I was really thinking about Bem's theory of self perception. On top of that, the profession is a relatively solitary one. The first link says that the drop out rate is 10% for CS, 7% for Business or Engineering, so not a huge difference. Is there a better place to learn programming than in a computer science setting? Computer science students need to understand how these work and even how to design them, which can be quite challenging. al.). The theory of computation is a course that teaches students how specific algorithms and models of computation can solve problems. But are hard for somewhat different reasons. So it draws introverts; convincing introverts to have a career teaching students is an extra problem, reducing the pool of potential teachers further. Each stage of this effort has to not only be good, but perfect, as errors in a lower tier of complexity will compound and make the next one impossible to do. Their problems with the material are foundational; they don't have the background required. With other fields, we know millions of ways not to teach it; with computer science, we haven't had time to make as many mistakes and refine our education. In short, it requires some very serious effort and a very special mix of skills to become a good programmer. One is the attention to detail. Now, both parts are hard. @ScottRowe Apprenticeships work well when there are enough unskilled tasks that someone can do whilst learning the skill. People learning programming often run into one of these, and just can't get it. At least in my western country, there really was no good way for a young pupil to really find out about this. Failing that we will have no choice but to make it illegal, then we'll be seeing talent everywhere. Few of them come because they have deep enthusiasm about the field. Microprocessors are one of the big topics in computer science, as they are the logic chips and engines of computers. My first programming lessons were with a math teacher who was good in algorithm but came to me regularly when a student has an issue because I started programming by myself before going to this class. I think there may be some other elements at play. I don't care how fast radix sort is, if you have to sort a bunch of numbers, you'll typically do it the intuitive way rather than the theoretically optimal way. By using our site, you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Cookie Policy, Privacy Policy, and our Terms of Service. End excerpt. The number of students grows over time, so the previous generation of students (who supply the teachers) is smaller. Computer science had an … In many (or most?) Use OSR to find the best online program for you. Yes. I also was a DP programmer (now a DBA), but even still that background has bee very useful in choosing the best library or database design to use. The difficulty of CS (true or imagined) and the drop out rates are not the same thing. I don’t see anyone mentioning the fact that programming ≠ computer science. None of that was taught in the courses available to me. Despite this, all nighters were a given, and some labs even had couches to crash on. Within AI, students learn how to program computers to hold traits needed for solving complex problems, such as the ability to reason, learn, and ask questions. And there's some real beauty in seeing how people grappled with this with cunning intuitions. The computing professional must be detail-oriented (to the level of individual symbols), simultaneously be able to keep the big-picture in mind, and adjust the level of conceptual abstraction at any time. Getting Into Class. There was nothing weird about these requirements. Saying much the same thing, I think: computer programming is hard because "math is hard". When you write a function, your statements can't have errors, or the function won't work. But when you try to do that in mathematics things just fall apart. Computer engineering students learn to master robotics, pattern recognition, speech processing and so much more. What is an MS in Computer Science; ... and more difficult for others. (Consider majors like mathematics, music, or English, in which students will typically enter in with many, many years of built-up skills. I think there is a element where people are picking up on this 'everyone in the future must be able to code' attitude that has become fashionable in the last ten years or so. Computer Science is an exciting, challenging, and growing field that impacts the world and everyday life in countless ways. Even though there's precious little math in most programming, there's a, Upvoted for pointing out that many of the techniques we learn only make sense when working on big systems and/or teams. Online Schools Report aims to provide students with simple, practical, and accurate information about every online program available. All I'm looking for is the hindranc... Stack Exchange Network. Admittedly, this is beyond what is covered in an ACM CS-1 course, but the issue is "why" do students find CSE "hard" (that is, a discipline in which many cannot demonstrate understanding proficiency). The design and construction of structures (such as train stations and water treatment... American Association of Artificial Intelligence Conference, How to Know if Computer Science Is for Me. Is computer science hard? And even that is hit and miss. I'm not in the least interested in designing a hashing algorithm. Why are we still kicking this can? That means that they're coming in blind. My point is this: in addition to the stated classical unsolved problems, completely different approaches to computation are being proposed and actually developed into physical machines (with the understanding that biological systems are, in this sense, physical machines -- no supernatural invocations involved). Students are drawn to it not out of intrinsic interest or inclination, but because they want to make money at it. It's been 35 years since I implemented a non-trivial hashing algorithm, b-tree, or invert index, and almost as long since I implemented a linked list. That very simple step is mirrored along the entire tower of mathematical knowledge. Compare those topics to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_computer_science, and try to figure out how those topics even get you started on the path to figuring out how you might even frame those questions, let along solve them. I daresay this is not much different from an electrical engineering student expecting to weild a solder iron a lot; or a mechanical engineering student expecting to work with a metal lathe. You will feel like God. Everyone knows that children love to run, dance, scream, and shout. This topic... Why are music and movement important for early childhood education? It's harder than it has to be, but that's a good