College CompSci today

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

The world has changed a lot since my college days. I'm curious--when
a freshman begins an Information Technology program, what do they
assume the kid already knows from high school, and what do they teach
in the first introductory courses?

Do they teach Assembler today for either Z series or x86 or some other
architecture? Are any classics taught, like COBOL, Fortran, or
mainframe principles?


Indeed, are students in other fields required to already know how to
_properly_ use a word processor, spreadsheet, email, etc.?

In my day, they taught Fortran first. Theorectically, a student could
know nothing, but they moved along pretty quickly. Many students
already knew from high school or on their own how to work a keypunch
and some basic principles of programming. Those that did not had to
hustle to learn those things fast to keep up.

(Likewise with freshman calculus. They went along fast, and it helped
if a student had studied it in high school. Those students who had an
_excellent_ grasp of calculus could place out of a semester.)

[Walter Bushell]

In article
<04cf2cfc-a147-42da...@o8g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>,

One of my high school teachers commented that it was not necessarily
an advantage to have too solid a background, as you could get used to
hanging in the student union and other time wasters instead of getting
good study habits from the get go.

--
This space unintentionally left blank.

[Joe Pfeiffer]

hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:

> The world has changed a lot since my college days. I'm curious--when
> a freshman begins an Information Technology program, what do they
> assume the kid already knows from high school, and what do they teach
> in the first introductory courses?

First, IT isn't CS. IT is administration of computational resources; CS
is how computers work. Where I taught IT is not only in a different
department, it's in a whole different college (IT is in Business, CS is
in Arts and Sciences). I was in CS, so that's what I'll address.

> Do they teach Assembler today for either Z series or x86 or some other
> architecture? Are any classics taught, like COBOL, Fortran, or
> mainframe principles?

Assembler, yes. Not x86, since that's an order of magnitude more
complicated than is needed to get the concepts across; we used to teach
HC11, and it's now taught on Arduino. I don't think the department
taught COBOL when I started in 1984; I don't remember when Fortran went
away. Lower division classes are mainly in Java, upper division in C.

> Indeed, are students in other fields required to already know how to
> _properly_ use a word processor, spreadsheet, email, etc.?
>
> In my day, they taught Fortran first. Theorectically, a student could
> know nothing, but they moved along pretty quickly. Many students
> already knew from high school or on their own how to work a keypunch
> and some basic principles of programming. Those that did not had to
> hustle to learn those things fast to keep up.

We weren't able to assume any previous knowledge at all. I never taught
a class at lower than sophomore level (and the only sophomore class I
ever taught was assembly programming), but there was still a huge
variation in background in the incoming students.

[Quadibloc]

On Nov 13, 7:26 pm, hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> Do they teach Assembler today for either Z series

Probably not, given that Computer Architecture: A Quantitative
Approach dropped the 360 after the first edition. Today, zSystem is
more obscure than the Itanium.

I suspect they still teach Pascal, though, even if some trendier
schools are doing Java instead as a first language.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Nov 13, 7:26 pm, hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> Many students
> already knew from high school or on their own how to work a keypunch

I don't think I ever *saw* a keypunch before my first year FORTRAN
course except perhaps through glass windows while accompanying my
mother to pay a utility bill or some such thing.

John Savard

[Joe Pfeiffer]

I would be very surprised to hear of a school that still taught Pascal,
even as an elective.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Nov 24, 9:08 am, Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

> > Many students
> > already knew from high school or on their own how to work a keypunch
>
> I don't think I ever *saw* a keypunch before my first year FORTRAN
> course except perhaps through glass windows while accompanying my
> mother to pay a utility bill or some such thing.

One of the things about a tech program at a college is that the
students come in with a variety of backgrounds. At my college, some
students, through various means, already knew Fortran and JCL very
well, whle others, as you said, never had any contact with a computer
at all. The same thing with other courses. Many students had some
calculus in high school, some did well enough to place out of some
freshman terms, but for some others it was brand new. Likewise with
chemistry and physics.

IMHO, tech students are naturally curious and in high school seek out
opportunities to learn. They may be in advanced classes that are more
thorough or attend good high schools. Others (I knew many like this)
had parents working in industry and they would go in on weekends and
experiment with lab equipment, computers, etc. Some students visited
nearby colleges and got part-time jobs working for professors (I knew
some who did keypunching and simple programming).

I sensed that some (many?) tech students sought summer jobs in their
field (eg lab assistant) as opposed to working at the mall or at the
seashore.

At good tech college, they move quickly in the freshman core courses.
It is not a requirement that students have past experience in the
subjects, but for those who do not, they have to move fast to keep up.
(In our freshman Fortran, we had to figure out the keypunch machines
on our own. Those who knew it already helped those who didn't.)

As mentioned, some colleges take a 'sink or swim' attitude toward
freshmen struggling in their classes. Others provide more support and
safety nets.

At liberal arts colleges, other classes are used as a litmus test. I
heard freshman English Composition is such a course at some schools.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Nov 14, 12:25 am, Joe Pfeiffer <pfeif...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:


> First, IT isn't CS.  IT is administration of computational resources; CS
> is how computers work.  Where I taught IT is not only in a different
> department, it's in a whole different college (IT is in Business, CS is
> in Arts and Sciences).

That's a good point

Years ago there wasn't too much developed overall in computer science
education, and what they're was was mostly oriented toward what is
called "CS" above.

Schools started more "IT" courses, using various names (eg EDP),
taught by the business college as part of a Bus Adm degree. This
included core business courses as well as various programming and
system design courses. I understand now more sophisticated system
design and information handling are offered, kind of an outgrowth of
library science.

[William Hamblen]

University of Pennsylvania was using Java when my nephew was doing his
first programming course there several years ago.

Bud