New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

I am actually astonished that this is the first time something like this is tried in the US. And I also don't understand the negative comments here in HN - most of you guys probably had a passion for computers at even earlier age and would have enjoyed this kind of school greatly. Here In the Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria) this is long established practice - we have loosely specialized schools and students decide where hey want to learn at about 13 years of age. You can of course switch schools as you like, but more prestigious ones have some requirements. The point is that I did know I wanted to work with computers and made this decision then to go to he programming school here and I consider this one of he best decisions in my life. Most of my classmates have ended up with quite accomplished careers in IT but a surprising number end up with very different professions - doctors, dentists, musicians - the emphasis on programming did not hinder their progress that much maybe even helped hem.

There is a lot of worry in this thread about the curriculum being too narrow. While I do not know how it will work in this new school, let me offer some perspective as a Stuyvesant alum.

Like many have said, it can be possible to have a "normal" school with all the usual subjects in addition to a prominent computer science program.

Take my experience, for example:

Freshman year I learned things like recursion, Scheme, dynamic programming, and cellular automata. Sophomore year, I learned basic data structures and algorithms and wrote a couple of games. Junior year I learned systems programming in C, signals, processes, network communication and wrote a filesharing system. The next semester I wrote a computer graphics engine from scratch --- all the way from line drawing to complex lighting and implementing an animation and scene graph language. I also took the independent research class where I worked on information retrieval research.

I am not bragging. This is typical (in fact, many of the projects, or variations thereof, are things that everybody in those classes does). And yet, I still took tons of math, physics, chemistry, european history, american history, classical literature, modern literature, tech shop, architecture, and many other things. This was also typical! Other kids took the same common stuff but instead of so much computer science and math they took special electives in philosophy, literature, history, economics, and so on.

You really can fit all that stuff in. Stuyvesant is a great example that you can have a serious, multi-year computer science program and still have more than enough focus on other subjects.

I'm not sure it's a great idea to get so focused at such an early age. There's a lot to learn about the world when you're 14, and it might be good to explore a wide range of topics. (I personally took most of my "real" classes in high school, so by the time I got to college, I had an idea of what I wanted to do. After going to college for a year, I realized my needs would not be met in that way. But deciding at 20 is a lot different from deciding at 14.)

At my high-school in Romania we silently eliminated religion (yeah, surprised?), philosophy, 1 lesson of geography, 1 lesson of french and maybe something else.. and at the end we got 2 cs theory lessons and 6 full lessons of coding in the lab per week. We all had a linux shell on the school's server and most used vim to code C with gcc and makefiles.

That had a lot to do with what kind of programmer I am today even if I was one of the worst students in the class.

I'm so jealous of people who had the opportunity to take CS classes in high school (none at mine). I've seriously considered volunteering to teach intro CS classes at local high schools, just to pay it forward, I guess. I'd done some BASIC and C programming by the time I entered high school, and I would have taken any programming or CS classes in a heartbeat.

I think this is great. The kids who are going to be applying and accepted to this school already have the desire to pursue CS and I would imagine are already investigatingthe topic on their own time. To be able to be exposed to formalized education in a field that you're already excited about is an amazing opportunity.

I went to Stuyvesant HS 10 years ago, and I took all the CS classes that the school had offered from Mr. Zamansky ("Z", as we affectionately call him), and can add some more specific information as to why this was necessary.

Stuyvesant opened in the beginning of the 20th century, and there are some vestigial components that should've been amputated long ago: in addition to the standard math, science, language (English and foreign), gym requirements, it has some requirements that truly made it historically a technical vocational school. To wit: 1 year of technical drafting (1 semester of drawing mechanical designs on paper, 1 semester of CAD), and 1.5 years of technical shop (1 semester of single-period shop, and 1 semester of double-period shop). By technical shop I mean the following: you get to choose two of ceramics, woodworking, metalworking (aka jewelry-making), electronics (aka computer tech), photography and video editing.

It's worth repeating: taking drafting and shop is required to graduate. By and large, these classes are not popular with students at all, the most obvious reason being "why the hell do we need to know this outdated shit? If someone likes it, they can take it as an elective."

Over the years, Z developed an ass-kicking CS curriculum: Intro to CS, AP CS (1 year), Systems/Network Programming, Graphics, and Independent Research. They are extraordinarily popular with the students, partially because Z is a great teacher, and partially because of the support of the previous alumni who would regularly take junior and senior-level college classes in their freshman college year thanks to that curriculum.