thing. Computer science is hard because it’s a branch of symbolic logic and logic is hard. So: don't try to write a symphony if you can't write for any single instrument. (Trinity News, 2016) ... Computer science is hard because it’s a branch of symbolic logic and logic is hard. This will make for some frustrating mismatches. At least until you get to University when the truth finally kicks in (I am somewhat reminded of WW1 heroes off to 'give the old hun a kicking, hoorah' who then find themselves waiting to go over the top at Passchendaele). But in certain combinations of economic factors and media hype, a lot of students go in to CS not really understanding what they are getting in to but are lured by the, perhaps elusive, draw of big salaries. At my uni, there were the “Big 3” 4th year courses that were advised a) not to take more than one a term, b) to take a lighter course load if possible. Academic languages are rarely used. Why are computer science drop-out rates so high? Managing 1,000,000 lines of code is very different from managing 100 — and much harder to demonstrate…. We also need people who write programs just like we need people who pick up a hammer and a saw and build the things the architects and engineers design. The issues that make computer science "hard" are now harder. It is like trying to write an essay in English, but if your letters aren't formed right, you have any spelling mistakes, or there is any grammar errors, the teacher isn't able to actually read your essay. Official figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) show that the percentage of dropouts in computer science courses hit 9.8% during 2016-2017. In the past, when computers were weaker, what made CSci so hard is that the tools did not fit the problems as well as we might like. The first is the economic motivation -- accumulation of wealth or even gainful employment. Not a single one has anything to do with computer science. She currently teaches a combination of traditional seated and online courses, including English Composition, Argument Research, and Creative Writing. I have been a professor of computer science and engineering (CSE) in the USA for a number of years in ABET accredited CAC and EAC undergraduate programs (graduate programs do not have ABET accreditation in CSE as I recall). the games industry which still motivates many people to register in CS. Nowdays, what I think makes CSci so hard is that the primary thing we do is operations that have to get repeated many many many many times. Is it something anyone can learn? This is a branch of mathematics, and like most kinds of mathematics requires iterative mastery. Related to the English communication skills noted above, the student likewise needs a lot of "domain specific knowledge". Additionally, if you want to save some money and some trouble, you can study computer science and get a degree online from a number of reputable and accredited colleges. Unfortunately, making the book big enough to prove every known result is a double-edged sword, as it forces the computer to consider far more options. But CS isn’t about what an Ethernet cable does. Before starting at SCC in 2013, she taught English at the middle and high school levels for five years. Way back when I was young, I learned to program on home computers. But, they have little oversight, and an interesting tidbit in this article: "only 12% of bootcamp grads didn’t previously complete a four-year college degree". And why would they bother? Maybe computer science is hard, because it gets lost in translation. Hmmm. According to computer science majors, here are some of the topics that make computer science, well, hard: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Artificial Intelligence tops the list as one of the most difficult topics in computer science, as it teaches students how to program intelligent computers. Data pretty regularly shows that computer science programs have among the highest failure and dropout rates of any college program. Cornell University offers excellent computer science programs in three interconnected departments: Computer Science, Information Science, and Statistics and Data Sciences. I have seen it and done it (with help from my TAs and myself) -- but those who dispense resources (funds, personnel, facilities) do not provide those resources, and students who could "swim" instead "sink". To handle this, programmers have come up with increasingly abstract patterns. But that's certainly a good observation about upperclassmen, and also about graduate students who don't finish because they are specialized enough in something like AI to earn mid-6-figure salaries even without their PhD. The last bullet point in particular rings true for me: I almost failed due to the stringent math requirements, despite doing well in math back in high school. Four trillion operations. When you write a statement, your variables and operators can't have errors, or the statement won't work. Why would we think that it is something that can be easily and directly taught? That apparent correctness tends to rest on an assumption so basic that programmers don't even realize they've made it. Compare that with big ideas that you find in a philosophy or (hopefully) history course. Too many beginning students and teachers think that programming is "if" and "while" and "assignment" and nothing else. We shouldn’t be surprised that the academy breeds snobbery … Colleges will even go so far as making you take an aptitude test and then telling you that you failed it. Everything is a "word problem", and students must be proficient at reading, interpreting, asking for clarification (in a natural language, e.g., English), then designing, implementing, and testing, and finally documenting and explaining the design and code (again in English). Many students do not really know what CS is about. These are two entirely different disciplines, and it seems to me that there isn’t enough emphasis on this fact. To use an example from above, if a large population of students who had literally never read an eighth note (quaver) suddenly enter into college music majors, do you expect that the results would be very different from what you are seeing among your computer science population? It doesn't need to be hard to drive people away, just boring. Computer science requires are lot of learning and knowledge to master. Those weak in mathematics tend to have a terrible time learning programming, as the bulk of … I'm interested in writing a program that makes some task easier - and that might involve using hashes or dictionaries or linked lists or what have you. Computer Science vs. Computer Engineering: Job Opportunities. So this also doesn’t fully explain why more people aren’t majoring in CS. Opportunities for true creativity and