Another area you stick your nose into is physics. Going through the material of an introductory physics class will help in that you will see a lot of applications for the material you learn in calculus and differential equations.

Good luck with your learning! I’m very impressed that you’re taking it upon yourself to learn all those areas of mathematics.

Of course, everyone is entitled to a preference and I’d pick Windows or Linux over OSX any day of the week, but stick me in front of it and I can still work it. I don’t see the point in ranting about it.. just get on with it, get things done.

At the heart of it, there is no real ‘curriculum’ for Computer Science, and every governing body for the IT industry gives a wide range of subjects either way. A lot of the time it’s purely a business decision to get more students to fork out cash for poorer programme structures.

I go to one of these infamous ‘Java Schools’, where we’re only really taught Java as a practical programming language. I once opted to use C++ for a subject (with no knowledge of it) and my lecturer almost flipped. Admittedly my degree is only a three year degree, but knowledge of several programming languages is essential if you want students to become programmers. Also, students must be pushed into writing programs constantly to better themselves.

I know some students at good universities that are fantastic programmers and phenomenal mathematicians, yet their lack of knowledge of software engineering and project management means that they end up in entry-level jobs either way; exactly the same as my university that has a far inferior CS programme.

The reason I am taking to studying many of these subjects myself is because my university won’t teach them to me. I’m taking this summer off (apart from work) to learn as much as I can about Maths in the hope that it’ll make me a better Computer Scientist. It may count for nothing, but at least I’ve tried. I fear that if I don’t do something then I’ll be fantastic at Java and SQL (as you’ve said; also two main practical subjects on my course) and be left with nowhere to go when Java eventually dies out. I give it a couple of years before other languages take control for certain applications.

Either way, thank you for your comments, and based from what you’ve written I will look further into Set Theory and Logic, perhaps even write a couple of posts about my progress with them.

IMHO set theory and logic are much more important to CS than maths and those are taught very early in school. Those subjects, and specially notation, should be reviewed and hardened during higher education and in a CS degree because they are essential for reading nearly all of the important texts that aren’t written in straight English.

It appears to me that most CS students are being taught to be code monkeys, web developers or unix administrators with loads of Math knowledge

Recently a girl, in one of the most regarded higher learning institutions here, told me she wouldn’t apply for a C++ job because her school mostly taught her Java. That’s the weirdest things I could ‘ve heard from someone doing a 5 year CS degree.

In a recent job i had contact with loads of people coming from “good” univs. and few could do a decent job designing, profiling, programming or debugging a simple applications but they all had tremendous Math skills.

If SQL + java ever goes out of fashion they’ll be stuck doing maintenance jobs forever, or maybe as maths teachers

Regardless of whether you think it is dumb it’s what thousands of standard textbooks use. It’s taken me a while to get my head around but if you know Maths then you will find other aspects of Computer Science a lot easier. I’ve managed pretty well so far, but I’ve managed to hit a number of roadblocks that have stopped me from reading academic papers or managing to fully understand books like the popular CLRS book, Introduction to Algorithms. Perhaps it’s because I’m stupid, who knows? All I know is that for students that aren’t gifted that need all the help they can get it’s a lot easier to know what everyone else uses, and that is Maths.

One of the main differences between the UK and the US is the school leaving age (16), so in order to get ready to university we go to college for two years to get A Levels. This system is broken in itself and you will find students with no A Level in Maths taking Computer Science. Another problem is that being a smaller country we have fewer higher education institutions, and in those that we do have there is a social class-divide of sorts. If you’re unfortunate to go to a new university then you’d better be prepared for a lack of resources and a curriculum that boosts employability and practical skills over theoretical knowledge. In many ways this is blatantly wrong, as even subjects like Programming are not Computer Science! Many top universities won’t even teach a ‘pure’ CS degree and will favour practical skills.

Teaching Web Design/Development in a CS degree is dumb, but so are the majority of CS programmes in the UK. At my university because the CS students make up about 5-10% of classes our needs are shifted to those who have little to no experience, bringing us further back from reaching our potential. I can’t help but feel it’s the same in a lot of other universities.

The reason I opted in for teaching Web Design/Development is because practical skills are required, and where will a lot of jobs be going in the future if the dot-com bubble decides to burst again? The Internet. If you can get a class that can program extremely well then what’s the harm in giving them a couple of weeks practice in implementing what they’ve learnt onto the web? It’s a fantastic way of getting first-year students to research using the Internet (which they’ll do anyway) and to learn how to understand basic concepts in a short amount of time. My intentions aren’t to create a load of Web Designers/Developers, but to give students a task and get them to complete it within two weeks. You may think that requires making a couple of websites, but I’d make it out to be a learning exercise to understand:

- Documentation Standards (W3C)
- A shift from programming to scripting languages, as well as implementations of languages using web frameworks (Haskell)
- A fun introduction to open source development.

In my opinion it’s stupid to not give students at least some form of direction towards the Internet. As a lecturer or professor I would want to churn out some fantastic graduates that have strong knowledge of Computer Science, yet appreciate the aspect of real work. There are so many Computer Science students that lack that notion and will clearly struggle as they apply for managerial roles straight after leaving university.

As far as already working through Linear Algebra goes, I’m yet to suffer any setbacks so far, or anything that’s required calculus. I’m over halfway through the content I’ve seen only one reference to Differential Equations and countless references to why certain aspects of Linear Algebra isn’t the same as Calculus. The sole reason I decided to do Linear Algebra first was after watching the first lecture to get a feel for it and just sticking with it.

I’ve never really ’struggled’ with Maths, just with the fact that I need more Maths than what pre-16 education had taught me. Once I am on the right path things tend to progress very smoothly.

Either way, thank you for your comment. I will restructure what I attempt and give the order you’ve proposed a try.

a friend that studied in the UK says the maths taught there in a CS course is similar to what i did in high school.

teaching web design is dumb too. let me guess you are a web site dev/designer?

My own order for those subjects is this:
1) Algebra
2) Trigonometry and pre-calculus
3) Calculus I
4) Calculus II
5) Calculus III
6) Differential Equations
7) Linear Algebra
Probability and Statistics; and Discrete Mathematics

Probability and statistics also relies pretty heavily on calculus from what I’ve seen (will take this Fall). It also surprises me that you are managing to understand Linear Algebra before algebra and pre-calc. In fact, Discrete Mathematics and even Calculus (again, see MIT syllabus) should probably come before Linear Algebra as well. I don’t mean to be a jerk here, and I would hope that you know what you’re doing.

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