you'll be much better off for a few reasons:
Then there's always the fact that college is a blast. I woundn't trade my 4 years for anything. In fact, I liked it so much that I'm applying right now to go back for my Masters! (People have told me that that's even better than undergrad because you concentrate more on what interests you.)
Re:CS / IT degrees and college. (Score:1)
RIT (Score:1)
At any college you can learn various languages, programming paradigms, etc. Some school just focus more on what you want than others. Just about any school with 'tech' in the name will have all sorts of programming courses. Here at Rochester Institute of Technology, there are many courses to choose from. Some just teach you a language, some actually teach you how to use programming, so teach you the theory of programming, etc. MIT, FIT, CIT, (all the *ITs have very similar programs) If you wanna focus of programming, i would suggest one of the afore mentioned tech schools.
Re:you probably don't want to hear this... (Score:1)
That's strange because all the admin jobs I've seen advertised say "5 years Solaris experience required" or "8+ years with HP-UX"...
As a high school drop-out you must have either lied your ass off or had relatives / friends in a position to get you hired. I just can't see it any other way, perhaps you could enlighten me?
Re:I might have an answer (Score:1)
I go to William and Mary.
Terrible CS department (The Econ department is fantastic, but then again I plan on becoming an economist
They teach you algorithms and concepts, that's true, but they dont teach you the fundamentals of anything practical. Case in point: they don't teach malloc(), realloc() or calloc() to the intro students! Rather than that, they jump through hoops to define classes and then use new() and delete() to "dynamically resize" arrays. Great theory, pathetic in practice.
OTOH, if you want something for PHBs, WM is the place to be.
-- PHB in training.
Re:learn to program, not langauges! (Score:1)
Re:You can in Australia (Score:1)
Training, Education, and where... (Score:2)
First, almost all of those courses are offered at the school I'm currently (re-)attending. I'm taking Java and Unix System Administration. My professor is the head of the internet group at Wells Fargo Bank. The school is City College of San Francisco.
If you just want to learn those specific skills, check out your local community college, or just pick up a book and learn it on your own. At your age, you should have no problem picking up a new language or system from reading a book and playing with it on your own. (I didn't when I was your age.)
But, if you don't already understand the concepts, don't concentrate on learning a language. Learn the ideas behind it. If you don't understand the concepts, memorizing the syntax for Java, Perl, or even COBOL won't help you.
As others have said, get an education, not a skill.
But, when you ask about:
You're missing something. You can go to some place like MIT and learn all that really cool stuff like robotics and AI and all that, but when you get your Bachelors and start perusing DICE [dice.com] for jobs, you won't find too many of them out there.
Despite what another poster said, there are still an awful lot of COBOL jobs out there, as well as the newer stuff like Java. Not too many positions for people to design robots that can destroy other robots, at least not if you're fresh out of college.
So keep that in mind -- big uni's may have lots of really cool stuff, but they may not be what the real world is using.
On the other hand, there is a huge benefit to knowing more than just technical stuff. I can't begin to count the number of times the years spent hanging out in my dad's CPA office has helped me as a programmer.
Even stuff like literature and music help -- Having an extensive vocabulary and excellent grammar/spelling skills have helped make me a successful consultant, and my eclectic musical background has helped sharpen my logic skills.
So, to sum up, if you need specific skills, go to a community college. (I was having some trouble with learning Java on my own, (even after nearly 20 years in the business) but I am doing much better in the classroom setting.)
But, if you need a general education, both technically and otherwise, consider a four-year school. Concentrate on the concepts, and don't skimp on the other subjects.
Re:Concepts, not Languages (Score:1)
It really emphasizes that what you should be learning are the fundamentals and ideas, since languages are constantly changing anyway. (Well, so are ideas, but not as much.)
Re:Concepts, not Languages (Score:1)
Half of good programming is just learning all the bad timesavers that you shouldn't do, and how to get good habits.
I'm afraid I can't really recommend any good books on the subject, as I've just been taking the courses here. I'm hoping someone else can?
Re:CS fundamentals=useless, IT training=useless (Score:1)
BTW, you never see on a job app that a degree from specific colleges is required. Just a degree.
)
While I agree with your observations broadly speaking degrees are not interchangable.
Don't get to thinking that the world views a degree from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale or any of the great European Universities as having the same value as a degree from home-town community college.