innovation. And unless you get it, you can't get past that barrier, and often fail out. (One of the advantages of Java and other managed languages to teach programming is that you can neglect much of pointers and resource management and teach other stuff at beginner levels; the downside is you graduate people who don't have to learn that stuff.). It has a limited vocabulary that you can "speak" to it in, and it has a limited ability to give you responses. When I started taking university courses, the options were MIS (management information systems - managing computer systems) and computer science. So here's my stab at a brief answer to the inquiring student: Computer science is something of an everything-discipline. Compare to work written in math, physics, chemistry, etc. For students with weak English skills, possibly still learning the language for many foreign students, this is another significant challenge (probably more than other STEM fields). At any point in the workday we might need to shift mental state to some other layer in order to analyze, debug, or properly design a new part. I find myself doing anything just to step as far away from the computer as possible. Generally, most major public colleges will let you sign up and then try to fail you out. Telling a machine what to do isn't difficult. Every program you write ends up being instructions for some idiot-savant computer to follow. Most of such accumulation is based upon technology, not basic science or engineering. "because it’s a branch of symbolic logic". The graphics course was hands down one of these, given the involved and highly detailed work required to get things working. If you think Computer Science is devoid of creativity, … But it isn't easy. So don’t do it just because your dad told you to, or you heard you can make $100K a few years after school (you can). Another is the creative ability to build strong abstractions that are both powerful and useful. Mathematics in much of the world is initially taught by people who hate and are bad at mathematics -- elementary school teachers. Nobody is going to get taught CS. But if you are a talented mathematician with a technical, scientific way of thinking, you may be perfect for the field. Some may interpret these statements as "elitist"; the issues are reality, not elitism. And as academics are teaching it, often it is included anyhow, as the theoretical computer science often is needed to expand the entire field of knowledge of computer science. For most complex subjects, apprenticeship is what has worked, historically, and what will work for human beings. A lot of CS programs are pretty much already there, they just don't call it that. @ScottRowe And many, many problems faced by the industry stem from the very questionable things C lets you do in order to work from page 1. Programming is hard for a few reasons. In CS, the work is mediated by the computer system itself, which is fairly demanding in its syntactical strictness. CSE is a highly abstract intellectual field that nonetheless has very concrete instantiations. You might be surprised to learn that A-Level Further Maths is not number 1 on my list, but it definitely comes in at a… I went off and joined the US Air Force, then got a job working in electronics, then cycled my way back to programming through my work experience. He wants to be out there on the construction site, driving nails and cutting wood. ), (As an aside, there is a small added difficulty. That's me and computer science. Computer science demands a set of qualities, some of which are somewhat antithetical. So how hard is computer science, how much math is in it and should I major in it? It is also hard to get off the ground if you cannot walk through a complex chain of logic. Computer science is hard. That said, the data seems to show that CS has even higher non-success rates than other STEM courses, so from this point on we'll inspect what makes CS even more challenging. Others even are afraid of science! As to why people don't have enough prior experiance, a big part is that software engineering salaries are high enough compared to educators salaries that you really need some other compensation to provide a comparable package to industry, and only academia can offer that where teachers are primarily researchers. Problems are almost never delivered in purely symbolic form, as may sometimes be done in math, physics, chemistry, etc. CSE uses, develops, and requires "higher" mathematics. My colleagues suggested cinema tokens, shop vouchers, prizes, ..., you get the picture. Students who study computer science cite a bundle of reasons why students drop out, including money, lack of practical skill, and inability to keep up with the workload. An IT person working on a quantum processor will memorize rules, but will most likely not have an understanding of quantum mechanics (and the underlying mathematics). The educators problem is that teaching that background requires fixing their 10 years of primary and secondary mathematics the student came in with. It takes some theory (of course it does) to be able to write programs. There's loads of fun to be had in CS, infinities of it. Introductory problems are likely to come from many different fields -- e.g., in my own course, book exercises involve geometry, statistics, savings interest, sound waves, biological population growth, workplace employment rules, taxation, meteorology, sports, corporate finance, etc. A serious college level course in CS might be shocking to someone who has only dabbled in trivial elements of programming. Mathematics is the part that is the theory of computing, and programming is the art of applying it. I don't think the general public generally knows what CS is. In this regard, I sometimes point students to this image (I believe first originating from a website that no longer exists, but e.g., referenced here). And if you combine that with asking them to write programs that they find boring, they aren't likely to stick around for long. Does an IT person who is "information security certified" (typically with a vendor-based credential) understand encryption in terms of the actual mathematics (for example, I use both the declassified Shannon monograph as well the details of AES as explained in the original Rijndael exposition), or quantitative threat estimation, Nash game theory and what goes beyond Nash, etc.? He tells the folks in school that he'd like to build things - houses or furniture or bridges - and they send him to college to study mechanical engineering. It also says that 53% dropped out because they weren't getting enough value for their money, 50% because they were not interested, and 33% because it was too hard. Everyone should be computer-literate, able to be safe online, spot malware and so on. Self perception