It's worth pointing out that none of the CS classes qualify for any graduation requirement. If you take them, you are taking them on your own time because you are interested. Aside from the knowledge itself, there's no carrot, even though the rest of the world is pointedly indicating that we need more software engineers and less metalworkers.

Now, Z goes to the current school administration and says "hey, can we add CS as an option to fulfill some graduation requirements?" and for 10 years straight (not kidding) the response he was getting was a consistent "GFY". Welcome to the NYC public school bureaucracy and people defending their own turf. It's not even that he asked anything outrageous. He didn't say "Hey, can we get rid of drafting and shop?". He said "Can we give our students more choice as to what is required to graduate?"

So, about two years ago Z decided to try a different avenue - working within the structure of Stuyvesant was not feasible, so he might as well go outside of it. Someone I know connected him to Fred Wilson, they chatted, and the rest is what you see in front of you. None of this would've happened if the Stuy HS administration had a few less heads up their asses.

I love computers and I work with them everyday, but I believe the idea of a high school geared primarily towards software engineering is wrong.

Computer Science teaches you to think logically about problems. It gives you primitives to build complex systems that will later help you understand the world. In fact, most computer scientists think the same when they approach a problem.

But there are other kinds of thinking that are also important which high schools should introduce to students. Art. Music. Athletics. Each subject requires you to think in a different way.

I will always remember what Marvin Minsky told me when I was taking his class: when he approaches a problem, he first chooses how he will think, not how he will approach the problem itself. He also said that he studied how the great minds of the past approached problems so that he could think like them.

Do I want to think like a Richard Feynman or an Albert Einstein? Have you ever thought about that question and what it means? If not, I recommend you start reading books that they've written so you can try to capture that brilliance.

Mike Zamansky was my AP CS teacher in high school. Way to go Mr. Zamansky!

Edit: If anyone has any questions about him or his teaching style I might be able to answer.

I don't know if that's novel in the US, but this is pretty common here in Argentina. Secondary school here takes 5 years. Where I did it (1997-2001), before starting the 3rd year (14 years old), we had to choose the speciality (software engeneering, chemistry, civil engeneering, media and communications, musical production, business administration, electronic engeneering, graphic design).

I choose software (while most of my friends of that time choose electrinics engeneering). The next three years we had lots of subjects related to CS. This is what I learned there: - Computer architecture, - Networking (osi model, ip stack, that sort of things), algorithms, - Structural programming (1st year), then oop (2nd year) (with C and C++), then Events Driven Programming with VB6 (3rd year) - systems analysis and design, database design (er model) - internet programming (back then, that was ASP, CSS and Javascript)

And all along the final year, we had a subject called Final Project, where we had to develop (from the requeriments to the implementantion) a REAL system (mostly done for family companies or NGO's ).

When I finished high school I was really prepared to start working, so I did, while at the same time, started going to the university. I can tell that it was REALLY easy to do my grad career because of my background. Even when at University some topics where seen in much deeper detail, i did it much faster than other people, because I already had my mind used to that things, and I just needed to learn the details.

But then again, even when I keept studing CS, some of my high school classmates chose other things to study (e.g: medicine, law school, economics, etc). But I think anyway that I must have to be a good experience for them, at least to learn that CS was not for them, and dont lose their time later.

Hope it helps!

Will they record/share the videos/lectures/notes?

It seems like it could also be a boon to many others if they can take the efforts of this school and share them out, similar to OCW at MIT, or Stanford, or even Khan Academy.

I think it would be particularly interesting because the other material out there tends to target either too high (the university material is at a university level, of course) or it doesn't have the same kind of feedback as what the students will be able to give here.

While Joel doesn't want it to just be superstars, it seems fairly likely that a good number of the kids would be the kind that already wrote their first OS and compiler before they attend, so I'm wondering if there will be a similar 'level divide' as what's seen in industry, and if so, what that ends up doing to the ones below that Mendoza line...

This is fantastic! This is the same thing I want to start in China someday.

As a Stuyvesant alum and a supporter of Z (a.k.a. Mike Zamansky), I can't wait to see what Z does here.

While Stuy was immensely fulfilling and I learned a lot, it was not thanks to the general history and drafting classes. While those were (sometimes) interesting, it was the fact that I was no longer bored as I was in JHS and got to take subjects that allowed to me excel and "stretch my brain," for lack of a better term. Those were limited to my CS classes (Z's classes), the math classes, and psychology.

The CS courses I took at Stuy were on par with, and occasionally better than, some of the courses I took at MIT. At the very least, it prepared me to do very well at MIT and allowed me to take more advanced courses.