If you're going to do a degree get into the institution with the best reputation you can.
Most college's are pretty up to date (Score:1)
Don't Go To Berkeley!! (Score:1)
Re: Berkeley!! (Score:1)
Research in just about any field is definitely possible, I have been doing it since I was a freshman. It just depends on your own initiative to go out and find out what is going on (their are programs that list all the oppurtinities, but you have to seek them out).
Berkeley is crowded, and nothing will be handed to you on a platter. Everything you get out of it will be due to what you put into it, which is a good lesson in my opinion.
Although lower div classes can be huge, I have never had a prof who wasn't accessable whenever I needed to see them.
The social atmosphere is A LOT more varied that what you would see at Caltech or MIT. I have friends at those schools who are not always so happy.
Make sure that your son has an idea what the difference between CS & technology is.
UW also has a good CS program, so you should definitely look into it if money is a concern.
Have your son check out the class homepages http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu for an idea of the coursework.
One more thing - don't let your son get a big head, I know a 8th grader who got in the 1400s on the SAT - there is always someone smarter than you, so you can't let that be your measurement of self-worth or your source of happiness.
Re:Concepts, not Languages (Score:1)
School is a waste of time and money.. (Score:1)
Re:Don't Go To Berkeley!! (Score:1)
Only one way to get stay on the real BLEEDING edge (Score:1)
Even by the time the books are published, they are dated.
For example, I read the MSDN (just the new content) cover to cover every month. Talk about bleeding edge - most of the white papers at that point are literally just that - papers.
The point of a College Education (Score:1)
The point is that regardless of what school you go to, if you want to learn Cold Fusion, then you do a project in Cold Fusion and teach yourself. Same goes for ASP, Perl, etc. You teach yourself the language, the profs are just there to teach you concepts.
~~Kev
Re:Training, Education, and where... (Score:1)
(Don't get me wrong, I've realized since I took it that 6.170 is chock full of good stuff that is very applicable to industry programming (specification, testing, documentation, design...) but there are fine lines between what SHOULD be practiced in the industry, what IS practiced in the industry, and what a delirious student is going to practice when she's been up three nights in a row)
Robots killing robots is *FUN*
More importantly, its a very large project involving both realtime constraints and complex problem solving, and it grabs our attention enough to test our real ability to reach lofty goals
Re:Harvey Mudd College (semi-adv) (Score:1)
It's hard, you'll wonder what sleep is by the time you're done, but it's definately worth a try if you want to push the limits of your brain and your computer science skills. I know I made the right choice...
- A random member of the HMC CS Class of 2001
You are talking about TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS! (Score:1)
You are talking about TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS!
You are looking for a Technical College not a Traditional College.
Technical Colleges teach what you want, the latest and greatest hardware and software technologies. Specific courses on how to use specific applications that usually have a life cycle of under 10 years. Cold Fusion, ASP, JavaScript, etc... They teach PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE.
Traditional Colleges teach more "general" concepts from the basic physics of semiconductor lattices to programming design to project management. Most of these courses do NOT teach you anything about any system, although you *MAY* end up using some of them on your own in a project for some courses. This is especially true in traditional engineering programs where you spend 75% of your coursework learning in fields COMPLETELY OUTSIDE YOUR INTENDED FOCUS (e.g. math, physics, mechanics, economics, etc...). At most Traditional Colleges you will find LITTLE PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE.
"Which is better?" is not a good question. "Who are in more need?", the obvious is the former, practical technicians and engineering technologists. 250,000 new IT/computer technology jobs are created a year. Only 25,000 new, traditional engineering jobs are created a year.
Me, I am a traditional engineer, but I work in the semiconductor field. Not many openings there. ;->
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
NU (Score:1)
Re:Technology school vs. engineering school. (Score:1)
What do you want to do? We have Information Systems or Telecommunications & Networking as majors. Within those, there are numerous sub-tracks to choose from. Courses? Systems Analysis, Administraton, LAN, WAN, Programming ( C++, Java, VB ), and more! Visit http://www.tech.purdue.edu/cpt for more info.
No, we do not do "applied" science like EE or CS majors. We have more of a business focus. In short, how to APPLY your education in the real world. To tell the truth, CPT grads have been commanding salaries above and beyond CS for years now. Our graduate placement has been 100% for years as well. The average graduate's (BS) salary is $48K/yr, Masters grads average $70K.
