Xref: utzoo soc.college:4899 comp.edu:3092 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!mephisto!mcnc!thorin!vangogh!leech From: leech@vangogh.cs.unc.edu (Jonathan Leech) Newsgroups: soc.college,comp.edu Subject: Re: CS & Math Requisites Keywords: math, knuth, cs Message-ID: <12656@thorin.cs.unc.edu> Date: 16 Mar 90 02:21:03 GMT References: <22650@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1990Mar5.201030.20500@athena.mit.edu> <31845@brunix.UUCP> <14482@s.ms.uky.edu> <15450@wsucsa.uucp> <4932692a.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu Reply-To: leech@vangogh.cs.unc.edu (Jonathan Leech) Distribution: usa Organization: University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Lines: 29 Summary: Expires: Sender: Followup-To: In article <4932692a.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> burati@apollo.COM (Mike Burati) writes: >So, what's my point??? There should be more cooperation between CS & MATH depts >to make requirements that fit what you need to know (don't get rid of requirements, >just make sure they teach you what you really need...). Math departments don't just teach CS majors, so the burden of the cooperation is mostly on the CS folks to require courses they think are relevant, not on the math department to tailor their courses for CS majors. I agree that motivation is nice to have, but motivating with examples from CS is likely to bore the non-CS types. I find that a lot of the math subjects I took as an undergrad and was unmotivated by, have become more interesting; I've gained a broad enough background in other fields to start seeing the underlying similarities expressed by the math. Going out on a limb a bit, discrete math ("concrete math", if you prefer) is primarily of interest to theoretical computer scientists, who don't represent all that many people. I'm not denying it's worth knowing, but I don't think it's as essential as you seem to. Now, *my* pet peeve is that in general, BSCS have very poor preparation in physics and engineering mathematics, which are increasingly essential for graduate work in graphics. I'm sure people in other research areas have their own complaints. -- Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu) __@/ "We were driving along, minding our own business, when there was a sudden flash of blue light which blotted out the stars. I thought it was a nuclear bomb going off and despaired for my career." - Keith Hughes