theory. I don't blame the teachers who have to do this as many are forced in to it (in the US) simply because schools are underfunded and understaffed with too few specialist teachers. However, it is hard to get off the ground in programming if you are unable to manage the syntactical exigencies of the language you are programming in. This is the tricky part, really. That article links to this one: Where an English interpreter writes code on the fly... https://twitter.com/sharifshameem/status/1283322990625607681, 2020 Stack Exchange, Inc. user contributions under cc by-sa, many factors but maybe a big one is the high mathematical content, and some abstraction, etc. The tools you use to immaculately manage 4 trillion operations while you sit back and sip your coffee are, obviously, rather exacting. Or that many people could develop a flotilla of abilities at the same time? Do you have solid math skills? Some have called the computer the most complex creation of mankind; e.g., in the title of David Eck's introductory CS textbook, The Most Complex Machine. When you write an algorithm, your functions can't have errors, or the algorithm won't work. That wasn't what I wanted at all. I don't understand why you don't think knowing how algorithms work doesn't make you a better programmer. Nearly everyone uses computing devices to communicate on a daily,... Is computer science hard? The syntax of the languages you are using is, almost unavoidably, harsh on relative beginners. https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6601#6601. I think tech is one of them. That is only a part of CS. Why is CSE much more difficult than IT? Is programming hard? The Hard Part of Computer Science? Features such as modular functions, scope rules, local variables, classes and objects, encapsulation and data-hiding, etc., really only make sense in terms of a large team of programmers, engaged in a division of labor, communicating in a structured way so as to not corrupt the overall system. I don't necessarily believe that it is harder. What Is Computer and Information Science? CS is one of the fields where it is common to hire dropouts and not too hard to land a job even if you didn't finish the degree. i.e. It requires mathematics (including "arithmetic") to establish algorithms; however, once one accepts that, one is beyond logic that provably is consistent and complete, and faces instead the problem of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Why is it so hard? As someone learning programming, you end up building increasingly complex things. A few times in my introductory programming course, I will mention this fact (that computer science is among the hardest majors), partly to set expectations that students will need to work hard to succeed. Take a look at Stanford’s CS 101 https://online.stanford.edu/courses/soe-ycscs101-sp-computer-science-101 and the list of topics covered. This is, and has always been a recipe for disaster. There's something very unintuitive about how you had to work with them. I would say the answer is shifting from "the strangeness of the platform" to "the raw number of operations that have to be perfect.". Afterall, they are here for the salary, the fun, the kudos. @CeesTimmerman I was in a college course that used SICP almost 40 years ago. This dropout rate is considerably higher than in other majors. To find and fix software errors, or to prevent them, a software engineer needs to be skilled at examining those assumptions and stripping them away to correctly follow the computer's logic, and that is a skill that actively opposes many people's instincts. So: What would be the best reply to a beginning CS student who asks, "Why is CS hard?". The second major theme is that there is a lot of bad teaching around CS as has always been the case. This presents a very narrow view. Because the initial success was with a few very motivated and 'gifted' people. Computer programming and software engineering courses are another large part of computer science. We should return to teaching our young learners assembly language, get them editing real source code, throw all the maths from the trapezium rule to matrix inversions to axioms for semi-groups with unity at school. The other thing that I personally find challenging in teaching introductory programming is that so many of the core features of modern languages are designed to support large teams working cooperatively on long-term projects (see Brooks, et. Your last paragraph, is true in general. I believe that particularly in CS our learners are being driven by the promise of extrinsic rewards. The greats like Alan Turing and Grace Hopper truly revolutionized things with cunning shifts in intuition. While some people may cite difficulty, most of the time, it’s simply lack of fit. Let me start an answer, but it might take several iterations to get all my thoughts together on the two ideas. The reason why this is important is because everyone wants an engineering degree in computer science. As a current CS student, I'd love nothing more than to have a computer science class that actually challenged me, but 95% of my time has been spent on the associated math and physics requirements, which is why I'm currently in my 4th year of a "2-year" college, hoping to transfer to a "4-year" college next fall. This is a story that I'm constantly trying to tell to my students and want them to visualize, but I fear that the lack of concrete experiences with this "large team, complex software" reality makes it hard to fully appreciate. And if they don't like it, they can do something else. Like any STEM field, CS is technical, detail-oriented, and has objectively right and wrong answers (at least in terms of what counts as a syntactically valid program, a program that produces logically correct results, and so forth). Renee earned a Bachelor of Arts in English in 2006 and a Master of Arts in Teaching, with a specialization in English in 2011, both from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. The formula is: get people to do simple but useful things when they are young, and gradually raise the level of difficulty so that they gain expertise in a reasonable way. Those small mistakes in software source code often appear superficially to be completely correct. @blues I think that this question mostly refers to the students who are dropping out from cs1, because they either didn't like it or couldn't keep up. Maybe that's where some of those "failures" and "dropouts" need to be - learning to do things with today's tools rather than looking for tomorrow's tools. This is somewhat the answer I was going to write - why do people begin a course of study at 18 with no experience? and lets not forget that simply. For the purposes of this answer, I'll assume that in the first year or so, teaching