[plug] [OT] After Year 12

[Bernard Blackham]

On Tue, Aug 03, 2004 at 09:45:21PM +0800, Craig Ringer wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-08-03 at 17:49, Cameron Patrick wrote:
> > I'm inclined to recommend /not/ doing computer science at uni.  If
> > you're good enough at programming to do well in the AIC, I would
> > imagine that you'd find formally studying CS a bit dull.  (Admittedly,
> > I'm not speaking from experience here, but from what I've heard from
> > others, CS at UWA and Murdoch isn't that great.)
> 
> I know too many people who came out of CS (at least at UWA) boasting
> about how they managed to spend three years NOT learning programming to
> take it particularly seriously ;-) 

If I could've done 3 years of 3rd yr CS units at UWA, I might've
been happier. Admittedly, 1st & 2nd year were rather forgettable,
and then you get thrown some more interesting stuff.

Or reasons to do maths of some description - people (claiming to be)
in the know once told me that if IBM were to choose between an
otherwise equal CS graduate or Maths graduate, they'd pick the Maths
graduate every time, because they know that CS degrees are largely a
joke.

Personally, I'm doing 3rd yr CS/Maths/EE at UWA, and looking forward
to some interesting units - there's a third year maths unit Codes
and Ciphers, which seems to attract a lot of CS students
(unsurprisingly) and gets generally good feedback. (If you are
interested in the maths).

Some universities (not in Perth :( ) will let you pass on 1st and
some of 2nd year CS (particularly with something like Informatics
behind you), though you may need to fly to East or overseas for the
privilege.

Bernard.

-- 
 Bernard Blackham <bernard at blackham dot com dot au>