Re: Social Computering vs. Computer Science

I think this change is already reflected on many campuses. Frequently there is a Computer Science department usually containing many people interested in the theorem and proof side of algorithms. On the same campus there is often another deparment called Computer Information Systems or Management Information Systems containing people deeply committed to teaching work skills for the IT sector. Even at schools that don't make the distinction by maintaining separate departments, there are often two programs of study.

I light of these distinctions, you can simply ask someone what they studied (or if they studied) and learn a lot about how precise they intend to be about which things.

Phil

Comment on Re: Social Computering vs. Computer Science

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Social Computering vs. Computer Science by ickyb0d (Monk) on Nov 21, 2005 at 22:38 UTC
I actually recently graduated with a degree in computer engineering (i assume it's close enough to a CS degree). And they did offer classes such as Managment Information Systems and so on, but I never ended up taking any of the more IT type classes. With any college, they always want you to be well rounded. So not only was i required to take scientific classes (physics, numerical methods, formal logic) but i was also required to take social classes as well (sociology, epistemology, introduction to psychology). I think these classes are required to just better understand how people react to various things and situations. If you are better at understanding people, then you should be better at creating user interfaces, and applications that people are going to use right?. At this point in time, i would say that there aren't specific enough fields to have everything separated as you might like. This is why it's probably better to get into a little bit of everything. If computer science didn't require social computering... then we might as well just have robots doing all of the programming for us :).	[reply]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.

Re^2: Social Computering vs. Computer Science
by ickyb0d (Monk) on Nov 21, 2005 at 22:38 UTC

I actually recently graduated with a degree in computer engineering (i assume it's close enough to a CS degree). And they did offer classes such as Managment Information Systems and so on, but I never ended up taking any of the more IT type classes.

With any college, they always want you to be well rounded. So not only was i required to take scientific classes (physics, numerical methods, formal logic) but i was also required to take social classes as well (sociology, epistemology, introduction to psychology). I think these classes are required to just better understand how people react to various things and situations. If you are better at understanding people, then you should be better at creating user interfaces, and applications that people are going to use right?.

At this point in time, i would say that there aren't specific enough fields to have everything separated as you might like. This is why it's probably better to get into a little bit of everything. If computer science didn't require social computering... then we might as well just have robots doing all of the programming for us :).

[reply]