You know, I really hate it when people put down something just because they know nothing about it. They make assumptions and don't bother to find out if its true or not. Bleh!
Companies actively recruiting CPT majors as of Septemer 1999: 3M, CIA, Dell, Dow, EDS, Exxon, GTE, IBM, Intel, Lockeed Martin, Microsoft, Motorola, NSA, etc.
Can a trade school give you that?
Washington State University (Score:1)
I think these sort of requirements are (or should be!) standard for any _full_ university, but they're not. I suppose any college in the top 30 (WSU was 25 and UW was 10 when I applied) for Computer Science should get you most of this stuff.
Re:Washington State University (Score:1)
the C class (150) is data structures, here we learned the basics: , then in 250 (C++) we learned all sorts of dynamic structures (lists, trees, trees) unfortunately theory focused classes become extremely *convoluted*. 250 is a revolving door for doctoral sudents who've forgotten to code. My final project was vaporware. It had great theory, lots of crap about the eventual failure of near-prime public key cryptogrophy and how it might be possible to circumvent this with the particular implimentation of R. Rivest's "Winnowing and Chafing" setup. I also skipped half the labs. I also bullsh***ed my way into a Microsoft interview. I bet MS employees have a great theory repetoire and the WinNT system must have a beautiful design, but it doesn't always work.
In fact we talked about this kind of stuff alot in 350 (afforementioned program design). So theory-based was 250 (the only prereq for 350) that everyone's final project for 350 fell on it's ass. 250 is theory based, and a JOKE. In 360 (adv unix proramming - filesystems) the prof quipped at how 250 students are clueless.
Good thing 250 is changing. A few key individuals make all the difference. Both are industry veterans who have come back for their MS. A code-based 250 (both in the lab and in the classroom) make all the difference. I audited the 250 lab to get back in the swing of things, and learned a hell of a lot more than I did when I actually took the class (got a B).
I'd rather work with a bunch of other students who can actually code, rather than put out a sublime design. In 360 there is no partial credit. There is no credit for nice looking code, or a fancy design. Sure I can add usage messages and fully adhere to data abstraction... and waste a few hours turning what is a global variable into every function's parameters and then get no credit because it just doesn't work.
Theory is for those who know how to code, but C++ isn't even suited for such things. Truly OO based languages (smalltalk/java) are better suited to such things. Ok, _what_ reason is there to learn ml? To use a strongly typed language and be able to code discrete math principles directly, not worrying about the nittpicky bugs. You've got to learn a whole new language to even _get_ to the theory. Then you've got to waste that time in class or in the 4 year plan to teach another language... and freshmen are clueless. 99% of 150 students have never coded. Sound like a good reason to save heavy theory out of the first two years of the cirriculum?
Also, you could contribute some original criticism rather than something that's been posted under this story about fifty times allready.
BTW... *GET AN ACCOUNT*
Re:Washington State University (Score:1)
*snort* CMU... based on the influx of CMU student's opinions I'm not too impressed, and I don't think that paying through the nose should be prerequisite to attending school. CMU cost of attendance estimates are 4x here, with tuition 10x WSU's. Sure, if I didn't mind borrowing 4x what I will be now, and could find a part-time on-campus job that paid $60/hr it would be comprable.
WSU is _far_ from perfect. Upper administration here can kiss my ass, and may end up doing that after I graduate (they have a high alumni giving rate to maintain).
There is only one class in the CS department that teaches students how to code.
150 here, at a school where it isn't a waste of 2 credits to learn perl, or an API. That's about $180 after books plus 30 hours in class, 10 to 20 hours out (depending on how callenged you are). So an equivalent value of 70 hours (very conservative estimate). Could any undergraduate pick up their second language in less than 70 hours?
I just had to laugh at your MS interview.
I laugh at it all the time. Especially when people tell me how proud of getting one, but isn't it that nice to have one as a Frosh?
Your 360 isn't exactly what I would call a hard or challenging class.
It could be if you didn't know how to code. Remember what the prereq is? 250... that no one learns a quip about coding in. So a few weeks of review are used to quell the dropout rate and then we're into business.
I never said it was challenging... and we haven't gone by the Steven's book so far. Everything's been at the lowest level, for my mkfs I use open() read() write()... that's all. None of the nice library functions in that book to use.
