[Discuss] OT: Do CS grads need calculus?

[bogstad at pobox.com (Bill Bogstad)]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 7:44 PM, Derek Martin <invalid at pizzashack.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 07, 2015 at 01:05:43PM -0400, Bill Ricker wrote:
>>    If you're programming Video Games, real Physics is VERY useful, and
>> knowing enough Calculus to make good approximations too.
>>    If you're in the guts of a graphics rendering engine, Trig (and
>> approximations) wins big.
>>    If you're straddling EE and CS, you need at least a little Calc to do
>> the electronics.
>>    But that's not every programmer.
>
> At age 22, when most people earn their bachelor degree, do you have
> any idea what kind of programmer you ultimately will become?  I sure
> as hell didn't imagine I'd be doing what I'm doing today, and I
> graduated later than most...
>
> The more you know, the more opportunities you will have.  Learning
> calc exposes your brain to a way of thinking you likely hadn't seen
> before that.  It expands your mind and makes thinking about certain
> classes of problems easier/more familiar.  Arguing against it suggests
> to me narrow-mindedness and/or laziness.  I don't use calc in my
> day-to-day work but I have used it on a few occasions to simplify
> certain problems.  That wouldn't have been possible for me had I not
> studied it.  Admittedly, if I needed to use it now I would fail--it's
> been way too long.  Or at least, I would need a refresher.

Nobody is saying that calculus isn't a useful subject or that learning new
things is bad.   They are just suggesting that priorities might be different
for CS majors then for Physics or EE majors where math is concerned.
I was an EE
major and Calculus was absolutely necessary for my EE classes.
I took a bunch of CS classes as well and Calculus wasn't needed for them,
but graph theory, combinatorics, etc. would have been helpful.

>> We should be changing the core math curriculum for HS & College (for
>> non-Physics/Engineering majors) to make better citizens: Probability,
>> Statistics, & Risk Management; Discrete Math.   Those are more useful to
>> Applied Computer Science students than Calculus too.
>
> My high school offered all of those; but there's only so much math you
> can fit into a high school education.  I ended up having all of those

Exactly and why should Calculus be what everyone takes after their HS
Algebra sequence?
Just because that's what was done in the past?  Sixty years ago when
this was all laid out (post WWII/start of the space race/etc.), it was
mostly true that the professions/areas of study that needed math past
Algebra all needed Calculus.  It is not clear that is still true.  Or
that they don't need some other math even more.

> in college, and I dare say that my "classical" mathematic education in
> HS served me better, at that particular period of time.  YMMV.  In my
> experience, most people who weren't bound for some form of sciences in
> college took basic math in HS... and all too often did poorly at even
> that.  Prob & stats was a niche course taken mostly by people who
> *liked math* and were bound for college but not for science.  A rare
> few indeed.

Which would now be a mistake.  You basically can't do science any more
without probability and statistics.
But you can do plenty of science without Calculus.  And you can at
least get a basic understanding of both without Calculus.

Bill Bogstad