64% of UK students studying Computer Science did not study A-level Mathematics...

How on earth do these students cope?? They are either a) attending a poor institution which is dishing out pieces of paper for money (because sorry, without A-level Mathematics, no one will do well in a respectable CompSci degree) or b) struggling appallingly with their subject.

Personally, I think it is more likely to be the former unfortunately, given that the more respected universities request A-level Mathematics as a pre-requisite to any application.

How do we get more kids to take Maths to 18? Perhaps make it compulsory? There are obviously downsides to that, but at a time when many developing countries are far better, as a whole, in Mathematics maybe it's time to bite the bullet and catch up?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23243533

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 1

anonymouse01

I want to do Computer Science... But I'm dropping Mathematics as I don't think I c3 and c4 are worth the hassle
Why do you hate me

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Reply 2

noone29

OP

14

Original post by anonymouse01

I want to do Computer Science... But I'm dropping Mathematics as I don't think I c3 and c4 are worth the hassle
Why do you hate me

Posted from TSR iPad. Don't judge me by my red gems

I don't hate you but any respected CompSci degree is Maths heavy. I just feel for a course to truly be called the Science of Computing it really does need to have a Mathematical base, which many students will not have or be used to if they have not studied Maths to A2.

Reply 3

nexttime

22

The importance of high-level mathematics in a variety of subjects was definitely something i really noticed once at university.

Reply 4

bahjat93

19

Original post by noone29

How on earth do these students cope?? They are either a) attending a poor institution which is dishing out pieces of paper for money (because sorry, with A-level Mathematics, no one will do well in a respectable CompSci degree) or b) struggling appallingly with their subject.

Personally, I think it is more likely to be the former unfortunately, given that the more respected universities request A-level Mathematics as a pre-requisite to any application.

How do we get more kids to take Maths to 18? Perhaps make it compulsory? There are obviously downsides to that, but at a time when many developing countries are far better, as a whole, in Mathematics maybe it's time to bite the bullet and catch up?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23243533

It's well worth noting that there are far more "un-respected" unis compared to the respected ones!
And i strongly believe you need maths to go into any respected engineering field

Reply 5

Rarrgh

12

I know many people who do a Computer Science degree who haven't taken maths past GCSE levels and they do well. Yes knowing maths is very useful, but they teach what you need at 1st year of uni. Many of the people I know who can't do or didn't do the maths where just very good programmers already or were good at logic and just didn't want to do maths back then.

It's like saying you can't do a Computer Science degree without knowing how to code but again they teach it.

Reply 6

miser

20

It's quite possible to do a computer science degree without being exposed to the maths before hand. Either they will teach you the maths or you will teach it to yourself. If it was essential, they would require it.

Reply 7

Unkempt_One

13

What the above two said.

Reply 8

Blutooth

16

This may be true of many computer science degrees, but if you hadn't studied maths to A-level and (hypothetically) started at Oxford you would fail the course, and probably leave after the first 2 weeks. What does this mean? The courses must vary quite drastically between institutions, to the point where those at Oxford, Imperial, Cambridge etc. are really not studying the same degree as those at the institutions that don't require A-level maths.

Reply 9

rmhumphries

17

Original post by noone29

How on earth do these students cope?? They are either a) attending a poor institution which is dishing out pieces of paper for money (because sorry, without A-level Mathematics, no one will do well in a respectable CompSci degree) or b) struggling appallingly with their subject.

Personally, I think it is more likely to be the former unfortunately, given that the more respected universities request A-level Mathematics as a pre-requisite to any application.

How do we get more kids to take Maths to 18? Perhaps make it compulsory? There are obviously downsides to that, but at a time when many developing countries are far better, as a whole, in Mathematics maybe it's time to bite the bullet and catch up?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23243533

When I was in Nottingham, then Maths is recommended, however if you don't have it, there are extra classes during first year to get you up to speed.

Reply 10

fat_hobbit

2

Original post by noone29

How on earth do these students cope?? They are either a) attending a poor institution which is dishing out pieces of paper for money (because sorry, without A-level Mathematics, no one will do well in a respectable CompSci degree) or b) struggling appallingly with their subject.

Personally, I think it is more likely to be the former unfortunately, given that the more respected universities request A-level Mathematics as a pre-requisite to any application.

How do we get more kids to take Maths to 18? Perhaps make it compulsory? There are obviously downsides to that, but at a time when many developing countries are far better, as a whole, in Mathematics maybe it's time to bite the bullet and catch up?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23243533

a) Not all CS degrees need it.

b) The maths in the places that do need it, tends to be too theoretical and not relevant to computing. And often people drop out or complain because they are not getting enough hands on experience.

c) The maths needed on a good CS degree, does not require AL maths. As Computing maths is largely based on decision mathematics if anything. Set theory, boolean logic and so forth

d) The institutions that dont require it, often teach the foundation of the maths needed in the earlier years.

e) It was only recently it became a pre-requisite. I remember when I was applying for CS, places such as Queen Mary (UoL) didn't require it, Institutes such as Edinburgh DID recommend you doing it, and its only because they would force you to minor in mathematics.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 11

ParadoxSocks

22

I went to Notts uni for CS and it was very maths heavy. Most students had A level maths and we took a maths for CS class in the first year too. Those without A level maths attended additional weekly tutorials and were supported throughout the course. The admissions officers must have decided that they had sufficient talents elsewhere to be able to cope with learning maths alongside the regular content. If anything I think those studying CS without maths are crazy brave.

