University of Florida Eliminates Computer Science Department

[Lifted]

I know people who barely passed basic math yet they create wonderful web pages. Clearly, math is not very important in this case.

And those people are much MUCH closer to graphic designers or graphic artists than computer scientists.

 

[Reel]

I have 2 degrees from this department and I have mixed emotions. Purely selfish, it saddens me to see my graduating department closed because that will negatively affect the perception of my degrees.

From a logical standpoint, I think the closing makes sense but not like this. While a student, we always joked that there were so many computer related degrees split amongst the 2 departments (essentially a CS department and an EE department). There were 2 computer science, 2 computer engineering, digital arts & sciences, electrical engineering, and multiple affiliated programs that touched these 2 departments. The degree programs needed cleaning up but not gutting.

As a graduate of the CISE department, the ECE department's research held little interest to me while I was more interested in the research performed by the CISE department. CISE solved it by writing code while ECE solved it by assembling boards. I took classes from both departments and respect both but simply prefer one over the other.

My employer sits on the industry advising board to both the department and the college of engineering and I have not heard any discussion from that perspective. We have contributed large sums of money in recent years to the department so I am surprised by that.

 

[CraKaJaX]

The picture in that article is hilarious

 

[OCGuy]

Disgusting.

Yes, your ignorance is very much so. Sports subsidizes the rest of the school. Specifically male sports.

 

[Reel]

Here is a response from the College of Engineering: http://www.eng.ufl.edu/news/uf-statement-made-april-23rd-2012/

 

[Reel]

Here is a Professor's page about the event. Interestingly, they had proposed the creation of a College of Computing a few weeks before the Dean proposed the evisceration of the department. http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~davis/

 

[zinfamous]

Yes, your ignorance is very much so. Sports subsidizes the rest of the school. Specifically male sports.

Horseshit.

complete, and utter horseshit.

Athletic programs subsidize themselves. Research is where the real money come in, for any school.

Hell--look at PSU, one of the 2 or 3 schools where the AD has the "luxury" of pulling in enough revenue to allow itself to exist as a separate entity from the University. Even then, after the AD shares its revenue (which is almost entirely generated by the child rape prog--er, men's football program ) amongst the other athletic programs, they return about 10 or 20 million dollars per year, to PSU--A University with a revenue of roughly 4 billion.

This argument that major sports programs bring in real money for any University is an utter lie.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Here is a Professor's page about the event. Interestingly, they had proposed the creation of a College of Computing a few weeks before the Dean proposed the evisceration of the department. http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~davis/

Hi, I am the director of the computer science program at a major university.

Here is a shitty website made in Microsoft Word!

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Hi, I am the director of the computer science program at a major university.

Here is a shitty website made in Microsoft Word!

99.999999999% of all professors websites will be like that.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

99.999999999% of all professors websites will be like that.

Yup, that one even has images and a consistent font and layout which puts it ahead of many professors sites.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Yes, your ignorance is very much so. Sports subsidizes the rest of the school. Specifically male sports.

Only because the schools refuse to open strip clubs on campus.

 

[jpiniero]

Are you trolling? A real CS degree is NOT about creating web pages.

Except that's what the majority of graduates are going to be doing.

 

[Kadarin]

[q]Meanwhile, the athletic budget for the current year is $99 million, an increase of more than $2 million from last year. [/q]

This is simply a reflection of how American priorities have changed over the last few decades; no longer do we as a society value real innovation and production. We value instead our athletes (male), tax cuts for the wealthy, and high frequency trading and credit default swaps.

 

[thecrecarc]

While this is a disgusting representation of the state of higher education, title of the forbes article, as well as the attacks in this thread about the athletic budget is COMPLETELY undeserved.

UF athletics are 100% self funded, and actually generated POSITIVE income flow. So much in fact, that it DONATED $6 million dollars directly into the university of florida. So while I am normally against formal athletics in universities, and despite the fact I am not a "sports" person, in this case, these attacks against the athletic budget is wrong.

 

[sdifox]

Hi, I am the director of the computer science program at a major university.

Here is a shitty website made in Microsoft Word!

no one that cares about academia cares about website prettiness.

