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Comment by aliston | Hacker News Reader

Stanford has also dumbed down its undergrad CS major, removing all of the old engineering requirements that tended to filter out the SJW types.

Edit: seems the downvoters don’t like what I have to say, but that doesn’t make it less true. Compare the graduation requirements for CS at Stanford from a few years ago to now - no compilers or os, no multivariable calculus, no pointers. They literally eliminated all the hard classes. As a result, the degree has become more liberal arts focused and the makeup of the class has changed in sync. I’d guess more than 50% of cs majors at Stanford we’re asian and foreign born just a few years ago - folks who you generally don’t see leading direct action protests.

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I see no connection between a person being a so-called "SJW" and an inability to perform more rigorous engineering work. I have no idea where you draw that connection from.

Statistics and observation, probably.

Anecdote & bias is more likely

Inclusivity at the expense of merit.

>> seems the downvoters don’t like what I have to say, but that doesn’t make it less true.

Except that it isn't true. A quick look at https://cs.stanford.edu/degrees/ug/Requirements.shtml paints a completely diffrent picture.

Please point out where something I said isn’t accurate.

>> no compilers or os, no multivariable calculus, no pointers.

Stanford still requires cs students to take classes that cover the material above (except compilers which can be taken as a specialization)

That’s just not true - they all became depth electives or not required at all.

OS is 140. Not required. Multi var calculus is math 51. Not required. As you note, compilers is not required. They also removed the EE hardware class in favor of a mishmash of core cs classes that are easier.

It depends on the track. HCI for instance doesn't require those, but other tracks do. CS isn't just about printing software engineers.

Stanford did indeed make some changes that I feel did significantly impact the rigor of the courses. Most notably, CS106 (A, B and X) and 107 all introduced team assignments, but the assignments themselves largely did not change. So you have twice the workforce for each assignment. I feel like this also meant that when a pair consisted of two people of different levels of skill the quicker student finds and fixes most bugs, thereby depriving the weaker student from developing debugging skills. Without pair programming the latter would eventually develop those skills but it would take longer and require more assistance from section leaders.

I think it's a bit crude to say it's been "dumbed down" but it is not entirely untrue. Also I don't think this has anything to do with "SJWs", these changes were directly prompted by staffing shortages.

sounds like they are aligning the degree with the realities of a programing career. did calculus really make you a better software engineer? Most development happens at such a high level that not knowing OS and compilers probably can get most people by. How much of development is made up of frontend js programmers, mobile developers, web developers writing php/wordpress stuff. If you do want to be good at it, it is a specialty.

If you do want to do science, there are still masters and phd programs. Undergrad is job prep for most people and colleges are doing a disservice by pretending it's not.

> Undergrad is job prep for most people and colleges are doing a disservice by pretending it's not.

This is a completely inverted way to frame it. Higher education shouldn't be perverted by the whims of the labor market. Universities don't need to change their curriculums. Companies need to change their hiring standards.

If only higher education weren't already perverted by the realities of greed and incompetent bureaucracy leading to our little student debt problem inconveniencing a handful of students in the country /s

This is very a bold straw man.

It shouldn't be, but for most people entering into it, becoming highly desirable on the job/employee market is the chief motivator. If a university doesn't cater to that demand, the students will go elsewhere.

I don't disagree. And maybe students should go elsewhere. Maybe our society should rethink what qualifications it seeks of prospective entrants to the labor force.

What should not change, however, is the fundamental nature of academia. That model is inviolate and has propelled much progress in our species' collective knowledge. In fact, I think the hijacking of higher education as an assembly line to furnish credentials wholesale is an unforgivable adulteration of that institution.

Agreed, but debasing a valued asset for short-term gain is as old as the human species. In the past, it was coinage that was shaved and alloyed. Stanford's reputation and the CS degree's reputation are valuable assets today, so it's hardly surprising that some amoral administrator decided to trade them away for increased enrollment.

> did calculus really make you a better software engineer?

I am no math whiz but I would say yes. Having the basics down at least at one point in you life is pretty helpful.

I am not the type to develop new lock-in functions for encryption and I do not use LaPlace tables to create models of control loops to configure pid controllers. But the understanding helps me to know about important stuff I have to look out for.

That said, you can still design amazing software without that knowledge, but the foundation certainly helps. Even if this knowledge might not be directly applicable to your day-to-day job.

C'mon. This is Stanford. No OS, compilers, or pointers? Really?

This is somewhat misleading. You have to pick a specific track, and there are hard requirements in each track. For instance in Graphics you make a ray tracer and 3D renderer in 148 and a 3d mesh editor and a video game in 248.

In theory you dig heavy into algorithms and probabilistic running time, and other things.

In the systems track operating systems is a required course as is compilers.

Why should those be mandatory? The department is fucking huge now and allowing people more space to take electives or having separate tracks with different requirements helps with staffing issues.

I TAed for the undergrad compilers course when I was a grad student there. My PhD is in the field. I really don't see compilers as a reasonable mandatory course for engineers today.

> did calculus really make you a better software engineer?

Ten years ago, I might have agreed with you, but with data mining and machine learning coming to dominate the practice of software development, calculus is more relevant than ever. I took undergraduate calculus about 30 years ago, and I’ve forgotten so much that I recently dug out my old textbook (that I still have for some reason) and started to re-read it just to make better sense of a lot of the machine learning documentation I’m coming across these days.

You’re literally just calling SJWs stupid in a roundabout way.

I don't like forced moralization as much as the next one but I think this is a bad development. Before computer science becoming something you could study, it was mostly bundled with philosophy in my country.

That isn't just about chugging two beers and talking about the state of the world. Arguments are carefully crafted and (logical) consistency is valued that could for one help you with in your field and additionally allows you to look beyond the horizon on a lot of issues.

Stanford's admission rate has been dropping over the last decade, so I highly doubt newer students are any less qualified or capable.

In fact, I'd argue the opposite: The median student slated to graduate in 2023 is likely smarter and harder-working than median student who graduated in 2003.

Not necessarily, a dropping admissions rate can be experienced even if the performance requirements remain the same and the number of unqualified applicants increases.

Unlikely given that Stanford has long been considered by the public to be a name-brand tier-1 school for decades.

"for decades" that's somewhat debatable. Stanford has been renowned locally in California and along much of the west coast for decades. Its nation-wide renown and worldwide renown are more recent. Stanford started to see large growth in the matriculation rate and number of applicants in the mid to late 2000s and really kicking off in the 2010s. One year, I think in 2009, there was unexpectedly high matriculation to such an extent that freshman had to sleep in cots for a few weeks.

It's been a good University for a while, but I think it's reputation as an institution on par with Harvard or Princeton, or OxBridge is maybe 10-15 years old.

You're really flattening the diversity of people with a political consciousness. "Social justice" isn't the be-all end-all goal of politics.

You may be getting downvoted for applying a derogatory term commonly used to dismiss anyone with a conscience, and the privilege to actually exercise it.

Hmm, sounds like the argument used to justify social conservatives who attempted to impose their conscience / morals on the others...

You can speak up for what you believe in without imposing it on others, you know.

No worries. Us non-wokies will vote you up :)

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