<p>I was surprised to see that the math requirements for the ChE major extend only to 18.03, and BioE only to 18.02-I would have covered this content in my senior year in high school. My dad, who is a chemical engineer, said that the minimum math required when he was getting his degree at the Indian Institute of Technology was PDE's. What is the reason for this-do you really not need any more math, or is it integrated into the engineering courses? Also, what are the reasons for Caltech requiring 5 terms of math, whereas MIT only requires 2? Just curious.</p>
<p>It's probably covered in the labs, etc. I think it's safe to assume that the professors will know what to teach you so you're set when you graduate.</p>
<p>And if you're hesistant, you're free to take extra math classes from the math dept.</p>
<p>My husband (hee) was course 16, aero/astro. It also only officially requires math classes through 18.03, plus 6.041 (probabalistic systems analysis), although clearly you need to be able to do much more math than that to become an aerospace engineer. </p>
<p>He says that PDEs and other higher-level math were covered in his upper-division course 16 classes. Presumably, the individual engineering departments find it more useful to teach the higher-level math in conjunction with the engineering concepts rather than requiring students to take classes in the math department.</p>
<p>The actual components of MIT's GIRs are something of a historical contingency -- some committee, at some point, felt that MIT students should be required to take two terms of calculus. I'm not sure what the requirements were in the past, and whether two terms of calc represents a decrease from what was required previously.</p>
<p>I'm curious, what are the math requirements at Caltech for all its students? Beyond calculus? Beyond diff eq? lin alg? analysis? combinatorics??</p>
<p>I think having too many requirements is really the crux of a suffocating education. Already I think the requirements are too many - esp the specifics on the humanities side of things, if we require all of our students to do specialized math, why not cell biology? or relativity? or orgo? they all train you to think differently.</p>
<p>Caltech just requires five quarters for everyone (analytic calculus, linear algebra, multivariate calculus, differential equations, probability/statistics) and three additional quarters of applied mathematics for engineering/physics majors (complex analysis, ODEs, PDEs.) Frankly, I haven't found these to be too specialized at all. Core math is useful for everyone regardless of major. And considering that Caltech tries to focus harder on the theory side of engineering than most schools do, the additional year of math is not unreasonable. I think you'll find a lot more people whining about the single term of biology we have to take than about all of the math and physics classes...</p>
<p>IMO there should be a computer science GIR. I'm not talking about just learning to program, but learning to think in the manner that computer scientists do offers a perspective that's very powerful.</p>
<p>Adding more GIRs would simply limit students further in their choices. Most people seem to forget that MIT has 5 separate Schools (Architecture, Science, Humanities, Engineering, Business) open to undergraduates. Already half of MIT students major outside of engineering and that percentage is growing particularly in the life sciences and in business/economics. Why should these students be burdened with further requirements which add little to their training? The diversity in interests make a consensus on additional requirements simply impossible.</p>
<p>Why should biology majors for instance, many of whom are premed, have to take computer science, when they already have substantial additional requirements in biology and chemistry? Most engineers would love to skip chem or bio so they would obviously prefer replacing these GIRs with a class like computer science that they have to take anyway. There is already a chem "lite" version offered by materials science that most engineers take simply to avoid the harder chemistry classes. There is no evidence that computer science would any more beneficial than a course in linguistics, quantum mechanics, philosophy or economics. To claim that computer scientists have a special way of thinking that architects, biologists or economists need to emulate is just preposterous.</p>
<p>"To claim that computer scientists have a special way of thinking that architects, biologists or economists need to emulate is just preposterous."</p>
<p>Could you list what CS experience you have had, etc, that enables you to make such a weighted judgement? </p>
<p>Nobody said anyone has to emulate anyone else. But a lot of people are keenly aware that computers have a wide impact throughout almost every field these days. Course 6 is one of MIT's biggest departments. And CS is definetely not just about engineering. If you took 6.001 and didn't see that Computer Scientists indeed have an enormously powerful way of thinking about problem solving, then you clearly missed one of the central themes of the class. </p>
<p>I could throw the problem right back at you. Why should EECS students take biology?</p>
<p>Because we live biology. It would be purely embarrassing for MIT to graduate students who are not even minimally educated in the processes that allow us to wake up in the morning.</p>
<p>Actually, I advocate for the greatest flexibility and I am not in favor of maintaining biology as a GIR either. I believe the GIRs should be restricted to the strict minimum, not expanded. The fact that Course 6 is a big deparment does not give it the prerogative to impose its views on other departments. </p>