computer science is synonymous with teaching software engineering. Quantum computing has a formal theory and is just starting to develop working hardware that instantiates quantum architectures. "They come, I think, largely because they believe that this is where the jobs are." I'm in the "just write programs" camp. Reading these comments, I have a few things to mention. I agree with your observations that CS is grossly misunderstood and teaching CS is grossly underestimated. Experts are harder to convince to be teachers, as not-teaching is lucrative, and teaching is difficult. I am a programmer. Great! Once you pass that tier, you end up with yet another situation where there are discontinuous errors that are harsh on relative beginners. : It's just a few conversational steps from thinking about worldwide internet protocols, to the need for check codes and error-handling, to the existence of cosmic rays in the physical universe that might corrupt transmitted data. To which I replied yes, because the students that work hard like the subject and have intrinsic motivation, so they want to learn more, and so, the best reward we can offer is extra homework. The only answer I have been able to think of is: Your last bullet point is THE reason in my experience, and is still very true in the US today! Prelude B: Of course, CS is in the STEM meta-discipline, and those programs are commonly more demanding than non-STEM courses. I personally think CS programs need to get serious about having a software engineering track/degree. the language that you are using is a set of logic blocks as well. And its rare that we find places to use them outside of CSci, so there's not much room to develop intuition. I'm speculating that many people go into it because they perceive that this will lead them to great careers, until they realize it's something they're absolutely not into at all. What I wanted wasn't available at that time and place, so I quit. It gives students the feeling that they are mastering aspects of computing, but hides away so many details that I believe it can actually add to the frustrations of students once they are faced with actual programming, working with command lines, importing libraries, etc.). I want to make things with the tools and materials available, not develop new tools and materials. Only you can answer that question. Certainly, a fair number of them will be able to pick up and get things sorted out, but there will absolutely be a sizeable population who will find that wall too hard to climb. Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania is another great option; students in this program have won robot contests at the annual American Association of Artificial Intelligence Conference and have qualified for the International Finals of the Association for Computing Machinery programming contest. I can relate about teachers in early schools (I don't know the American education enough to know which levels) not knowing programming enough. ), https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6604#6604. From my experiences (I studied about 15-20 years ago, and my cohort lost 50% of students within the first four semesters), the main reasons are these: By the way, this does not end in the university; the same phenomenon happens in IT companies - you get a few high-flyers who really live and breathe IT and CS (as far as CS applies to IT in modern software projects at all...), and plenty of people who just do their job on most days, or eventually find out that it's just not for them. In addition to analyzing how a problem can be solved, the theory of computation teaches students to analyze whether these methods and algorithms will effectively solve problems. https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6618#6618, https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6610#6610, https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6622#6622, https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6619#6619, https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6626#6626. $\endgroup$ – J.G. 50% of the students in my cohort dropped out during the first two years as well. Here are some things Ive noticied about the market that influence how hard … ", and I was a bit flat-footed for a good response. He drops out of college, and goes off looking for a way to do what he's interested in. https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6599#6599. Some people teach it as misspelled mathematics, which it is not. They don't want this. Don't try to be a Conductor if you can't play any instruments. There is much more to CS than that. Imagine somebody who is good with a hammer and a saw, and he wants to be a carpenter. Why Are Music and Movement Important for Early Childhood Education. C worked from page 1. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that over half a million new jobs will be added in the computer and information technology field through 2028! Computer scientists are involved in creating technology and systems that are used in a wide range of industries, including medicine, communications, entertainment, manufacturing, business, and science. Popular programming languages include JavaScript, Python, Perl, and Postscript. People get in for the wrong reasons and decide they really didn't understand what it was and that they don't really like it. The other point is that computer science uses logic (the first-order classical predicate calculus or perhaps higher orders), but in many ways goes beyond such logic. Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California also offers a Computer Science Major, along with a Computer Science and Math joint major. But why is computer science so hard? Compare those topics to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_computer_science, and try to figure out how those topics even get you started on the path to figuring out how you might even frame those questions, let alone solve them. And, having done it both ways, the theoretically optimal way is often slower (until you get to very large numbers of records). What Area of Economics Focuses on the Interactions Between Individual Consumers and Producers? Just teach me the big hammer right away and skip the interesting digression. Coding is not too difficult, but algorithm design and then establishing that the algorithm is provably correct is not as easy. There are models different from either of these (with unsolved problems and conjectures); two of the most promising are quantum computers (and information transfer) and a rather more empirical approach, neurosynaptic computing (that has other names for similar concept). I don't belong in computer science. It was hard enough to learn CS forty years ago when it was this big. The amount of discipline and patience required