What does /sci/ have against CS

[Anonymous No.9945353]

I'm in senior year of highschool right now and am interested in computer science (not because it's allegedly easy) . Everywhere makes it seem like a decent major except for here and congregations of douchebag freshmen engineer majors. So is going into computer science a good idea, or should I look into another major that interest me?

[Anonymous No.9945360]

>>9945353
>What does /sci/ have against CS
CS majors are employable.

[Anonymous No.9945476]

>>9945353
Comp Sci Sophomore here. What you need to understand about CS is that a lot schools don't know how to teach it properly. Ergo, dudes have it easy getting A's in classes like Algorithms or OS when they should be struggling to get a B. Despite this, CS majors tend to maintain the pretentious douche-y mindset of engineering students: they think their ability to do hard work makes them better than everyone else. As I've clarified, though, their work often ISN'T hard. This means that most CS students are pretentious dumbasses who couldn't code their way out of paper bag.

[Anonymous No.9945486]

>>9945353
>what does sci have against cs majors?
Envy

[Anonymous No.9945507]

>>9945476
Then how do I find which schools have good programs (pun intended)?

[Anonymous No.9945522]

>>9945507
Check how many courses they offer. If they only have like 5 CS electives, the program is likely underfunded.

Look at what senior theses have been submitted recently. You probably won't understand most of it, but it'll give you an idea of how advanced the students' knowledge base can get there.

Also, check their professors on ratemyprofessor. If they're all reviewed poorly, either the professors suck or the students do. Either way, look somewhere else.

[Anonymous No.9945524]

>>9945353
CSfag here. I confirm this degree is best and we make boatloads of money. Think of it like the useful bits of mathematics, but tell anyone that because they get jealous. The best are attracted to this field and that is why we normally crush classes that would otherwise be difficult for other majors (physishits, maths, and enginerds)
I do a lot of very productive work. You are the nations future don't squander it on other meme degrees. CS is the way to go.

[Anonymous No.9945564]

>>9945353
I learned more at my trade highschool (not american) than most CS majors.

[Anonymous No.9945672]

>>9945353
What's the rough ranking cutoff for CS not being a meme degree as an undergrad? T10? T25? T50?

[Anonymous No.9947058]

People on /sci/ hate CS because to them the only thing that matters in a degree is how difficult it is, so they can seem like big boys on the internet.

The stupidest thing you could do would be to choose your major based on getting internet points on 4chan. If you want to make money, play with computers, etc. then go ahead and do CS.

[Anonymous No.9947192]

>>9945353
Because lots of people and even some universities doesnt know what CS is about.
I've heard so much whining at the first year "why do I have to do algebra I just want to program in PHP". Fortunately I had many courses involving relational algebra, computation theory, formal language theory, writing our own compilers from scratch etc, so they gave up.
I loved these theoretical courses, but people seems to not expect theory from Computer Science. I have some friends in UK that has mastered in CS and holy shit, they don't even know what Turing machine is. It blowns my mind how little actual Math they had.

[Anonymous No.9947234]

>>9947192

Makes me wonder if maybe schools should start splitting CS into separate applied and theoretical majors.

[Anonymous No.9947264]

>>9947234
Well, there is software engineering that focus on actual programming and software development. And there is computer engineering that focus on how computers are made and electronics and stuff.
But Computer Science sounds most cool of them all, and people who go for such a cool degree don't want all these uncool things like math. I hate this "degree should teach me skills for job" mentality, courses are for skills, universities should be for sake of science. After all no CS degree will make you valuable at job market, without passion and self-studying/practicing you will become a code-monkey at best.

At my university, we have 3 "informatics". They are all called the same, but they are actually CS, SE and CE. But it's not stated anywhere and people don't know about it before they are year or something in.

[Anonymous No.9947278]

>>9947192
>Fortunately I had many courses involving relational algebra, computation theory, formal language theory, writing our own compilers from scratch
Thats highschool level shit

[Anonymous No.9947284]

>>9945353

[Anonymous No.9947287]

>>9947278
Cool.
I'd love to go to that HS.

[Anonymous No.9947307]

>>9945353
>Everywhere makes it seem like a decent major

Only because they only look at muh jerbs and think you need a degree in da computa to work with da computa.

>I'm in senior year of highschool right now and am interested in computer science

What are you waiting for? Learn CS right now while you have a ton of free time. You'll end up knowing more than most cs grad when you graduate high school.

>So is going into computer science a good idea

No, it's like majoring in car driving. Good skill to have but you don't need 4 slow paced years paying 20K a year in university to learn it.