<p>The proposal for a revised Core goes along the line of offering greater flexibility by reducing the required subjects to 3 (Calc I and II, Physics I) and requiring students to take 5 courses from 6 subject areas: Chemistry, life sciences, physical sciences, mathematics, engineering and a new project based experience. It is a good effort but still too restrictive in my opinion. </p>
<p>My own CS experience, for whatever it is worth, involved starting 3 software companies, the latest with over 100 software engineers. As an undergrad nearly 30 years ago, I had to take 8 semesters each of math and physics, 6 of chemistry and 2 in CS. As a Course 1 Grad student at MIT I took a class in AI Techniques in Course 6 (programming in LISP on the original Lisp and Symbolics computers). </p>
<p>I frankly never had any professional use for what I studied as an undergrad, but is generally to be expected. I actually wish I had been forced to take a biology class as I ended up developing medical software. By far the most interesting class I took while at MIT was a class in Decision Support Systems at the Sloan School where we tinkered with an early version of Visicalc on the Apple II and where a classmate named Mitch Kapor got the idea to start Lotus 1-2-3. The class never involved any actual engineering or programming, just thinking about the type of applications that a non computer-hacker would ever want to run on a personal computer!</p>
<p>While I'm generally loath to recommend more requirements, I also don't believe every school should be like Brown. I find that there is a lot of value in "requiring" something out of your graduates. Aside from being a useful minimum quality assurance of sorts, it also sends a very important message, that education is about more than just a collection of skills or a ticket to a high-paying industry. There's something very mature and significant about the idea of being "educated" and "educators" that these institutions are doing very well to try to live up to. </p>
<p>So why would you sell yourself short? Shouldn't graduates of MIT be, well, Educated?</p>
<p>this is just a thought, not as a response to anything in particular.</p>
<p>The problem is that most students get the short end of the stick in HS with respect to CS. You often get polarized kids walking into MIT; those who are very into computers, excited about EECS and such, etc, and then those who simply didn't get the chance to do a lot of cool stuff with computers before. The majority of applicants got an introduction to biology in high school, and it's not like what they teach in 101 Bio here is mindblowingly new to most students. On the other hand, I bet many students graduate from MIT not having taken any EECS courses. (and it can be argued that exposure to physics and chemistry and bio sort of introduces one to many departments... MAYBE 8.02 introduces one to the EE part of EECS).</p>
<p>Also it would be a sad day when students were not required to study 8.02; We live in a modern world that revolves around the principles presented in 8.02. It would be very embarassing for MIT to graduate students who hadn't the faintest clue about electricty and magnetism.</p>
<p>^^Our school has no programming courses, and I definitely plan to take one at any college I go to-I can see how it should be a GIR at MIT.</p>
<p>Differential:</p>
<p>I agree with Pebbles that it may be even more embarrassing for an MIT student not to have a clue about biology. After all, most of the current growth at MIT (and in research in general) is in the life sciences not in computer science. I also disagree that an introduction to biology in HS (especially AP bio) is enough to give you a perspective on the field. Intro Bio courses at MIT are far more applied. My daughter who is now a freshman at MIT plans to double major in neuroscience and biology. I frankly believe it will provide her many more opportunities than CS. New fields such as Biological Engineering at the frontier of molecular biology and engineering are also emerging. That is where the future lies and MIT is smart to pioneer this new area. I have hired a lot of CS engineers and I really wish I had found more applicants that knew anything about the life sciences. It would have made the software development process a lot more efficient.</p>
<p>I'm with pebbles -- I think the requirements should be made as concise as possible, but no less. </p>
<p>I felt that there was value in every one of the GIRs, other than the unnecessary complexity of the HASS requirement. I took several classes in medical anthropology, and, wow, it was so useful for me to see science from an outsider's lens. I never would have taken those classes if they weren't required, but they were hugely useful for the way I view my field. And I never would have taken physics if I hadn't had to, but cellular neurobiology is all about E&M.</p>
<p>I really hate the idea of a freshman project-based HASS experience, and I more subtly dislike making the core requirements more flexible. I think there's a lot of value in having most freshmen taking the same courses together.</p>
<p>So it would be better for students to have a good understanding of bio, and graduate from an institute ranked as one of the best EECS schools in the world with zero understanding or perspective of how computers works, what computer science is about, or the electrical circuit theory that forms the basis of modern civilization (seeing as most students didn't take a CS course in HS)? You can't be serious...</p>
<p>I'm not suggesting everyone take 5 other courses in everyone elses major. I'm suggesting that MIT force everyone to get a semester's suggesting that MIT force everyone to get a semester's exposure to EECS, exposure to EECS, because a huge number of students would otherwise pass through MIT with none. I'm not saying we'd have to take away the bio GIR either. Perhaps lower the HASS req?</p>