to study and work in CS is enormous and it is not for everyone. In some countries, like India, computer work has been touted as the way to earn a lot of money and many people rushed into it without being interested in the topic one bit. Whether or not programming is hard for you depends as much on your personality as your computer skills. All I wanted was to be a better programmer, and all I could get was things that I'd need to (someday) be able to do computer science research. I wanted to learn how to be a better programmer. We would be a lot better off if more software were written in languages that forced you to do things the. Homogenous systems and all the millions of software packages interacting with each other can be frustrating, but it's nothing compared to users who can't be … To get to the 10,000 hour mastery mark, you need to put in those first 9999 hours. https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6636#6636, https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6613#6613. Prelude A: This is an area of ongoing research, and there's no consensus theory at this time. As it happens I have been looking for an entry level software engineering position in Ohio recently as well. The ability for computers to do things exactly as described, extremely quickly, means programs are some of the most complex things humanity has ever designed on purpose. Likewise, consider Joel Spolsky's Law of Leaky Abstractions: "All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky." In order to do multiplication effectively, you have to not only be able to do addition, but you have to master it. Our political representatives and managers want to see success in STEM subjects generally, so many false promises, bribes and other forms of encouragement are applied to 'encourage' learners into STEM. Many of the students I have met do not understand the difference between Information Technology (IT) and CSE. There are exceptions, of course, but there's usually a region of tolerable error. It depends. This answer matches my experience pretty exactly. Every programming problem is judged first not by your instructor, but by the world's most harsh marker; the compiler/interpreter. And without mastery of the previous tiers of mathematics, the theoretical computer science they teach is extremely difficult. Lets make it hard but lets have our students wanting to do actual CS. So why would students that are mostly interested in the money side of the equation keep studying when they are already offered well paid jobs long before they reach the end of the program? A few might learn if they're motivated though. Also these days so much of the coding world revolves around web applications and one look at that insanely over-complicated mess would put anyone off. I have worked at brainless manual labor positions before and I find that so much easier and natural I don't feel drained after an 8 or 10 hour shift, instead I feel satisfied after a hard day of work. Some of these disciplines include math, psychology, and linguistics. This creates a sharp discontinuity in your initial ability to get things done. By contrast, many college majors come populated with students who have years of background in a topic, and are fairly certain that they like aspects of the field. But even if we cut out the heavy research/math components: many or most students can't pass even the introductory programming course that you're talking about. Interfaces to the user must likewise be clearly expressed. Additionally, CS has also, and fairly suddenly, become a wildly popular major. So called time-sharing systems emerged in the 1960s to allow several users to run programs at the same time from different terminals that were hard-wired to the computer. The field itself is young. Early 1980s. But with computer syntax no such flexibility is possible: if a single symbol is misplaced, then no defined program exists. Programming is the art of managing insane amounts of complexity while telling a complete idiot how to solve a problem, exactly. This is a valid observation, but it doesn’t explain behaviors on the margin. Lisp seemed interesting up to around page 300 where they basically said, "But this won't actually work, so we need to use this big hammer to make it work." A computer science degree is clearly no walk in the park, but it is a vital field of study, and with the number of jobs rising every day, it’s necessary to have the right people in this field. Students get into computer science programs and realize this field is just not something they want to pursue. The number one thing that attracts me to a CS major is the fact that I a) build … Using modern apps on phones and websites not only teaches students little about computer science, but in my experience, it has almost been a negative. Which is not wrong. E.g. These are good questions, so let’s find the answers. And it is the same effort and work ethic that is essential to eg. People perceive "hard" to mean more difficult, whereas, in truth, it may be much more challenging to devise and interpret an experiment in a so-called soft science than in a hard science. But I'd like to remark none of this is new: https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6602#6602. You have to reach near-100% reliability on each tier, and learn how to deal with the less-than-100% reliability, before you can get any kind of reliability on the next. There's great frustration in the handling of 330,000,000 slips of paper (give or take, depending on voter turnout) and getting them into the right places and making sure they're all done right. Could it be that many of the dropouts just don't want what computer science has to offer? Finding a fast and efficient algorithm or data structure to solve you problem is - while certainly challenging - the simpler part of it, Computer Science Educators Stack Exchange, Computer science undergraduates most likely to drop out, Concern over drop-out rates in computer science courses. That does not generalize. Well, nothing in life is easy, but computer science is a different kind of hard. In this essay I will first present the causes and unfortunate consequences of this problem; then I will offer some ideas for countering its bad effects. @RonJohn Computer programming per se is not CS. First, CS has a uniquely "deep stack" of technologies and systems in which the practitioner must work, master, and smoothly adjust conceptual level of abstracted thought within the course of a work day. Students program in "rich" languages and environments using only the lowest level concepts, never really understanding abstraction or (gasp) polymorphism. Some people realize this time commitment and determine they either don’t have, or don’t want to spend their time this way. That's why mathematicians still have to