Why do CS students have to take the same math as math majors?

[dcvg]

I don't understand stand why they make CS students take the same math courses as Math majors whereas they have an entirely separate version for engineering, sciences and arts. I have seen the math people in engineerng and sciences take and it so much easier than what I have to take. Wouldn't it be appropriate to have Math designed for CS or atleast give us a choice to take the Science or Engineering math?

[[Gandalf]]

CS is a branch of math, happily or sadly enough.

[DemonWasp]

The Math taught to CS students includes proofs and is therefore more rigorous (this is a clever word meaning "difficult" but also "useful"). Engineering math tends to skirt around proofs of theorems ("they exist, trust me") and head straight for the applications. This isn't a problem for them because engineering is all about applying those formulas / theorems to the project at hand in the correct way (this isn't meant to be demeaning - it's certainly not easy work). Computer science students, on the other hand, are expected to understand proofs because they may well have to prove things themselves, such as:
- Prove that their code works.
- Prove that their code runs in a given amount of time.
- Prove that their code doesn't do silly things like edit memory it doesn't own.
- Prove that their code doesn't cause any security faults.

Knowledge of formal proofs is very helpful to professional programmers and computer scientists (note that there is a distinction).

Take comfort in the fact that while your peers may know how they may not know why.

[jbking]

Are you forgetting that CS is part of the Faculty of Mathematics? That alone makes it quite different from arts, sciences and engineers, at least to my mind.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

You should consider the possibility that part of the reputation of Waterloo CS is due to the amount of "real" math taken by its students, and their consequent ability to deal with abstraction.

I've had instructors in upper-year CS courses tell me that software engineering students (who take some of the "easier" Engineering math courses) are enthusiastic and smart but struggle because of lack of said ability.

The amount of math required used to be even larger (essentially two full years of algebra and calculus, plus several additional "of your choice" Math credits). It was a matter of some controversy when the requirements were reduced in order to fit in more CS courses. You, too, dcvg, in your 4B term, will be decrying any change to requirements and talk about how the place is going to the dogs because these newer students just can't cut it.

[Euphoracle]

The first Algebra midterm really kicked my butt, but I like UW's approach in particular because it's challenging and (gasp) new. I can see myself taking more math courses than required because I'm kind of enjoying it. Algebra's kicking my butt hard though because I'm used to doing things informally, skipping steps and taking shortcuts; that does not work in this course as I have learned. It'll take some work to break these habits but I'm glad I'll be getting this over and done with in first year, first term, before the material starts getting hard.

[cwarrior]

How much math is really necessary? and how much of it will actually be used in the work-field?

[Superskull85]

In the McMaster Computer Science program I have to take an Engineering Mathematics as one of my math courses. However, that is because at McMaster, Computer Science is apart of the Engineering facility.

My professor does show the theorems, and such, but the course overall does focus on the application, and how to use the theory a lot more.

I guess it depends which facility Computer Science is listed under for a specific school.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

cwarrior @ Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:48 pm wrote:

How much math is really necessary? and how much of it will actually be used in the work-field?

It's not so much that the math is "necessary" or "directly applied", but that the problem-solving skills exercised by it are general. Engineers learn "useful" math, for example, how to solve a certain form of differential equation that arises in a particular context. And as long as they're faced with standard situations, that's fine. But when something new comes along, they face a challenge. They will respond that that's when they go out and hire a mathematician, but in reality they'll just apply some approximate hack and a lot of putty. Computer scientists can't afford to lean on standard situations, because the field evolves too fast. The brain exercise afforded by math trains them for new situations. And, as a bonus, a lot of the math does come in handy. Probability and statistics, for example, are relevant for spam filtering, apps which adapt to user behaviour, targetting information to individuals, and clustering to discover trends or potential problems in their infancy, to name just the first applications which spring to my mind.