Why would IT companies hire someone with BS in mathematics or physics?

StatGuy2000

On the OP's point, my guess is that IT companies are interested in those who can demonstrate programming and analytical/problem solving skills, as opposed to those with a particular certificate or degree. People who graduate with a math or physics degree (and also those who graduate with an engineering or computer science degree) have these skills (or should have these skills).

Now on a second note, this thread (like other threads about computer science), computer science is not synonymous with programming. Theoretical computer science, after all, is a mathematical science devoted to the study of algorithms and the nature of computation -- you can spend your time doing research in this area without doing any programming whatsoever.

That being said, I find it frankly hard to believe that there are people who graduate with a CS degree who are unable to do even basic programming, since every CS graduate that I have ever met were more than capable programmers.

bcrowell

Quote by StatGuy2000

That being said, I find it frankly hard to believe that there are people who graduate with a CS degree who are unable to do even basic programming, since every CS graduate that I have ever met were more than capable programmers.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/200...s-program.html

mdxyz

Because "computer science" isn't really a discipline, like a skill that you learn by rote and then you are a "computer scientist".

To take the example from the "Coding Horrorstories" article posted earlier:

After a fair bit of trial and error I've discovered that people who struggle to code don't just struggle on big problems, or even smallish problems (i.e. write a implementation of a linked list). They struggle with tiny problems.

So I set out to develop questions that can identify this kind of developer and came up with a class of questions I call "FizzBuzz Questions" named after a game children often play (or are made to play) in schools in the UK. An example of a Fizz-Buzz question is the following:

Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print "Fizz" instead of the number and for the multiples of five print "Buzz". For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print "FizzBuzz".

Most good programmers should be able to write out on paper a program which does this in a under a couple of minutes. Want to know something scary? The majority of comp sci graduates can't. I've also seen self-proclaimed senior programmers take more than 10-15 minutes to write a solution.

The difficulty in this, such as it is, is not in syntax or understanding how computers work, it's the capacity for abstract reasoning and independent problem-solving. The best CS grads are probably as good as the best physics and maths grads at this, but the best physics and maths grads are certainly better than the majority of the CS grad pool.

StatGuy2000

Quote by mdxyz

The difficulty in this, such as it is, is not in syntax or understanding how computers work, it's the capacity for abstract reasoning and independent problem-solving. The best CS grads are probably as good as the best physics and maths grads at this, but the best physics and maths grads are certainly better than the majority of the CS grad pool.

I suppose I have always expected CS graduates (like graduates in math, science or engineering programs) to have the capacity for abstract reasoning and independent problem-solving that you highlight

Now I may be mistaken about this, but the fact that so many who graduate from CS programs don't possess these abilities suggests to me that there is a serious problem with how the curriculum is taught in many schools.

As an aside, many of the people I know who graduated from a CS program often either double-majored with math or pursued minors in math, physics or another scientific field, so my sample population is highly skewed.

Lavabug

For my sake, I hope employers in programming look upon physics graduates as favorably as in this thread.

I had no formal programming until my 3rd year, where I had to learn to use LabView for a lab course and had to build some virtual devices with it, essentially "pictorial programming". This is where I learned the basics of loops and logic.

The semester immediately after that I had a 'numerical methods' course where I did all the basic stuff you can do with a high level language(scilab, a freeware matlab): linear algebra, ODE's, integration, and some Monte Carlo.

I found it really easy to transition to Fortran for my senior project. I have trouble believing I am better equipped to code better than even a bottom end CS grad. Everything I can do probably falls under recursion; churning out some numbers to a file and plotting them.

NemoReally

My experience backs up what some of the others have said - it's how you think and deal with problems that counts. My BSc is in astrophysics and I had no problems getting computer/engineering job offers when many of my CS and engineering friends were struggling. One company offered me a starting salary band that they normally reserved for PhD-level CS or maths entrants, based on a combination of aptitude tests and both team and individual problem solving (I didn't believe it either!

). One of my first observations once I'd got a job was that many of the more flexible systems engineers turned out to be mathematicians or physicists. I suspect one reason is that physics and maths tend to proportionately attract more people who say things like "Ooh. That's interesting." or "Why does that happen?" or "I wonder what happens if I do this? mu ha ha ha." than does engineering or CS - which are seen as a sensible career paths and may therefore be a more likely choice for those who ask fewer of the "right" questions.

bcrowell

Quote by StatGuy2000

I suppose I have always expected CS graduates (like graduates in math, science or engineering programs) to have the capacity for abstract reasoning and independent problem-solving that you highlight

Now I may be mistaken about this, but the fact that so many who graduate from CS programs don't possess these abilities suggests to me that there is a serious problem with how the curriculum is taught in many schools.

The only research I'm aware of on this kind of thing is based on tests that claim to measure "critical thinking," which may or may not be related to "abstract reasoning and independent problem-solving." There's a book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, Arum and Roksa, 2011. Summary here: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critic...atlarge_menand . See also http://www2.education.uiowa.edu/cent...INAL.sflb.ashx .

What the evidence seems to show is that by attending college, students 50 years ago used to improve their critical thinking skills by a certain amount (about 1 standard deviation when mesured against the bell curve of the population of students), but nowadays they only improve them by a smaller amount (about 0.5 std dev). This holds true even when you control for the different population of students going to college these days.

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