>or should I look into another major that interest me

Yes. Employers only want a (stem) degree and to see that you can program with a portfolio.

[Anonymous No.9947314]

>>9945507

[Anonymous No.9947318]

>>9947284
>tfw I didn't even go to any lectures and just studied on afternoon or two before exam on every single course
I did it just for the paper anyway. I was working all the time.

[Anonymous No.9947328]

>CS
>decent major

I have MS in CS, unemployed with 0 interviews

go work in the oil fields if u want real money

[Anonymous No.9947340]

>>9947328
You sound like brainlet.


What do you have in your portfolio?

[Anonymous No.9947358]

>>9947307
>>9945353
So there’s a distinction between learning computer science to have employable skills and to learn it as an academic discipline. At good schools, CS is a rigorous and mathematicallly charged major, and you learn how to solve hard problems first and foremost. I found it natural to double major in math as per my interests, and because this opened up a lot of internship and research opportunities.

The cool thing about CS is that it is, by its very nature and origin, and multidisciplinary field; it started out as this intersection of EE and pure math of all things.

I highly recommend you take a good amount of theory (advanced analysis of algorithms which is where your calculus chops are very important, complexity and computability, automata, compiler theory) and a good amount of systems and low abstraction (architecture, OS design and theory, embedded solutions, parallel computing). I highly reccomend taking signal processing. It’s a topic (in the EE department usually) that will enhance your understanding and give you an even more complete understanding of the field. Keep yourself as busy as an engineering student would. Take more classes than you need. Do personal projects in software and sometimes hardware. Even though you are student of mathematics, you should entertain a simliar skill set.

I also recommend taking a lot of math or straight double majoring if you intend on doing graduate school, as graduate CS is almost entirely a big mix of both continuous and discrete math

My personal research interests are quantum information, complexity of natural phenomena such as black holes, ML on DSP and sig proc in general, so I get faced with a lot of physics (and publishing in physics journals no less) on a daily basis. Good luck anon.

[Anonymous No.9947389]

>>9947284
Some of the harder problems I had in CS undergrad were from a class where we had to give an approxmarion algorithm by use of analysis for proof. The concept is same as any ϵ - δ or showing you run on some randomized algorithm with (1 - δ) probability. This isn’t in a typical CS curriculum, but good programs exist.

[Anonymous No.9947410]

>>9947278
Writing your own full compiler is not highschool shit. Relationship algebra isn’t that bad, but theory of computation and complexity is definitely not highschool shit

[Anonymous No.9947462]

Can someone post the "if your cs program uses this book instead of this then it's shit" thing?

[Anonymous No.9947590]

>>9947278

Highschooler here, you're making yourself look like a dumbass

[Anonymous No.9947604]

>>9947358
CS is a waste of time and money. Any EE/Physics graduate with basic programming skills can do that.

[Anonymous No.9947612]

>>9947604
Good luck writing your own compiler or proving hardness(completeness) of problems with just basic programming and Physics degree.

[Anonymous No.9947631]

>>9947612
Are you an american undergrad by any chance?

[Anonymous No.9947635]

>>9947631
No, why?

[Anonymous No.9947651]

>>9947604
Lol if you think a CS program is a waste of time, you're either looking at or are currently in a bad CS program. Anyway, as I said, I did CS/Math.

EE is heavily communication/power/signal processing/control. You have some intersections with computation, especially at the low level architecture, but undergrad EE doesn't cover most of what CS, as a *discipline* covers. Aside from architecture and OS, EE rigor and CS rigor mean two different things.

EE/Physics is a fine double major. I have no doubt a pair of CS/Math and EE/Physics people could swap and do well, because I've seen this happen (one of my friends in CS went on to do more physical systems and control theory in the context of robotics while one of my EE friends went on to do ML on ad hoc network routing).

Nobody said you can't pick up programming. Programming a skill of habit and practice. Nobody wants someone who can just program, because *anybody* can do that; they want people who can solve hard questions in STEM, usually through the realm of math. Real "Computer Science" is just a way to rephrase math questions in the context of their behavior (declarative questions and proofs become imperatively stated and algorithms), but it has its history rooted in both math and engineering.

