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From: chenr@tilt.UUCP (Raymond Chen)
Newsgroups: net.college
Subject: Re: CS Dept woes & Archaic Registration
Message-ID: <84@tilt.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 29-Apr-84 18:45:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: tilt.84
Posted: Sun Apr 29 18:45:02 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 30-Apr-84 05:13:32 EDT
References: <791@druxj.UUCP> <17300001@uicsl.UUCP> <618@ariel.UUCP>
Organization: Princeton Univ. EECS
Lines: 56

Here, here.  I've heard of these problems also.  It seems that more
and more engineering departments are having to restrict course
enrollments, and some engineering schools are turning into nothing
but vocational schools.

Happily, since Mr. Wood's undergraduate days, things haven't changed much at
Princeton.  You can still get a top-notch engineering education while
getting a liberal-arts education thrown in, especially if you come in
with some AP credit.

That's why I chose Princeton.  I unfortunately haven't had the guts to
take Constitutional Interpretation (it being the second hardest course
on campus), but I have taken courses in Political Theory, Law and Society,
Shakespeare, etc., and I'm looking forward to European History next semester,
all without my advisor giving me strange looks.

Math and Physics are still taught by the Math and Physics departments and as a
matter of fact, my freshman year, Honors Freshman Physics was taught by
Val Fitch, a Nobel-Prize winner in Physics.  I've had *one* course in the
Politics department where I didn't have the Professor teaching my precept.

What is truly phenomonal, though, is the computing resources available to
a CS major.  For course work, we have a VAX-11/780 and a VAX-11/750, and
I believe we are scheduled to get at least one more for next year.  They
way things are now, disk space is a tight, and now and then, the load
average goes above 14, but hopefully that'll get better when we get
more machines.  As for the upperclassmen doing independent work, it's
unusual for the load average to get above 5 !!  There's a bit
of a problem with a lack of terminals and ports, but given that we
have more than 7 research machines, that's understandable.  (Again,
hopefully that will be taken care of next year.)  About the only
thing we need to make this place into absolute CS heaven is two
more CS professors, some terminals and ports, and another couple
of machines for course work.  (I know for a fact the the EECS
(Electrical Engineering/Computer Science) is looking for up
to four more professors to start next year.)

Given the demand for qualified, instructor-level talent in the CS
field, it's amazing that Princeton has managed to do this well.  The
CS faculty is small, but good.  Hopefully, they'll be able to keep it
up, especially given the fact that the number of CS majors in the class
below mine is about 33% larger than mine.

Anyway, for all the Princeton men out there on the net, 

		Hurrah for Old Nassau !!



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