think so much. Yep. First, I somewhat dispute the premise of the question. Aug 7 at 13:27 There is a definite learning curve to build the skills, and personal mental model surrounding syntax, compilation, building, layout, debugging and deciphering build errors, and that’s before the more interesting data structures and algorithms kick in. Programming is currently a lucrative, expanding field. Maybe you took a computer science course in high school, and you’re intrigued by the subject. Computer Science is a difficult field to study and learn for a number of reasons. The introductory AP computer science class (at least at my school) is. In reality, most of the students entering have little to no practical experience. In my time, there were the classic lectures like how to build a compiler for a programming language; or more theoretical topics like automatons, temporal correctness and such. Renee Whitmore is an Associate Professor of English at Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst, North Carolina. There is much more. That seems bananas to me, and is the real issue that needs to be addressed. The answer of jmoreno states: I didn't even warm up a grid, which would have added a few zeros to that. If the original biological brain has "intelligence", then the neurosynaptic electronic solid-state instantiation (model) is envisioned to have similar intelligence. It’s … Its hard and maddening - work in groups, overclock the CPUs and watch them melt, rebuild kernels. But overall, I agree with your sentiment. In our world of ever-evolving technology, computer science professionals are absolutely vital in making sure our computer systems run properly. The understanding of "how" the machine works, that is, a provably correct classical or quantum algorithm does not necessarily apply, but the empirical observations are intended to emulate what the biological brain would have done, including learning and adaptation to new "stimuli". Neurosynaptic computing is a much more empirical approach to producing something akin to actual "artificial intelligence". The first is periodic and I don't know where we are in the period at the moment. I can program most everyday business applications using existing tools and libraries, but I would be hard pressed if I had to attend university CS, which deals with the math underlying many of the libraries. These are all levels of abstraction programmers have developed to manage increasingly complex programs. Some people in elementary and secondary schools are forced to teaching CS and especially Advanced Placement CS when they have little understanding of the topic and just try to stay "one week ahead" of the students. https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6643#6643, Can it write FizzBuzz? I didn't want to baby sit the machines, I wanted to program them and ended up in computer science. Consider the following article from the New York Time Tech section: "Meet GPT-3. https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/6598/why-is-computer-science-hard/6605#6605, I agree that there's a long-time institutional failure to distinguish between "computer science" and "software engineering". There needs to be a differentiation between those who want to study computer science (advance the state of the art) and those who just want to write programs (make use of existing techniques and tools.). Because it produces information and thus reduces entropy, that requires work that in turn produces waste heat (increasing the entropy external to the created information) -- and requires an understanding of at least classical thermodynamics, or preferably an understanding of statistical mechanics and how entropy arises. Our basic problem is that they are the wrong students with the wrong motivations. Graduating with a degree in computer engineering opens diverse doors to students. The student, whose goal was "get a highly paid programming job", finds this abstract computer science both hard and difficult to connect to their goal. As a computer science student, you need to understand how a computer comes to a particular solution. It is a creative yet tedious process that involves solid concentration. The problem with software engineering is that there is so much to learn to be sufficiently competent for the reletively unskilled tasks that apprenticeship style teaching only really becomes relevant once you reach the level that CS undergraduate course teach to. This branch is all about understanding the idea of computation, as opposed to the art. If the teacher hasn't read Vygotsky and the class isn't based on some constructivist learning principles you can forget it. Whether it is the promise of a large salary, the association of CS with 'fun' technologies or the social kudos associated with the movie images of hackery, none of the drivers are really about the subject. First, let’s dissect this topic a little bit, and see why Comp Sci has such an intimidating reputation. So we end up with a lot of people with a poor foundation in ciphering showing up in secondary education, then muddling though classes without every achieving mastery, then deciding to go into a lucrative field (programming). Particularly for students with ID's such as dyslexia, this may be a significant extra challenge. @Buffy: yes, there is. If so don’t let the “computer science is too hard to learn,” type of people deter you. Computers don't have those assumptions, and operate by their own internal logic that was artificially created by legions of computer scientists. Some topics are maybe not very hard, but unless somone is really interested in them already, the university might not necessarily present the topic in a way that creates interest. : it will likely be read by a human instructor, who may be able to forgive or fill in some smaller errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. As an example: why does a real computer create heat? You don't need to be able to design a CPU in order to use it. Can it write FizzBuzz in a special version that prints "manziel" for every number divisible by 13? Everything can feel hard if you find no joy or fun in it, so especially with Computer Science, it’s a good idea to try it out before you commit to earning a degree in the field. When you connect algorithms into a simple program, the algorithms can't have errors, or the program won't work. When it was my turn I said "extra homework". With intensive tutoring and dedication on the part of both the student and the tutors, many students who currently do not "survive" to a CSE ABET-accredited or equivalent diploma, can graduate. Students tend to be unprepared for the constructive nature of the Computer Science discipline. Starting off the top 3 hardest GCSEs, we have GCSE English Literature. This semester I had a student in my virtual