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Comment by anaphor | Hacker News Reader

No offence but if you have to use PHP or Wordpress for a university level engineering course then that is a major indictment of the school. You could get a better education from MIT OCW and Coursera. Also I don't see a problem with requiring an interest/aptitude in math to get into a CS program since CS is applied mathematical logic, although physics and chemistry are less relevant unless you want to work with applied scientists.

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Allow me to explain the Physics/Chem part of his comment.

The education system in India offers a fork-in-the-road twice:

1. Grade 10 - at which point you get to choose the general direction you want to head in (primarily Arts, Science, or Commerce streams)

2. Grade 12 - at which point you get to choose a slightly more specific stream, pursuant to the stream you chose in grade 10.

Science students continue to study Physics, Chemistry and Maths until the end of grade 12 at which point they are presented with the above fork-in-the-road. To get into a college that offers an engineering degree (or any applied-sciences degree, for that matter,) you need to have a good score in PCM, i.e. Physics, Chemistry & Maths. It is in this context that your Physics & Chemistry scores are relevant.

Also, one of the basic requirements for getting into a engineering course is that you should have graduated from a Science stream. Someone who has completed grades 11 and 12 in the commerce stream can't get an applied sciences course.

>although physics and chemistry are less relevant unless you want to work with applied scientists.

I agree with you. In India, the top schools for undergraduate education are Indian Institute of Technology(IIT) and National Institute of Technology(NIT). There are 16 IITs and 30 NITs across India, each with their own campuses, faculty, etc. Both conduct two nation wide exams namely IIT-JEE and AIEEE with different formats where IIT-JEE is hard to crack than AIEEE. In both the exams, there are only three subjects - Maths, Physics and Chemistry. So, if one has to make into one of these fine institutes, one has to be good at all of these. I have seen many who couldn't get into these instis even though they were very good at two subjects but sucked at the third one.

Source: I got into one of the NITs.

Can you explain a bit about how using PHP is an indictment of the school?

Imagine an environment where PHP is considered cutting edge and where 90% of students (and 80% teachers) don't know even C properly. That is the environment we have! PHP is something that is completely unknown to teachers and considered cutting edge.

And I don't have any issues with Math. Mathematical logic is indeed required. BUT Physics and Chemistry are totally irrelevant as requirements! Unfortunately, they have 66% weight!

Using PHP for anything is not an indictment in my opinion, but making it the focus of an _engineering class_ is, imo. My point of view is that formal education should be for things you would have a difficult time learning on your own, and I don't see writing a Wordpress app as something you can't learn on your own. The only reason to take such a class is to boost your average, which is fine, but you're not expanding your way of thinking at all.

Anyway I completely agree that physics and chemistry should not be heavy requirements like that.

Physics is often needed for many CS programs. I was a bit worried when I applied to UW CSE with a 2.9, 3.2, and 3.7 in my physics reqs.

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