The death of Computer Science education

Posted by Daniel Stout on Mon 21 Jan 2008 at 10:38 PM

Fascinating article in CrossTalk written by two retired computer science professors from NYU that asks the question Where are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow? Their assertion is that the computer science curriculum is faltering because of changes made by universities in light of declining enrollments. Dewar and Schonberg, the authors of the article, say that computer science is being dumbed down – the more difficult parts have been diminished or eliminated. Mathematics requirements for example are gradually being whittled down. Also students are increasingly being taught to make use of libraries and other code bases without understanding the underlying code. Programming language theory is also on the out.

James Maguire talked to Robert Dewar about the article and wrote about his comments. It’s perhaps a bit more accessible than the original, academically-oriented article, but you’ll get the point either way: colleges are playing a numbers game to increase enrollments in computer science programs.

Tags: computer science · curriculum · education · software engineers

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