Sure, if you can learn the low level workings of a UNIX filesystem and process management allongside basic x86 assembly in a trade school, then sign me up.
You learn ML because it is allows many things to be done so simply and elegantly.
Just about what I was saying, BUT how do you write a for loop in ML... something like this?
Strongly typed and good for such stuff yes... but a practical language? By no means, but good for theory.
AC postings often have the most intelligent, informative and insightful comments.
Not based on my experience. While you're free to ciriticize from the shadows, free of any accountability, Just another faceless trolling AC... I'm responding with no mask on.
I'm sure you're familliar with the theory that internet chat participants easily detach from their actions. The internet becomes a fantasy realm for their exploits. Feel empowered? Feel unaccountable? Sure, you're an AC and I'm not. It takes half a brain to get my private e-mail address and webpage. There's me, all of me. Authenticity, accountability, reality. Nothing less. I like to talk to people, not their egos.
Re:Washington State University (Score:1)
That's what I call an informative AC post.
I don't know why anyone's so insane to take a pricy private college for their undergrad work.
OT (Score:1)
;-> did you click on the link? yup... (nice 2.2.12 kernel) did you keep digging? no! you didn't get past the host's page and make it to my first personal page... it takes 8 clicks to read about my first girlfriend, after the third click if you can't figure out what my @wsu.edu email address is you really don't need to be emailing my unfiltered account... now let's keep going... stop at my first personal page and go 3 clicks in a more obscure direction and you can get my full name, from there one stop at www.wsu.edu -> "phone & e-mail directories" and you have my home phone number...
abstract that... there's a difference between putting your info on a billboard and leaving it in a nice 500 page phonebook...
It be hard to convince me that it wasn't written to incite a response (i.e. troll).
*ghasp* oooo nooooooooOOooo! making conversation! guilty as charged!! A troll on the other hand incites a decidedly _negative_ response. Trolling is infectious; see how nice and cheery I've become responding to your critiques?
and you seem to have taken a few things for granted, such as the scope of the article (mentioning various languages, that's what they're interested in right?)... I never said that a full university _would_ train every student in 5 languages but that it should have the facillities (remember, I'm taking courses not required by the cirriculum)
you probably don't want to hear this... (Score:1)
I dropped out of high school, and put myself on the market consulting as a UNIX admin. In my experience, a serious investment in O'Reilly books and a hunger to learn got me some really sweet gigs at places like Motorola and Sun, where I had
lots of documentation, and labs to do hands-on stuff in a controlled environment.
These large companies don't always care about a degree, as long as you show aptitude. As far as what happened to/for me, my work has been also
been an apprenticeship.
Of course, formal education will teach theory and
basics of algorithms and structure- all very important and useful, to be sure.
Keep in mind that working in the field does make you think on your feet and adapt to the situation
at hand ( i.e. having to tear apart someones code in the middle of the night, hoping the whole mess will compile clean before the cron job kicks off in an hour) , which is equally important, in my opinion.
Re:Who I Hire... (Score:1)
I just wanted to tip my hat your way for being a forward-thinking employer.
peace.
Re:you probably don't want to hear this... (Score:1)
i'm 30 years old, and the comment that you posted suggests to me that you've never applied for a job
in this industry because you were scared off by what a job posting asked for.
get some balls and tell the employer that you know the stuff, and they will pay attention, and possibly pay well.
and stop being a snipe, it doesn't make a good impression of you.
Re:No Resume-404 (Score:1)
jealous, are we? (Score:1)
pardon, i was getting defensive- too much coffee? (Score:1)
I used to work in construction, and I will tell you that the foreman on a job site can/ will tell
the engineer where the weak points in his plan are.
The reason for this being that a foreman has years of EXPERIENCE with the materials, where an engineer has probaly never put on a pair of overalls.
Re:I am having the same problem... (Score:1)
I could not agree more strongly with this comment.
I was a physics major at Carleton College [carleton.edu], a small but highly-regarded liberal arts college in Minnesota. I have spent the rest of my career teaching at Great Research Universities, such as Johns Hopkins and the University of Michigan, which are terrific graduate institutions, but where the undergraduate experience can be the impersonal, polar opposite of what a great liberal arts school can give you. If you want to learn the flavor-of-the-month programming language go to a community college or your local bookstore. If you want to become an educated person, someone with the desire and the skills to keep learning throughout your life (not just about programming, but about literature, science, music...) then consider a liberal arts school such as Carleton, Swarthmore, Amherst, Haverford, Williams, Grinnell, Oberlin, the University of Chicago, etc. These schools produce impressive, well-rounded, incredibly talented graduates who have learning skills that last a lifetime.
