[Discuss] OT: Do CS grads need calculus?

[richb at pioneer.ci.net (Rich Braun)]

Stephen Ronan <sronan at panix.com> posted:
> Perhaps some of you may find of interest this thread:
> "Do CS grads need calculus?"
> http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/2015/04/sort/time_rev/page/1/

Interesting thread, on a forum operated by Dave Farber.  That's a name
familiar to me; here's a list of coincidences:

* He's an alum of Stevens Tech, where I went for a year
* He was a professor of mine in the EE department at UD, from which I
(eventually) graduated
* He's now on faculty at CMU, the school from which my partner's niece just
received a letter of admission (I'm so jealous!) -- she'll go there unless
Stanford miraculously pulls her name off the waiting list

My first calculus class was at UD during Farber's time there. I kinda feel the
same way as the critics: calculus is *so* useless in my current career, and
the only point of it was to be able to comprehend all the physics courses that
I wound up taking later (almost switching out of EE into the physics
department, but my career ambition was computing not research at the likes of
CERN). At least now when I watch a NOVA special or look up at the night sky, I
fully understand just how big the universe is and how complicated the math
describing it is.

All I ever need to know about computing, I got from Linus Torvalds. :-)

The real lesson in life that I got from some of those professors, and summer
jobs, back in the day was that you need to be able to learn an entirely new
discipline quite frequently throughout your life. Or, another way of putting
is that today I'm earning my paycheck doing (only) things that I've learned
within the past year.  All I learned before that is now background noise, as
the demand for talent morphs over time. (If you think of it that way, then
yes, it makes sense to master calculus or physics.)

-rich