Engineering v.s. Arts
I’m a Computer Science major in the College of Arts and Sciences. We have the same CS curriculum as the engineers do, save different prerequisites. I, for example, had to master a language, and take social and arts courses to augment my CS studies. We all had to pass the infamous “swim test,” which is really like throwing ping-pong balls into water to see if they float or not, and take at least two semesters of pass-fail Physical Education.
If you ask an Engineer, the Arts CS students are weaklings who chose an easier path. If you ask the Arts students, Engineers are fearless nerds with no appreciation for formal structure. There’s little actual rivalry, and more talk than anything. Personally, I appreciated the ability to take non-engineering courses to round my personality as opposed to the more rigid engineering core requirements. From 32 classes, the CS undergraduate degree requires four in introductory programming and data structures, two in machine architecture, four in computer science theory and math, and four of your own choice, in addition to the four calculus and linear algebra math courses required. That’s more than half of coursework there, tied into the major by sheer requirement.
| This entry was posted on Sunday, May 21st, 2006 at 3:21 pm and is tagged with computer science theory, ping pong balls, cs studies, cs curriculum, machine architecture, math courses, linear algebra, introductory programming, cs students, weaklings, formal structure, arts students, undergraduate degree, engineering courses, college of arts and sciences, core requirements, data structures, physical education, nerds, semesters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback. |
6 Responses to “Engineering v.s. Arts”
Leave a Reply
The CS math requirement for Arts students is arguably much more rigorous. Compare Math 293 with 223, or even 221.
The Arts math block, 121, 122, 221, 222, and Engineering math 191, 192, 293, 294 cover essentially the same material, as far as I know. Arts is more proofs, Engineering more calculation?
Sounds about right. But can you plug proofs into your calculator?
Do you know that IBM is conducting a contest named as The Great Mind Challenge for the students of Engg Colleges and MCA institutes in India. It will help the students to work on IBM middleware and get an opportunity to get selectedd by some of the best employers in the country
arts students take the easy way out
“can you plug proofs into your calculator?”
you aren’t allowed to use calculators in the 191-294 courses. (on exams).
Eng. cs students are required to take physics, which is very difficult