That's really what education, as opposed to vocational training, is all about: learning how to learn.
Get-A-Good-Education-HOWTO (Score:2)
I recommend finding the best darn CS program you can get into, like Berkeley, MIT, Stanford or CMU (just to name some off the top of my head). Take the theory classes (like everyone talks about in the other threads) and go to town learning how to develop algorithms, how to manage memory and how to PROPERLY organize "stuff" into a database.
While you're doing that, get a job on campus as a lackey (or if you have experience, as a real position) for a department's network and/or servers. Don't be an NT waterboy; take advantage of the fact that all these departments are running Solaris, IRIX, and other unices you've never seen before. Learn how to admin in a research environment where outages don't cost billions of dollars or lives or anything major, just that Dr. Smith can't check his email that evening.
You get the theory (which makes you a better programmer, DB admin, or network designer) along side real world experience (which is what makes you stand out from the kid who got a 0.2 better GPA than you who's graduating from the same program). You win on both fronts.
I'm currently net/sysadmin for the campus neuroscience department and still have enough time to participate in extracurriculars, keep grades up, and have a life. If you budget your time well and ******grab EVERY opportunity you can******* you will succeed in college and look good in the real world.
-Chris
Waterloo (Score:1)
-
<SIG>
"I am not trying to prove that I am right... I am only trying to find out whether." -Bertolt Brecht
Re:Concepts, not Languages (Score:2)
All computers all the time (Score:2)
I would suggest going to a school that offers both a good CS department as well as good liberal arts.
AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!! (Score:1)
Otherwise, it's sad but true. Most credible schools want you to learn the foundations of computer science as well as the applications.
--JRZ
Trade School? (Score:1)
Re:Concepts, not Languages (Score:1)
That would be like making rms code in BASIC!
Re(OTish):Do you want training, or an education? (Score:1)
Re:University of Maryland...Maybe (Score:1)
Our CS dept (so far) has proven to be surprisingly enlightened; after the first 4 classes, you can write any program in any language that will compile/run on the CS development cluster!
(The point being that students learn to find the tool that best fits each task, rather than buying into one language and limiting themselves)
The other nice thing, (a feature we share with UNC, UCBerkely, and a few others) is the local CS industry; working NASA was fun, and there are still orgs like the NSA (!), DOD (A friend of mine is the ass. sysad for AFRRI), UUnet/MCI, etc.. (MAEast is right here, so many uberISPs have offices here, so if you want a sysad job as opposed to a coding job its right here)
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars --Oscar Wilde
Re:Another voice from NC (Score:1)
what are you looking for in terms of school choice?
(I am not sure but I think GATECH is higher ranked than we are (though not by much, we are both top 15) but we have much more in the way of coop/internship/pt job opportunities in CS)
we have a kick ass LUG (not to assume you are a Linux-user, but...)
you end up strongly on a grad-school track coming out of UMCP... this does not inhibit you from getting a job, but you will probably have to learn most programming languages on your own (I think the current slate is C/C++, (Perl && Java || LISP && PROLOG) )
OTOH if you want to futz around with making your own compiler, come here; and if you want a good grounding in general algorithmic theory, our final Alg class (not req.) is renowned... (CMSC451)
anywho, email me if you have any questions...
-RS
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars --Oscar Wilde
CS / IT degrees and college. (Score:1)
Re:hmmmm ... (Score:1)
As a graduate of the CS program [princeton.edu] there, I also would highly recommend Princeton, but not necessarily as a source for the things the original poster asked. Princeton's program tends to be more theoretical than pragmatic, so for example, you'll get a world-class background in algorithm design, but C++ won't be on your curriculum (let alone app languages like Cold Fusion). Last time I checked, we were ranked eighth amongst US undergraduate CS programs.
Div.