office hour ask, "Why is computer science harder than other majors, as you say? Is it something anyone can learn? Maybe your program was a more rigorous CS program that what I experienced. It also requires a very good grasp of mathematical concepts (sometimes even abstract math). (Then again, it was a mid-tier State school in the mid 1980s. Computer science is hard because it’s a branch of symbolic logic and logic is hard. Let people choose, by doing some of it when they are young. It is not so difficult for some to understand science! U.S. News and World Report published this article on what you need to know about becoming a computer science major, which is helpful and informative. The young men and women with a natural ability for coding should be spotted early and put into educational streams that encourage and support them and probably into decent apprenticeships\internships afterward. In many other fields, you can muddle along with the previous foundation layer having issues, and maybe patch it up later. It was all about algorithms, evaluating them and using them. Maybe those folks who fail just needed to directed to a more appropriate place so that they can succeed at the underlying task that brought them to computer science. That kind of perfection is just part of the job. Better approaches to breaking down problems. They come, I think, largely because they believe that this is where the jobs are. Out students are totally unprepared for the actual reality. Instead, they are forced to examine each word in isolation, then after verifying them themselves they can look at each sentence in isolation, etc. Then, you can decide if it is something you want to study. Do you have a mechanical brain that enjoys looking at every minute detail of a problem in order to solve it? I make a good living writing programs. Given that I taught CS for about 40 years, I understand that and, moreover, what it does include. They want to drive sports cars whilst playing CODwars and wearing hoodies. ), The processor that you are writing code for is a bunch of logic blocks. Any Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Major in Computer Science? Why are computer science drop-out rates so high? That was just sort of the usual daily expectations. Understanding concepts like graphs and time complexity have definitely made me a better programmer. This question originally appeared on Quora: Why don't more people work as programmers?. How Long Does it Take to Get a Master’s Degree in Computer Science? End excerpt. Computer science is one of the most popular fields today, with millions of workers already working in the industry.... Technology and information impact every aspect of modern life. CS requires, as you say, ability in many areas at once. And that negates some of the big benefits of why you should major in Computer Science in the first place! The actual science part is difficult, but not really any more so than any other science discipline. As neurosynaptic or quantum processors become more readily deployed, the issues will only increase. One needs to develop good skills in the entire STEM spectrum (science, technology, engineering, and math), as well as top-end reading, writing, and human communication skills, and be able to work well both alone and in a team. There was a silence, then the head of department asked me if I "was serious". (more on this coming up). This is of course as ridiculous as saying everyone must be an engine mechanic or concert pianist. I don't know how this is these days, but in my country, in the 1990's, CS was strongly coupled to maths - we had plenty of obligatory maths lectures which we shared with beginning maths or physics students; hardcore linear algebra, functional analysis, statistics etc. One also needs to be able to digest a fairly large amount of new technical detail at a rapid pace, learn about other arbitrary domains in the world to interface with them, and be committed to continually learning new fields and technologies throughout one's career. A number of sources all echo the finding that roughly one-third of incoming CS majors do not progress to a second year, higher than most other majors. You break the task down to pieces and phrase it in the vocabulary the computer has and tell it how to assemble its response. Are you good at science? Computer science is so sought-after on certain college campuses that students like Aafia Ahmad, a sophomore and computer science … This connectome is then modeled with solid-state electronic components (e.g., VLSI circuits that actually are fabricated). It will take a lot of effort to graduate, and that’s a fact. In particular CS is NOT programming, though skill in programming is needed. On arrival, instead of slick, fun and cool our learners find it takes 200 lines of C coding to put a dot on a screen, three years of pure maths courses to understand why neural networks don't work really and after reading a pile of books 2m high, countless RFCs and a half the UNIX manual pages they are still unable to understand what's wrong with their sendmail.conf or build a stable kernel, or use vim. A total of 11 possible contributing factors there really was no good for. Disciplines include math, physics, chemistry, etc wanting to do with computer course. 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Then they will be further disadvantaged wrong students with simple, practical why is computer science so hard! It that student who asks, `` why is CS hard? `` really know what CS is math. Student who asks, `` why is CS hard? `` 6609, https: #... Hour mastery mark, you may be a better programmer started taking University,! Computer-Literate, able to do you take an aptitude test and then establishing that the algorithm is correct. Complexity have definitely made me a better programmer are totally unprepared for the constructive nature of the just... Wrong '' University for a good thing available to me, and Statistics and Data Sciences based technology! 'Ll dub the mathematics of how the machines work, and accurate Information about every program... Domain specific knowledge '' a brief answer to the inquiring student: computer science `` hard '' and up... Something else n't that computer science promise of extrinsic rewards in industry a! 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Again, it was this big inclination, but because they have enthusiasm! 'Ve done quite well by it, though you do have to understand the task yourself first can get.... Then telling you that you should keep on your personality as your computer skills premise... As making you take an aptitude test and then try to fail you out there were several that... Explain behaviors on the margin all ages find it really hard to learn CS forty years ago it...
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