[Anonymous No.9947716]

>>9947651
>>9947307
>>9945353
Can you provide us with a good CS program that I can (as a brainlet) from an undeveloped country follow with short-term goals to achieve? (like how are exams in universities designed to make sure that I grasp fundamental notions in a limited time before going to the next level)

[Anonymous No.9947744]

Don't listen to /sci/ or /g/, it's a bunch of "smart but lazy" underachievers or disenfranchised "pure" science/math students who realize they're never going to get a job that pays more than 40k without a phd. If you want real advice on a good pathway from high school ----> CS undergrad ---> new grad first job, go to r/cscareerquestions or r/csmajors

[Anonymous No.9947792]

>>9947716
Sure. This is mostly a survey of topics you can easily cover in an undergraduate education

Learn a simple language like Java or Python. Learn C if you want to dive in; it's by far my favorite, but if you're new, there's no reason to strain yourself. I'll also leave some introductory book titles, but refer to the 4chan math and science wiki for specific topics

Theory:
Discrete Mathematics (Discrete Mathematics by Jean Gallier, serves as a pretty good book as an introduction to proofs)
Calculus I (Apostol, Spivak later if you want a challenge + analysis)
Calculus II, Multivariable and Vector Calculus, Differential Equations (PDE's if you want to study numerical analysis or more signals)
First year Mechanics
First year Electromagnetism (go further in this if you are more interested in the EE side)
Signal Processing
Data Structures
Language Design (Programming Language Pragmatics by Scott)
Compilers
Basic Algorithms (CLRS is standard, http://algorithmics.lsi.upc.edu/docs/Dasgupta-Papadimitriou-Vazirani.pdf is supplementary)
Combinatorics
Graph Theory
Automata Theory
Advanced Design and Analysis of Algorithms (important)
Computational Complexity Theory
ML

Do some Abstract Algebra if you want to get deeper into compilers and coding theory.

Systems:
Computer Architecture
OS Theory and Design
Switching theory (digital logic)
Networks and the Internet (think TCP/IP, protocols based on ACID properties, etc.)
Embedded Systems
Graphics (heavy on calculus and the hardware side)

[Anonymous No.9947794]

>>9947716
>>9947792
This is a basic course list that assumes you're gonna do something like 3-4 courses in STEM a semester; I can suggest more, but these are the basics

[Anonymous No.9947799]

Additionally, look to:
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~jean/math-basics.pdf

for an assortment of random notes on math that shows up in various late undergrad/early graduate CS

[Anonymous No.9947821]

>>9947314

Isn't that just a double major in CS and Math though? Also, who takes Abstract Alg and Real Analysis in the same semester, plus four other courses?

[Anonymous No.9947833]

>>9947821
Double majoring in math and CS is proper CS, to be completely honest.

That being said, that picture is dumb. 6 hard math and science courses in junior year? Without coordinating different department schedules? Without labs? It's not feasible

[Anonymous No.9947864]

>>9947328
Just finished my CS Bachelor's, got offered a 100k job. I don't think the major is the problem in your case.

[Anonymous No.9947871]

>>9947864
Not him but survivorship bias is a thing

[Anonymous No.9948157]

>>9947799
Neat

[Anonymous No.9948441]

>>9945353
This is why CS is a meme (in america): https://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/98m7ab/doubt_in_understanding_mathematicalstatistical
He has a masters in CS specialized in data science and doesnt understand basic notation in probability

[Anonymous No.9948517]

>>9947792
Brainlet program

[Anonymous No.9948524]

>>9948441
>get masters from random shit nameless school
>wooooooooooow this guy doesn't know <thing>
this isn't exclusive to CS

[Anonymous No.9948678]

>>9947792
>>9947794
>>9947799
Thanks man I really appreciate it.

[Anonymous No.9948711]

>>9948441
>Ah. Ok. That makes it a little more clearer. Do you have a book recommendation for me? This is my first book. A little about me - I have a masters degree in CS and I specialized in Data Science. But, the coursework never took a real dive into stats, but just taught various algorithms. So, I know a lot of the algorithms, and I have some projects under my belt. But, I want to approach Data Science from a statistical POV (If that even makes any sense)
Holy kek, CS is a meme

[Anonymous No.9948745]

>>9948524
>>9948711
No, everyone and their mother is wants a masters in CS. A good amount of no name masters programs (from non research focused schools) just gives it out to people as a degree you can get with no prior experience. These people just want in on the tech industry without really giving a shit about the math and science. They’re would have otherwise tried to derive or prove the algorithm by themselves

[Anonymous No.9948749]

>>9945360
thread.close();

[Anonymous No.9948771]

>Tfw I'll have a stress-free college experience and thus enjoy my youth because CS is easier than pure math and YET I'll have way more professional oportunies and ear more

stay mad pure meth and lab rats cucks

[Anonymous No.9948775]

>>9948771
inb4 you fail algorithms/data structures and change majors

[Anonymous No.9948781]

>>9948775
I'm actually very good in STEM (won science olympiads in HS) But I'm smart enough to know that a career is for making money and not for ~le epic misteries of universe XDD.