 

[alkemyst]

Computer Science is too broad a term. I think it's really bad how colleges have it right now.

It's always more about the money and less about actually TEACHING students something.

Students should specialize in fields they are interested in and spend little time on other topics and concepts. Those should only be used to introduce students to related fields and areas in IT to make them more well rounded people.

As it stands right now, colleges have way too much Mathematics in Computer Science programs. If someone wants to create pages with HTML and CSS, there is no need for them to study Trigonometry and Calculus. It's ridiculous to state otherwise.

I know people who barely passed basic math yet they create wonderful web pages. Clearly, math is not very important in this case.

You take those maths as pre-requistes for the the programming maths like discrete algebra, matrix theory, queueing theory, etc.

Those are very relavant to programming.

Most of the crap you take in any degree program is to weed the less able students out to make room for those that will make a difference.

 

[postmortemIA]

I would disagree. In the schools around me that have these 3 degrees, they break down like this:
- Computer Engineering - Hardware based. Almost an EE degree, but with a computer (data transfer and storage) focus. This is probably for your hardware designers and/or embedded systems people.
- Information Systems - A "business" degree. Basically a small amount of watered down programming/architecture classes and a bunch of business classes. This is probably for your project managers.
- Computer Science - More of a complete "computer programming" degree. You learn the most about general programming concepts, data structures, algorithm development and analysis, etc. There is really no focus on the business side and a smaller focus on the hardware side.

While I think the CE and CS need to overlap somewhat, I think they are distinct enough to warrant separate degrees. There is a whole lot to learn in both disciplines that probably wouldn't benefit someone working in field specific jobs.

You got that wrong. CS has more gen ed classes than computer engineering. Comp eng is more diverse thanks to option to pick cs electives and few hardware classes. In today's world where embedded systems are everywhere, there are actually lot of EEs coding them.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Most of the crap you take in any degree program is to weed the less able students out to make room for those that will make a difference.

Well, at one time the idea of college's was to weed out the average and below and only the best were awarded degrees. This insured that having a advanced degree meant that you were at least highly motivated, skilled, and probably better then average intelligence (or rich).

Then universities became corporations and decided that failing most of their students was bad for business. Now, a bachelors degree is nothing more then an expensive High School diploma. You need at least a MS to be educated, and really a Ph.D. if you want to be considered well educated. If this trend continues we are going to have to invent the Super Special Double Doctorate (S.S. Ph. Double D!) just to be able to be hireable.

This will of course cost a cool half mill in student loans, and be able to net you a job earning about $15.00 an hour.

 

[dr150]

Makes sense.

The new Alligator Herding and Nightclub Management major is more practical in the State of Florida. :thumbsup:

 

[Svnla]

Let pray with Tebow so the CS department can be resurrect.

 

[sdifox]

Except that's what the majority of graduates are going to be doing.

err no

 

[T_Yamamoto]

No one goes to Florida to study CS.

 

[ichy]

Horseshit.

complete, and utter horseshit.

Athletic programs subsidize themselves. Research is where the real money come in, for any school.

Hell--look at PSU, one of the 2 or 3 schools where the AD has the "luxury" of pulling in enough revenue to allow itself to exist as a separate entity from the University. Even then, after the AD shares its revenue (which is almost entirely generated by the child rape prog--er, men's football program ) amongst the other athletic programs, they return about 10 or 20 million dollars per year, to PSU--A University with a revenue of roughly 4 billion.

This argument that major sports programs bring in real money for any University is an utter lie.

Thanks for addressing the myth of athletic programs bringing in tons of money.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Thanks for addressing the myth of athletic programs bringing in tons of money.

Yep, I've linked it in these forums before, but IIRC, less than 20 athletic programs actually make money. The rest lose. Too lazy to look up the info now, but I believe it is on the NCAA's site as well. It is a myth that won't die that states athletic programs everywhere are raking in the money.

EDIT: My memory was a little off; 22 programs made money:

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect...lue+Disk+-+FBS+Athletic+Revenues+and+Expenses

 

[ichy]

I wish that we'd just be honest and create a professional football minor league or something of that nature. That way we wouldn't have to go through the charade of pretending that most big-name college athletes are actually real students.