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
reasons to see a professor (Score:1)
Hope College (Score:1)
Re:jealous, are we? (Score:1)
I think the following is perhaps the most insightful quote I've yet seen in this whole discussion:
Would you hire an engineer who had no university education to design a bridge? Of course not. But you'd probably hire someone with no degree to help build it. That's the analogy. You're the construction worker who doesn't need to know about materials, structural analysis, fluid mechanics, etc. You don't need to know about software engineering practices, languages, automata, algorithms, data structures, control structures, mathematical optimization, and so on.
Re:What about Yale? (Score:1)
adum
College is not for learning (Score:1)
College is not for learning.
College is for stretching, for thinking, and for growing. You won't get another four-year shot at this ever. The rest is (as everyone has said) just a series of variations on learn-it-in-21-days.
Choose the college where you think you can be the most stretched; meet the weirdest people, and see the most. If you graduate with a relatively open mind, you win.
Re:Trade School? (Score:1)
Education and Opportunities... (Score:1)
I would wholeheartedly suggest going for an education like many of the above posters suggest...
However, your choice of school can be the most important factor in your college life. Do you want to learn something for the here and now... or do you want to gain the requisite skills to make a career as a computer scientist?
A school's technology for a potential computer science major is important. But almost as important as the technology the school employs, is the opportunities the school offers to its students. Does the school offer cooperative education or an intern program where you can go work for companies gaining valuable experience while you're still learning the skills to be successful in the industry?
I'm just about finishing my undergraduate degree this year. I've had the opportunity to work for IBM as an intern, and at the moment...working as a part-time perl programmer with a possibility of full time employment when I graduate.
I guess my point is that the school can have the greatest technology, but there are other factors that you should watch out for.
And in case you were wondering, the school I go to is New Jersey Institute of Technology [njit.edu] It was rated by Yahoo America's Most Wired Public University... so the technology here is up to date. Look into it if interested.
learn difficult things instead (Score:1)
As many have said what you need is to understand the underlying concept. Algorithm. Data structures. Compiler Design.
Now if you want to be ahead of the race there are things that are difficult to learn AND useful.
Data mining will eventually be needed to make use of all the data collected online. And data mining is statistics, which you can NOT learn in two weeks. Take statistics.
Distributed architectures are starting to florish, and they will be THE way to go when/if the semiconductor industry reaches physical limits. There is no good paradigm yet for distributed/parallel programming. But it will not be easy. Learn Petri nets, linear logic, programming semantics, protocol verification.
There are other things I'd worry about if i were you. Go to a cheap school. If you make debts you will HAVE TO make money and do boring stuff that won't lead you anywhere.
Laurent
---
The college I go to is by no means cutting-edge... (Score:1)
Now, I'm not sure if there's actually a "degree" available in CT, but students are welcome to take "X" number of CT classes as electives, PLUS the college makes a fair profit from non-major students whose employers are paying for these CT classes. In other words, as long as there's money for the college to earn, there will always be these relatively "highly-specialized, vendor-specific" CT classes ....
Pennsylvania College of Technology. (Score:1)
Re:learn difficult things instead (Score:1)
From my point of view, then: the original questioner wants to end up doing geeky IT-type things, hacking unix, some internet (java), some coding, whatever. These are the mainstay of any decent (defined in an "is-geek, is-not-manager" sense) job in the IT sector these days, surprisingly enough.
To set yourself out above the crowd, one should know about something *other* than the run of the mill stuff. Hence try becoming a computational physicist - ie someone who's interested in physics and uses The Computer to do things like plot planetary orbits (gravitation) or solve some of the differential equations shooting off from Schroedinger's equation, all that kind of stuff. There are other projections of the same idea into maths - stats - astronomy - engineering - whatever. The basic principle is something like 'get a life, then get computing'.
Go somewhere where there are trees, both outside *as well as* the email clients
Re:DO NOT go to DeVry (Score:1)
Re:I am having the same problem... (Score:1)
--------------------------------------
Java? Look at RIT. (Score:1)
Classes on Network Management and the like are also avalible as well as an Information Technology major for those who don't want to be a programmer but want to be in the field (some programming but more networking and admin as I understand).
Re:Ga Tech's CS program (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong--there's a lot of bad stuff about Tech. You have to put up with all sorts of bureaucratic crud, evil policies, hidden costs, a terrible male-female ratio, and all the demons that plague Atlanta (traffic, crime, pollution, heat, etc.). But in the end, you earn three really cool things: (1) a degree from a reputable college, (2) the flexibility required to adapt quickly to new technologies, and (3) a grim understanding of how life works. GA Tech really does teach you a little something about life, but that's a different subject.