[Anonymous No.9948788]

>>9948781
boring. imagine if everyone was like you. we'd never accomplish shit

[Anonymous No.9948794]

>>9948788
Western countries treats its phd/scientist like absolute shit (see 40+% depression in grad school, pathetic wages...) so whatever

[Anonymous No.9948801]

>>9948794
to be fair high IQ people are particularly prone to depression

[Anonymous No.9948812]

>>9948745
>These people just want in on the tech industry without really giving a shit about the math and science
so 99% of CS majors?

[Anonymous No.9948864]

>>9948812
Depends on your university. At my school, it’s closer to a 70 - 30 split

[Anonymous No.9949167]

>>9947389
>isn't typical
it's typical if your school does research into real-time systems

[Anonymous No.9949278]

>>9948678
Oh, I forgot to add
Probability theory (continuous and discrete)
stochastic processes

These are important.

[Anonymous No.9949281]

>>9949167
Huh, my school's real time systems research is alive, now that you mention it.

[Anonymous No.9949418]

>>9947389
δ-ϵ is freshman calculus. You should have used measure theory.

[Anonymous No.9949446]

>>9947314

no class on how to make websites? third world country curriculum

[Anonymous No.9950748]

>>9949446
>needing a class to make websites

kek

[Anonymous No.9950819]

>>9945353
I was going to do CS at one of the tied-for-second-place schools, then I got salty since I didn't get in, moving over to applied mathematics

[Anonymous No.9950914]

>>9950819
Theoretical CS is just math by another name and more funding (though less than AI and systems)

The difference in theoretical CS and math usually comes down to how you phrase the question. This becomes increasingly clear when you study quantum information or computational geometry/topology

[Anonymous No.9950973]

>>9950914
Yeah, I'm not really salty about not doing CS since the main difference in the departments is applied CS has applications and systems, which I was burnt out on fairly early and don't really see as a valid use of my time.

[Anonymous No.9950981]

>>9949446
What does computer science have to do with making websites?

[Anonymous No.9950982]

>>9950973
It’s a subtle difference in motivation, but i see math, theoretical physics, and theoretical CS all go to each others’ conferences, so ultimately it comes down to what perspective from which you want to study these things

[Anonymous No.9950998]

>>9950981
Nothing
I think he was memeing

[Anonymous No.9951007]

>>9947792
Sorry for my ignorance anon but what's ML?

[Anonymous No.9951086]

>>9951007
Machine learning

[Anonymous No.9951581]

>>9947744
0 (you)s, as it should be

[Anonymous No.9951596]

>>9950914

[Anonymous No.9951610]

>>9951596
Nobody past some 4chan memers think merge sort is anything important. nobody talks about it past freshman year

The big problems are in analytical combinatorics, quantum information, complexity of black holes, etc.

Here's an example: http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/pubs/pdf/surflow.pdf

[Anonymous No.9951615]

>>9945522

All of this implies you want to be a computer SCIENTIST.

If you just want a good career, you don't need to do all this stuff, just pay attention to the skills currently in demand, learn solid coding, and above all--above ALL--be adaptable, because whatever's going to be hot in 10 years hasn't even been invented yet.

[Anonymous No.9951617]

>>9945672

This is not something to worry about. Just make your own path, try hard, don't give up, and develop your skills. Worrying too much about the others in your class--whom you will likely NEVER see again after graduation and thus they should have no impact on your decisions.

[Anonymous No.9951620]

>>9951610
>http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/pubs/pdf/surflow.pdf
that's a nice tied-for-second school you have there

[Anonymous No.9951623]

>>9947192

Unfortunately, many CS majors whine like little girls when they have to take a class that is not DIRECTLY skill-based. They can't be bothered to learn any kind of theory at all, and just want to pile on muh skillz because they have no long-range thinking.

[Anonymous No.9951624]

>>9950914
Math also deals with incomputable stuff, while CS doesn't. It recognizes some things as not computable, but math goes way beyond that

[Anonymous No.9951627]

>>9947264

At my college (this was a while ago, oldfag here), they didn't even have a "CS" major. It was "Mathematical Sciences" with a concentration in CS. About 7 levels of Calculus, 3 classes of Physics, 2-3 of Statistics, a few of Operations Research...actually not all that many in Comp.

[Anonymous No.9951635]

>>9947314

Not a single humanities course? Wow, this is SPERG school.

Real programmers can think outside the box and write like at least an English minor. Anybody who could even survive this boring-ass curriculum would have absolutely zero human skills.

