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Math, I can see as being useful for a computer science degree. However, what would you make of chemistry?
[rant]
I didn't take any chemistry class in high school. When I applied to university, I was accepted, but was warned I had to take a chemistry class to catch up.
The class was scheduled at the same time as one of my math courses. I brought up my scheduling conflict issue to the teachers from the respective classes, who in turn told me to talk to the university administration; admin told me to take it up with my teachers.
That's when, as a kid, I finally realized that higher education is actually run like any for-profit business. They'll accept anyone and be glad to take your money, even knowing you can't possibly be at two lectures that are taking place at the same time; as long as you pay up, they're happy to watch you drop out. Realizing that, I told them to go f*ck themselves for wasting a year of my life and thousands of dollars, went to college for 3 years instead, and aced it.
I'm now into my 40s, and still haven't to this day figured out which part of any of the jobs I've had since would've benefited from me knowing anything about chemistry.
[/rant]
(yeah, after this much time, I'm still kinda bitter about it)
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I went to a few different schools. All of them required a physical science for CS. Chemistry was an option for that requirement, but you could also take physics, astronomy, geology, etc. Amusingly, most of the kids on the games track in CS (officially called Graphics & Multimedia) took geology for their physical science requirement, for which they were frequently mocked by the teacher who taught all the games courses.
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RASPeter wrote: All of them required a physical science for CS. Chemistry was an option for that requirement, but you could also take physics, astronomy, geology, etc
In highschool, I had science classes (grades 9 and 10), biology (grades 9 and 10), and physics (grades 11 through 13), and, if I recall correctly, at least 2 math courses per semester (at advanced levels) from grades 9 through 13.
The university computer science program still wanted me to take chemistry.
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I had biology and chemistry in high school, but the reality is that high school courses aren't equivalent to college courses (not even the AP courses which can give college credit).
I started out as an electrical engineering major, which quite reasonably does require chemistry (as does computer engineering). If I'm honest, part of my decision to switch to computer science was that I wouldn't have to take chemistry, so I totally understand your frustration. I don't mind the subject itself, but all the chemistry teachers I've met have been arrogant jerks.
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RASPeter wrote: I had biology and chemistry in high school, but the reality is that high school courses aren't equivalent to college courses
Right. But my point is, the computer science course offered by the university didn't include any chemistry class. I only had to take a chemistry class (which is outside their computer science curriculum) because I hadn't taken any while in high school.
20+ years later, I still think it's pretty lame.
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I did sum maths - in addition to the computer stuff. It divided the class but i'm positive it was integral to the course. Multiple students failed, and that's what differentiated them.
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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I did Electrical Engineering at Uni, the problem was the Engineering Dept taught maths to the Engineering students all was good the Maths lot take over as Engineer are not competent to teach maths, all but 5 people had to resit the maths. As others have said the Comp Sci programs tend to be in the maths faculty and so the math people seem to think you maths & more maths to pass. I have really only had to solve quadratic & simultaneous equations in anger (bit of cosine when playing woth RF waves...) no real need for half the stuff they rave about!
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Nothing specific to CS. All branches of Engineering - Mechanical, Civil, Aero, Electrical, Chemical, Instrumentation, etc. have significant amount of math at the University level. Being a Mechanical Engineer, my math focus was more on differential equations, whereas MIT[^] gives an entirely different focus for CS.
modified 11-Dec-14 23:00pm.
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During my CS course I learned mathematics for 5 semesters and loved it....then again it is a heredity thing i guess as my father is a mathematics teacher...
Zen and the art of software maintenance : rm -rf *
Maths is like love : a simple idea but it can get complicated.
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I think the Science part of CS is a clue.  Much of what we know as CS has it's roots in branches of science very close to mathematics and seriously pre-dates most modern computers. For a less maths centric approach, I would suggest a related field of study, not CS. You can't water down CS by going easy on the maths, but you can avoid too much maths by choosing a less academic and theoretical field of study.
No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly. - Oscar Wilde
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Computer science is mostly about discrete mathematics, and the rest is about continuous mathematics.
So without maths there wouldn't really be anything to learn.
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Take into consideration that the persons responsible for developing the cirriculum are the same ones who may have been involved in the initial development of computer systems. When I started in the industry, the Computer Science degree courses didn't exist. In order to approach a computer system, you hade to have a degree in engineering (which explains the need for hard sciences and mathematics).
By comparison, low level training for electricians include courses in logic circuits and logic reduction/substitution.
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My bachelor's degree program (class of 1984, computer engineering, Wright State University, go Raiders!) included 28 credit hours of math out of a 205 hour curriculum. This was 20 hours of calculus, 3 hours of matrix algebra, and a 5 hour course in differential equations. I've used the matrix algebra once, over a three month period, about 28 years ago. The part of my brain that stored that math education has been reformatted and now stores lines from old movies.