If it hadn't been for Z, I know for a fact I would have been significantly more bored in HS and probably wouldn't have done as well. Being a part of the 'Z-Team,' as we affectionally called the network team at Stuy (yes, we were lucky enough to have a network team; sadly, due to the roadblocks placed in front of Z, I'm not even sure this exists anymore) was easily the best experience of my academic career up until that point, and one I still fondly look back upon.

I truly can't wait to see what Z does with a bit of freedom to build what he's been trying to build for over 10 years.

As a person who finds immeasurable delight in programming, I am immediately wary of this idea. My impression is that this HS's curriculum would be narrower than usual, to accommodate a deep focus on SEG.

If that is the case, I feel this is a disservice to young humans: we ought to be exposing them to as broad a range of human thought as possible, and not narrowly focusing on a passion. The idea (as I understand it) seems to be a recipe for producing narrow humans.

This is interesting, but I'm not certain there need be an institution with just a heavy interest on software engineering. The article suggests that there are those who may not be proficient at other academic pursuits, but may have a keen interest in software engineering. To be honest, most of those kids are the types who will start coding/hacking on their own, not sure if a special school is needed for this. Plus there are added benefits to learning english, the arts, maybe a foreign language - I feel all of these have an impact on the type of person you become, perhaps even the type of software engineer you become. Just like it is with medical school - in many countries you go to medical school straight from high school, but here you complete 4 years of college first. In those four years you learn certain things which med school won't cover and which you may never be able to learn at any point again - but they could have a significant impact on the type of doctor you become, esp in how you interact with your patients. I feel the same applies to any career choice, including software engineering.

My 2 cents on the "too specialized" arguments...

1 - In high school, the people who take multiple CS subjects tend to be intellectually curious, and good at many other things. The same folks who took AP CS with me also took AP European history. I suspect it will be similar here.

2 - Similar to what folks say about Stuyvesant, I don't think there will be a crowding out effect of other subjects.

3 - If done right, the teachers can connect many other subjects to computer science: Philosophy, Mathematics, the Scientific Method... This can make those topics more interesting, not less.

4 - The rigor of learning to program is applicable in many other fields. Computer Science grads frequently go into other fields precisely because of this. This diminishes the "Let's fix the software engineering deficit" argument, but it's true that CS as a major signals ability above and beyond programming.

If I had grown up in NYC, I would have done anything to go to this school. I am glad that my children might have the opportunity to go to a place like this if they so desire.

Almost makes me wish I was born in america. I can't think of anything like this over here in England.

It is too bad our country doesn't care about education. All I hear about on the morning news in California is Jerry Brown making cuts to public spending on education. My wife and I put a lot of time into tutoring our daughter (1st grade) and it would be nice to know that by the time she reached the secondary education level that an option like a Software Engineering focus was available to her. I will try to stay positive and vote for government officials who support creative and proactive educational systems like this.

This is awesome, and I would have loved to go to a school like this.

However, I wonder if the school will become a place for people who are passionate about software to expand their coding talent at an early age, or if it'll become a place for kids whose parents want them to make money later in life to slog their way through a curriculum. It seems like there's a mixture of both types even in college CS programs, and one kind is a lot more pleasurable to learn with (as well as a lot more useful) than the other.

I'm not convinced by the idea of heavily specialised high schools. At that age you should be discovering what you're passionate about, and sampling a wide range of subjects.

The focus here seems to be more on training kids up for a job - would anyone be so enthusiastic if we replaced "software engineering" with "assembly line work" or "street sweeping"?

Hmm, won't that be a problem for the students given that the ratio of males to females is going to be far from 1:1?

I am certain that if this thing actually happens, it will spin out companies on par with any accelerator.

About time!

I would actually accept a much lower wage than in industry (as long as I could live off it - which I doubt would be very low in NYC haha) to teach at such a school

One of my dreams upon someday achieving FU money is to found a school like this in my home town (Rochester, NY). They need it.

Could anything like this ever happen in the UK?

If my girls show any interest in CS, I'm moving the family to NYC. Done.

from the article:

"Starting salaries for smart programmers from top schools are flirting with the $100,000 mark. "

By that logic, we better start churning out more doctors, lawyers and CEOs because, gosh, the salaries for those folks are flirting way way past the $100k mark. And we can't have that!

"One of the reasons the elite US colleges seem to turn out so few computer science majors every year is that they are only drawing from a narrow pool of mostly white and asian males."

Ooooh... we definitely can't have that! There's also a startingly low percentage of redheads and part-time harpists. Let's fix this, stat.