<p>Just studying the hottest new fields and turning a blind eye to what we are already good at is extraordinarily naive. Major advancements in bioengineering are not brought forth by people finding things out of the blue. You have to have a solid basis from which to study something. That's why you study chemistry when you go into Biology. And bioinformatics and biostatistics are becoming raging fields as well. By not having any perspective of what computer science has to offer to bio (A LOT), you're putting yourself at a disadvantage. </p>
<p>You will find that a large number of the bioeng profs have degrees in chemical engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, etc. Why? Because it's relatively easy to jump into bio and within a few years hit on a sweet project (often because your former field gives you a different perspective on how to approach things). It's not as easy to jump into other fields such as EE, Physics, Mathematics, etc.</p>
<p>Biological Engineering is a new field. There is much about cell and tissue dynamics which we do not quite understand yet. We know that to understand this quickly and thoruoghly we must employ computing technologies(amongst any other knowledge applicable). </p>
<p>Bio-tech will be defined by what is capable within our economy-remember this, its important!. BTW economics is not just about money and time it is about people and resources-understanding. </p>
<p>I think robotics and mechanization is more important right now than bio-tech. we need greater life support machinery before we get too far into things such as cloned organ transplantation. Alas I go to far...</p>
<p>All of this IS dependant on those brave souls intwined in the code and formula of data processing. We need the powers of the data processing machine to keep track of the possibilities of our biological tinkering. Not that any reasonable, intellegent researcher should not understand the possible implications of their endeavers...</p>
<p>In the end we all each other... ah isn't that sweet... But STILL its true!</p>
<p>Not one of us knows enough to not need another.</p>
<p>
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I'm not suggesting everyone take 5 other courses in everyone elses major. I'm suggesting that MIT force everyone to get a semester's suggesting that MIT force everyone to get a semester's exposure to EECS, exposure to EECS, because a huge number of students would otherwise pass through MIT with none.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>There's an easy-enough way to deal with this without having to change the GIRs much.</p>
<p>Nearly all majors have one or more available computing classes for undergrads. 1-C and 1-E have 1.00, 9 has 9.29, 7 has whatever the computational bio class that's taught in Perl is, 17 has the computational politics class, and so on. And for the few majors that don't, it wouldn't be that hard to develop one. Just require students to take any of a long list of computing classes that covers most of the majors. Students would then fulfill their computing requirement in the process of filling their major requirements, much like students currently fulfill the REST requirements.</p>
<p>I actually suggested this a number of times to powers that be, but it never seemed to catch on.</p>
<p>I pretty strongly believe that bio, chem, and some form of physics should be required. Whether mechanics and E&M are the right physics classes, I'm less sure about, but they do seem like the ones that are the most widely applicable across different majors.</p>
<p>Right, I agree, i mean this isn't a p*ssing contest about whose major is harder, just which subject is more fundamental to learn. I agree, I think EECS offers more flexibility than Biology (at least in terms of conceptual training), but EECS isn't a fundamental science, it's a fantastic field, but it's more of a tool that you learn to use really well to explore interesting features of other fields. There's no way that you can make it through 4 years of MIT life and still be computer illiterate (look around), and E&M physics gives you at least a working knowledge of circuitry and electrical components. As evidenced by the fact that 1/2 the school majors in EECS, it's got plenty of love already. No one is not majoring in EECS because they don't know about it - it's impossible, there's so much peer encouragement. And who takes what in high school isn't a strong argument: the point of college is to build upon your high school basis- the quality of which is suspect- besides, I didn't take biology in high school. </p>
<p>But all the talk about how "useful" a CS major would be to society compared to a biology or otherwise major considering recent turns in technology is completely beside my point earlier, which didn't define education to be anything having to do with making the most money, or getting into the hottest fields, or even making the greatest contribution to society. That's a completely different discussion I think.</p>
<p>
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I think EECS offers more flexibility than Biology (at least in terms of conceptual training)...
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This is a little off-topic, but I think 7.01x teaches much more in the way of science thinking than most non-7 majors give it credit for. I repeatedly heard from my engineering friends that they were getting through 7.01x on sheer memorization, but I realized as I progressed in biology that brute-forcing it really isn't the best way to succeed in 7.01. They're really trying to teach scientific problem-solving in 7.01, but most engineering types don't really appreciate that fact, possibly because they're so set in the idea that biology is a) easy and b) all about memorization.</p>