If you go to Georgia Tech, you will learn about many different programming tools. However, you will master none of them: you will skip from language to language, learning one thing when you need it and then forgetting about it when it comes time to learn something else. Programming is about mastering the only real tool you have: your mind.
Georgia Tech Links
Undergraduate CS Program Info [gatech.edu]
General College of Computing Education Info [gatech.edu]
GT Main Page [gatech.edu]
Groan... Time to go write a C-preprocessor for lab.
U of Maryland, College Park (Score:2)
It's a good school. I got my BS in CS there in 1991 and my MS in 1993. If you want to ask me anything specific about it, drop me a line. (Remove "spambefuddler-" from the above e-mail address to reply.)
A tech support mgr at a tech college's opinion (Score:2)
But before my opinion, some sad humor. I once suggested they introduce a credit course in Perl and even offered to teach it. The response? Perl is not a serious language, just a toy.
OK, first thing, you're screwed. You have to play all angles. To get to an interview, you have to please Personnel, to get hired, you have to please someone like me. We all look for different things.
Personnel departments obviously look for degrees, experience, and buzzwords. I would rather have a gung ho adaptive and smart guru with minimal experience than a deadwood "set in his/her ways" old timer who can't adapt to this rapidly changing world.
(Just as an example Old farts have a lot to offer too -- hey, I'm one myself -- but they HAVE to keep up with the market. Why do you think this old man reads Slashdot?!)
A good degree from a decent accredited institution is a must. While there, do your best to get a job at the place in the tech area. You might have to start working as an assistant in a student lab, but trust me, but that's also an ideal job. You'll have lots of time to study, experiment, and get paid at the same time.
Certifications don't mean jack to me. I've known some real idiots who have MCSEs. All they show me is that they know how to memorize facts and nothing else. If I give many of these MCSE chumps a non-textbook task, they can't function. For example, set me up an NT RAS dialin server using PAP, but authenticating against the IDs and passwords of our main UNIX systems.
Having a complex home network helps. A job candidate showed me recently that he has a complex network at his huge house where four generations of his family live. The entire house is networked, connected full time to the net via ISDN, using Linux as a gateway and all clients are Windows based. We telnet'ed into his home box and he showed me how he could monitor his home network. He prefers Windows boxen for personal use, but Linux was the ideal solution for his gateway/firewall setup.
Needless to say, I was impressed. He showed me an ability to think up solutions to problems, he was able to answer technical questions about it (so I knew *he* was the one who did it). He used the right tool for the job, and wasn't a platform bigot. Unfortuanately, he doesn't have any degree. Too bad, I want him. I have to have him! :-)
Another suggestion. Be smart on the net. Post intelligent posts to usenet and answer tech questions using your real name. More and more managers I know about use the net as a candidate research tool. Unfortunately, our selection process prohibits that since I can't remove info about candidates from the screening rooms, etc, etc... But other managers aren't stuck with limitations like this.
Your on-line activities can help or kill you. Want to act like a jackal on-line? Get a second account somewhere and don't use your real name! (Unfortunately, I don't always follow my own advice :)
My final piece of advice. Don't be a platform bigot. I HATE THEM. The world changes, the world has different solutions, different platforms have different advantages. In my younger days, everyone was an IBM bigot even though in the 60s and 70s other mainframe boxen from people like Burroughs (now Unisys) had far better and more advanced systems. A platform bigot robs me, the manager, of inputs so I can make the best decision for the company/college/whatever. Platform bigots should all die a horrible death.
Ga Tech's CS program (Score:2)
Not specific languages (although if you get out of here without knowing java, c, smalltalk, and maybe prolog you've done something interesting)
(I also got a bit of pascal in that, but it was phased out for Java.)
Under the old curriculum we'd get to know lisp really intimately too.
Notice there isn't any c++ in there.. but remember that the focus is on algorithms and concepts.. Much Much more valuable than learning a specific language.
There are courses on security, etc but they are mainly graduate-level courses from what I remember. The intro to unix class (concurrency+control under the old curriculum, I'm not sure what it is under the new one) taught you all about make, etc, and had you create your own shell.
From what I understand now, there is some compiler stuff thrown in there now..