Also, the only people I know that have graduated with a CS degree and are in well paid graduate job are those from ex-polys. CS is one of those degrees where practical experience of the subject is just as beneficial as academic experience. Don't write the lower table courses off as entirely useless. It's what you make of yourself at uni that matters.

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Reply 12

edjunkie

15

Whilst Maths is useful it is not essential. It very much depends how the course is structured. Some courses choose to cover discrete maths in great depth in the first year, rather than assume that you know it already. For those who are unprepared, it can be struggle, for others it just builds on their underlying maths knowledge.

Equally being good at maths does not necessarily mean you will be good at Computer Science, there is a lot more to computing than algorithms.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 13

fat_hobbit

2

Original post by Blutooth

This may be true of many computer science degrees, but if you hadn't studied maths to A-level and (hypothetically) started at Oxford you would fail the course, and probably leave after the first 2 weeks. What does this mean? The courses must vary quite drastically between institutions, to the point where those at Oxford, Imperial, Cambridge etc. are really not studying the same degree as those at the institutions that don't require A-level maths.

I am not sure about Oxford.

But I know with Edinburgh, the actual math content on the CS modules wasn't high 0 it was only math intensive because they would make you minor in pure maths which was run by the mathematics department.

On the flip side, a lot of students that I know who have gone to these institutes complain that they are not getting practical computing experience, but are too bogged down with the theory. Hence, little-no healthy balance.

So to be honest, one can argue, that you are defining quality the wrong way.

Reply 14

fat_hobbit

2

Original post by ParadoxSocks

Also, the only people I know that have graduated with a CS degree and are in well paid graduate job are those from ex-polys. CS is one of those degrees where practical experience of the subject is just as beneficial as academic experience. Don't write the lower table courses off as entirely useless. It's what you make of yourself at uni that matters.

Posted from TSR Mobile

There you go.

And you are right,

I went to Aberdeen, a good ancient university, not top tier like the Imperials. We had guys from Edinburgh and St Andrews dropping out of their courses to attend Aberdeen, because it had the perfect balance between maths and practicality.

A lot of my peers have gone onto work for decent companies. Rare, Youtube - I am employed as well.

The maths we did was all the decision/discrete maths, and when we did modules, they only taught the maths we needed to know that was relevant for that module. For example, when I did data mining, I learnt the statistics as part of the course. If I didn't do the data mining module I wouldnt have to learn it. Any additional maths was done on a need to know bases.

Despite this, many failed. It was still a tough course.

I also knew another guy, who went to Imperial, that complained that he spent half his time doing maths, and regretted ever going there. He got a 3rd.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 15

fat_hobbit

2

Original post by edjunkie

Equally being good at maths does not necessarily mean you will be good at Computer Science, there is a lot more to computing than algorithms.

In the commercial world too, you also probably would never need to use half of it either. Unless you work on Scientific/Financial software, even then, the maths is on a need to know bases.

Reply 16

Blutooth

16

Original post by fat_hobbit

I am not sure about Oxford.

But I know with Edinburgh, the actual math content on the CS modules wasn't high 0 it was only math intensive because they would make you minor in pure maths which was run by the mathematics department.

On the flip side, a lot of students that I know who have gone to these institutes complain that they are not getting practical computing experience, but are too bogged down with the theory. Hence, little-no healthy balance.

So to be honest, one can argue, that you are defining quality the wrong way.

I am not defining quality in any way. I am just reporting on my experiences. At Oxford, you would not cope with the mathematical content, having not done A-level maths. This is for many reasons. There are joint courses with the maths department that are compulsory, for instance: Probability. Other computing modules like Design and Analysis of Algorithms also has a very strong mathematical flavour.

We do have compulsory practicals for all of our computing modules, and we also get a lot of hands on experience. I would say that the degree is more of a study in some of the fundamental aspects of computing, e.g. graph based searches, data structures, concurrency, high-level logic, quantum computing.. rather than an exercise in programming. Here, we are expected to do programming (for further practice) over the holidays. There are also more programming-oriented modules like databases, but we can happily mix and match.

Reply 17

fat_hobbit

2

Original post by Blutooth

I am not defining quality in any way. I am just reporting on my experiences. At Oxford, you would not cope with the mathematical content, having not done A-level maths. This is for many reasons. There are joint courses with the maths department that are compulsory, for instance: Probability. Other computing modules like Design and Analysis of Algorithms also has a very strong mathematical flavour.

We do have compulsory practicals for all of our computing modules, and we also get a lot of hands on experience. I would say that the degree is more of a study in some of the fundamental aspects of computing, e.g. graph based searches, data structures, concurrency, high-level logic, quantum computing.. rather than an exercise in programming. Here, we are expected to do programming (for further practice) over the holidays. There are also more programming-oriented modules like databases, but we can happily mix and match.

Oxford and Cambridge to be honest is another level to most universities. Even for arts subject - they are worked extremely hard in comparison to most undergrads, including Russell group ones.

I doubt many many undergraduates can hack it there. So I respect any CS grad to come out from there with a good honours degree.

I can only really comment about UGs who went to Edinburgh, St Andrews, because they came onto my course.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 18

Alex-Torres

15

Original post by noone29

I don't hate you but any respected CompSci degree is Maths heavy. I just feel for a course to truly be called the Science of Computing it really does need to have a Mathematical base, which many students will not have or be used to if they have not studied Maths to A2.