And I am a programmer.

[Anonymous No.9951641]

>>9951620
Not my school, but if this is some of the research that goes on there, especially since a good amount on his page is on MIT press, then it must be some good work.

[Anonymous No.9951650]

>>9951624
Not exactly. You can do research into the incomputable because you get things like approximations and effectively computable solutions.

You can also based your study off incomputable functions. This a subfield of complexity theory. They used to say analysis, algebra, topology, etc. wouldn't be a part of it since it's all "discrete math," but the flavor of the last 15 years or so of research has been research into continuous structures and some hybrid systems. A good example is quantum information:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0410100.pdf

Hell, AIXI, a look into a possible general AI, was based on Solmonoff Induction, is undecidable, but there were computations to make it mostly or effectively computable. It's not necessarily the biggest thing out there, but is a single example.

Theoretical CS deals with a large amount of math, even the incomputable and undecidable parts

[Anonymous No.9951651]

>>9948788

Actually, the most interesting people who make the world a good place are those who have a day job as, say, a programmer, and write poetry, design well-known birdwatching websites sing opera in their spare time. "Well-rounded" is not just a meme.

[Anonymous No.9951652]

>>9951641
I'm >>9950819
I didn't mean to tease, it's actually a really great school for theoretical and applied CS. I like it at least.

[Anonymous No.9951653]

>>9949446

You can walk into a night-school community college and learn how to make a website.

[Anonymous No.9951658]

>>9951652
Ah I see. I'm actually hoping I can get there or somewhere similar/better someday. A tied for second school into a lucrative career would be really nice

[Anonymous No.9951668]

>>9951658
Nice, what's your current year in college? Are you thinking undergraduate or graduate?

[Anonymous No.9951696]

>>9951668
Graduate
I'm 4th year, taking an extra 3 semesters for research (I got a stint for this year) and hard classes. I had a rough first 3 semesters due to my parents' divorce, having to help solve their custody case, and commuting from a house full of this conflict. Once I got out and got my own place, my grades skyrocketed, even in the harder classes. I'm aiming for a 3.5 with the last 6 semesters being a 4.0 in classes like advanced real analysis and advanced algorithms

I'm hoping after a bit of industry research at a lab, maybe a 4.0 masters to cover, and a lot of networking starting from now, I can climb my way there.

[Anonymous No.9951710]

>>9951696
I'm currently a sophomore undergraduate, so I'm not that far along that path. Honestly it sounds like you're going to make it. I just goofed around my first year and don't feel confident making the GPA requirement for declaring in CS (3.8 minimum), and applied mathematics seems like a universally useful major for most scientific or engineering pursuits.

[Anonymous No.9951714]

>>9951710
The big thing I've noticed is that the title of your PhD, much like your undergraduate degree, breaks you into a field with intersections and travel. I've seen math PhD's settle into physics and CS, theoretical CS people settle into physics through quantum information or engineering through control theory and robotics, etc etc.

A degree is a starting point, and it can lead you into a myriad of different fields.

[Anonymous No.9951717]

>>9951710
>>9951714
Oh also anon, good luck. I believe in you!

[Anonymous No.9951721]

>>9951714
A few of my graduate friends said something similar. I also think part of the reason why I wanted to do CS was because computers and programming were something I was exposed to pretty young. I got pretty burnt out on that sort of thing. I'd like to look more into non-trivial physics at some point, but I need a more solid background in fundamentals before I start.

[Anonymous No.9951730]

>>9951721
I'd recommend staying away from high energy physics at first since it's a big field full and very hard to get a spot at first. There are a lot of theoretical physics that can segue into it, but it's a tricky thing to start from there unless you have some novel breakthrough very early on. That and string theory/quantum gravity (on the non quantum complexity theoretic side) is losing funding because it's losing faith from a large body of physics and physics funding

I want to do quantum information myself, so maybe I'll see in collaboration you one day

[Anonymous No.9951743]

>>9951730
>>9951721
Have any recommendations on physics materials and texts? I probably won't get to them soon, but I'll add them to the to do pile

[Anonymous No.9951758]

>>9951743
I have more than a few, but basically most of what's in the 4chan sci wiki + most physics and physics/CS (quantum information) books you can get through springerlink will give you a good amount of reading on advanced stuff

[Anonymous No.9951764]

>>9951758
neat-o. I need to come here more often, pretty motivating stuff

[Anonymous No.9951765]

>>9951764
I wouldn't say it's motivating. It's mostly engineering students shitting on anything theoretical or not engineering, or it's math/physics students shitting on anything applied or not math/physics.