I thuroughly agree with the way they go about teaching CS here... I can pick up just about any language given a reference manual and a couple of hours, but the concepts are invaluable.
Personally, I'd avoid any courses which were tool-specific (an particular language is a tool), because most tools are relatively simple to learn/use with a bit of time invested in reading the manual. Weekend seminars and the like are much better for learning tools..
(And, of course, peer encouragement!!)
Good luck!
Don't bother (Score:3)
That's what you'd be setting yourself up for with such an education. Sure, exposure to new technologies should be a part of the curriculum, but that will get you only so far. Cold Fusion won't be the Next Big Thing forever, Sun's marketing department won't be able to keep Java alive forever (I hope), and even Randal Schwartz, he of the great O'Reilly Perl books, has talked of plans for what to do "after Perl."
The best thing to get would be a solid basis in the theory underlying the technology, with enough exposure to the applications that you can understand and internalize the theory behind it. You can write a useful little VB application that does this or that cute little GUI trick, but if you don't have a solid understanding of the architecture behind it -- the data structures, the machine representation, the algorithms, and so on -- you will never be able to get the most out of your work.
Mind you, I'm *not* saying that theory is an end goal. As one of my professors put it (paraphrasing), being a consultant (i.e. theory specialist) is like being a sex therapist without ever having had a girlfriend. Or to mangle another person's statement, "Theory is to application as masturbation is to sex."
Obviously, you have to be able to apply what you learn, and yes that means exposure to current mainline technologies. But a general education can only go so far with this. Should the curriculum emphasize a good middle ground, like C++, or should it emphasize specific technologies like Cold Fusion web development, Oracle databases, Cisco routers, Visual Basic interface design, etc.? In other words, where should the specialization end? This question cannot be met by general education, nor should it. Once you have the basis, you can seek out and master the tools you will need *on your own*.
In the end, this should be far more valuable to you than a trade school training. I promise.
Many flavors of CS, many flavors of Ph.D. (Score:2)
For example, anybody who gets a Ph.D. in the area usually called "Systems" will have to write significant amounts of code. My own dissertation required around 45K lines of stuff. In contrast, I have a fellow professor who is a theorist, and she recently told me that she doesn't even need pencil and paper to do research -- except that she likes to doodle while she thinks! That doesn't make her incompetent at CS. She just knows different stuff than I do.
As to your prof, just because his code didn't compile hardly means he's incompetent. It just means he was too lazy to test it before he gave it to you.
Having defended people, now let me also say that a lot of CS profs have no industry experience, which means that their approach to writing software is not always in tune with what industry needs. That's why many managers consider a fresh graduate as a trainee. It's not that the new hires are stupid or ignorant, it's just that they still need to learn a lot of practical aspects of the stuff they learned in college. The degree isn't useless, though: without it, you wouldn't be ready to learn the practical stuff.
Re:Carnegie Mellon (Score:2)
* 'bout funding: There are both merit- and need-based grants and loans available. Yes, it's pricey, but the school IS interested in getting the best... this may mean things like matching offers from other schools (think: schools like CWRU. At least in '94, they had a fairly insane policy of granting $12K/yr scholarships to those w/ SAT \ge 1400, IIRC.)
At least the cost of living isn't that high here.
* It IS possible to get your B.S. here, and do very well at it, w/ maybe one all-nighter a year. Ya gotta pace yourself, 'tho...
* Yes, it's Pittsburgh. Bring your umbrella, and for you SoCal-ers, it snows.
* If you're considering on coming here, ask those of us who've been here for a while.
Re:Do you want training, or an education? (Score:2)
Basically its all a question of when and how long you want to be in the programming industry. If you want to start making some serious money right away then you should go for the training, but you're losing the long term skills. If you want in for life, go with the education and you'll be able to adapt easily to the times.
However, the most important thing to remember when picking a college is pick one that is right for you; not someone else. It's your life.
thanks all
Not necessarily a good idea (Score:2)
Re:Concepts, not Languages (Score:2)
You can pick up multiple other languages in ONE credit hour classes here. Languages are easy - concepts are hard.
People seem to have a difficult time understanding that they are NOT supposed to be concentrating on the language, but the methods.
Cheers,
Brian
DO NOT go to DeVry (Score:3)
Re:Do you want training, or an education? (Score:2)