The useful part of my math education was the vast amount of practice in learning how to identify, reason about, and solve problems. Everything we do is one of the infamous "word problems" that everyone in math classes despise.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Depending on the field you choose, I'm working in robotics and industrial automation and even mostly of the time maths are not needed, sometimes you can find really hard things to solve...
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There's lots of paths to success out there.
Math may not be necessary to be successful in the CS field but actually neither is formal education in CS (many readers cringing). I have a degree in math and write programs for a living (C# and Fortran) to perform mathematically based functions. It depends on what the focus of your programming is. In some areas it would be vital.
Mostly I liken it to calisthenics for the mind. Give me 2 programmers with equal CS background and I would take the one that has a stronger math aptitude. But, I am clearly biased.
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Mathematics is the language of science and logic. Understanding it can make your understanding of the language of programming much easier.
As for my own studies, since I hold a bachelor's degree in Mathematical Sciences and a master's degree in Statistics, I would say definitely I learned a lot of math in my studies and it was very instrumental in my learning of programming in general. Granted, my first programming gig was primarily because I was a statistician first and programmer second (I worked for a software house that produced mathematical and statistical libraries).
Christopher Reed
"The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient."
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The only math you need to know is that arrays start at 0.
Except when they start at 1.
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Some of it is the process taught in mathematics (or any branch of science, I suppose): how to properly analyze a problem, hypothesize, test, and re-work your hypothesis if the tests don't meet expectations.
So, not so much the actual mathematics, for most developers, but that process is important. It does seem as if the developers I've come across (nearing 30 years now) with a scientific background tend to create stronger solutions than those who came out of the CIS-type side from the business college.
On the other hand, sometimes the scientifically-minded people will create architectural 'masterpieces' where a simple solution would suffice. I suppose there's room for both in the world, depending on the needs of your employer/client.
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They need to teach problem solving. The problem with most ways of teaching problem solving is grading the solution. The solution to that problem is use mathematics, it's easy to grade and it's easy to come up with problems to solve. I've used mathematics when the problem domain requires it, otherwise not so much. Not that I had too but I took, and passed, 2 years of calculus and 1 year of calculus based physics. The most useful courses I took, outside of CS, were the anthropology courses.
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All those math gives the basis to understand the "cool" things.
I think for people that asks "why" more than "how to" cook recipes, those math is a must and very welcome.
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I have studied both mathematics and computing to degree level and beyond, though I am more of a mathematician who programs as a hobby. To be honest you don't have to be a great mathematician to be a good programmer. What 'mathematics' most programmers use is basic logic and numeracy ('basic' as in 'foundational' though not necessarily easy, i.e. taught in the first year of an undergraduate maths degree or even highschool). Mathematics largely consists of other things, however, such as differential equations, many of which are derived and solved intuitively, rather than according to some rigorous logic. The best mathematicians also have good intuition and will not attempt some slow logical chain of arguments to solve a problem which can be solved by instinct (and may be insolvable by application of rigorous logic). For example, Schrodinger's wave equation can not be entirely derived mathematically or logically, it is partially an intuitive 'guess' which works. Computing requires a more rigid logical framework than mathematics. Furthermore, the only areas I have found that really make use of some of my more advanced mathematics are 3D graphics and mathematical applications that solve mathematical problems. Nevertheless, mathematics is useful - it helps with understanding algorithm optimisation, manipulation of 3D vectors and matrices (for graphical apps), binary and basic manipulation of algebraic equations and numeracy. However, there are good mathematicians who are bad at programming and good programmers who are bad at mathematics. It really depends on one's own particular niche.
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Things like logic and discrete math apply directly to CS. But calculus not so much, unless you're doing certain types of programming. I had to take calculus and I've never, ever used it, I've used some trig but no calculus. These days I couldn't integrate something with a gun to my head.
CS is historically a branch of mathematics, so I think that's where the pre-reqs come from. But unlike, say, physics or engineering, you don't really use calculus in CS. I'm not opposed to requiring CS majors to take math, but it should be math that is relevant to CS, specifically logic. Honestly, the symbolic logic classes I took in the philosophy department were more relevant to CS than the math classes.
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I'm glad I had it. It sharpens the mind and although I may have not directly applied the higher level of mathematics. Higher level of mathematics helped me memorize the lower level ones, which I directly used in several projects.
I think it's very important to have it, because mathematics is not as easy to learn on demand, through books and you should be prepared if the need comes by.
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson
----
Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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At the college I went to, we had tons of math involved in CS. So much so, that all I had to take was 2 extra math classes outside of the CS curriculum and I had minor in Math (which is what I did since, hell, it was only 2 extra classes!)
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