What is happening with Computer Science at Yale?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
1

<p>No new hiring for the last 10 years?</p>

<p><a href="http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/10/21/cs-department-struggles-for-faculty/"&gt;http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/10/21/cs-department-struggles-for-faculty/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Peter Salovey needs to do something ...</p>

2

<p>This reads like an Onion article. Reusing cs50 lectures? The department does not sound like it even belongs in the top 20.</p>

<p>Regardless, a CS degree from Yale is still a degree from Yale, and pedigree trumps all in Silicon Valley.</p>

3

<p>These two articles from almost a year and two years ago pretty much say the same thing:</p>

<p><a href=“Computer Science Dept overworked, understaffed - Yale Daily News”>http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/01/29/computer-science-dept-overworked-understaffed/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“Comp Sci surge strains department - Yale Daily News”>http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/01/24/comp-sci-surge-strains-department/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Gotta open up the purse strings!</p>

4

<p>Yale has a $51M surplus this year; the first comment to this article suggests spending some of the available drawdown on CS hiring to relieve the faculty:</p>

<p><a href=“University reports $51 million surplus - Yale Daily News”>http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/10/30/university-reports-51-million-surplus/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>A subsequent comment, however, suggests other uses in addition, including (1) making financial aid more generous so students don’t have to work in the summer, (2) expanding transgender studies, (3) hiring black women faculty, (4) hiring back some of the staff and hourly workers laid off before, (5) improving mental health and dining services. This comment, however, doesn’t seem to understand that only 4% - 5% of the $51M is available to be drawn each year.</p>

<p>But anyway, the minute there is a surplus, everyone wants a piece of it!</p>

5

<p>Yale approves: <a href=“Faculty approve CS50 for Yale - Yale Daily News”>http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/11/07/faculty-approve-cs50-for-yale/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

6

<p>Similar pieces, about spatial and departmental overcrowding</p>

<p><a href=“NEWS' VIEW: Before colleges, show us the numbers - Yale Daily News”>http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/11/10/before-colleges-show-us-the-numbers/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“NEWS' VIEW: Facilities must expand with colleges - Yale Daily News”>http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/10/27/facilities-must-expand-with-colleges/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Absurd. I’m tempted to say, “I wish I had gone elsewhere,” but I don’t even know if anywhere is better. Maybe Swarthmore? Meh. I see comments and statistics about Yalies’ exceptionally high satisfaction with the school, then I read articles like those two, which suggest that Yale cannot do anything well. What to think?</p>

7

<p>^ Well, those are very spirited discussions!</p>

<p>Some of the demands do not seem very compelling to me – a gym on Science Hill is a “nice to have”, but that’s about it. The TA situation in the English department comes across as peculiar, but who knows, it may work fine, depending on the specifics. The CS under-staffing problem does seem real and unique to Yale, however. Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford are all experiencing huge growth in CS enrollment, but they all seem able to hire enough faculty to cover their teaching and research needs. Salovey should address this problem quickly!</p>

8

<p>Peter, it just takes $60M!</p>

<p><a href=“Computer Science Faculty To Increase by 50 Percent with Ballmer Gift | News | The Harvard Crimson”>Computer Science Faculty To Increase by 50 Percent with Ballmer Gift | News | The Harvard Crimson;

9

<p>This is a very impressive gift and will likely be a game-changer for Harvard. Will prospective students follow the money and increased opportunities? I’m guessing that some will.</p>

10

<p>For any high school developers reading this and considering Yale for CS:</p>

<p>There’s been a tremendous increase in interest in computer science at Yale (the intro course’s enrollment I think has doubled in the last five years or so) and it’s true the CS department is under-staffed. The basic problem is that the university is pushing the CS department in the direction of “trendy practical technologies” and focus more on teaching people to code, whereas the department wants to maintain a “CS curriculum done right.” This entails a rather large workload, difficult material, and has a high drop out rate (why many start taking CS courses but never work their way to the interesting electives after CPSC 323). However, the knowledge that the CS department imparts is absolutely essential to becoming a competent computer scientist, regardless of whether you enter the field of academia or practical software development. As Alex Reinking said in his recent Op Ed (<a href=“REINKING: Importing Harvard - Yale Daily News”>http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/11/13/importing-harvard/&lt;/a&gt;), “Programmers are to computer scientists what mechanics are to mechanical engineers.” This sentiment is certainly echoed in the CS department’s insistence on teaching CS in its “pure” form; however, the university is trying to urge the department in the opposite direction - to make the major more accessible, lighten its workload, and water down its content. Essentially Yale wants to create a “coding major,” and while I’m not necessarily opposed to the idea myself, it’s a major that implies a different set of skills and a different background than would a CS degree.</p>

<p>If you would like to hear similar opinions echoed by other famous software developers, take a look at Joel Spolsky’s articles on the subject (founder of Stack Overflow and Yale CS graduate):</p>

<p><a href=“The Perils of JavaSchools – Joel on Software”>http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“Talk at Yale: Part 1 of 3 – Joel on Software”>http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/12/03.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In general, Yale’s willing to offer more faculty and resources to the department, but with the condition that it move in a direction the department does not wish to move.</p>

11

<p>TL;DR if you’re interested in Yale for Computer Science, there’s actually a growing hacker culture here, there’s an abundance of opportunities to acquire new skills, and so long as the department stays true to its values you will walk away with an excellent CS education.</p>

12

<p>

If you look at the computer science courses offered at peer institutions such as Stanford, Brown, Dartmouth, Carnegie Mellon etc – they are all offering “trendy practical technologies.” Yale (and Harvard) do not offer the same type of trendy courses, as their CS Departments are more theoretical in nature and the faculty at both institutions is fighting to remain so, even while CS 50 has risen to be Harvard’s largest course. If student’s want to learn that trendy stuff, they should be looking beyond HY.</p>

13

<p>@DarkEyes (and anyone else): How can prospective CS students know whether the department will remain true to its values, in both the short and long terms, especially if the hiring of more faculty and provision of more resources is contingent on the department’s moving in the “watered down” direction? And even if the department does remain true to its values, how do CS students deal with the reportedly inadequate staffing of courses?</p>

14

<p>Dark Eyes: it is very interesting to learn about the standoff between the CS Department and Salovey over the future direction of the CS department, but is the disagreement really just over “vocational” vs “theoretical”?</p>

<p>I ask because this is not a question only faced by CS at Yale. While some very fine CS programs definitely do offer “trendy” practical training, if you look at Harvard’s and Princeton’s undergraduate curricula in the Ivy League, and MIT’s and even CMU’s outside, you will find them quite laden with theory. They have retained their commitment of CS as a theoretical science with its own way of thinking, yet somehow they still manage to keep satisfied those students with vocational objectives.</p>

<p>So why is this disagreement so hard to resolve at Yale?</p>

15

<p>@Planner I would say that change comes slowly to these institutions, so if you’re in high school now you probably won’t see a radical shift in departmental focus during your time at these schools. Truthfully we will probably see an expansion of courses that teach practical coding skills (e.g. mobile development) but the other courses will still surely be offered. As for inadequate staffing, that’s already a problem in a sense, but the upside is that it has led to a more collaborative hacking culture, where students rely on their peers to teach / reinforce concepts. Many of the undergraduate tech organizations at Yale are working together to create spaces where CS students can meet each other and rely on each other as resources. This does mean though that if you thrive in a competitive and possibly cutthroat culture, Yale (and especially the CS department) is not for you.</p>

<p>@4thfloor‌ It’s harder to resolve in discourse than in practice, to be honest. A lot of the theoretical CS the department teaches is very easy to apply in a practical setting. I think the disagreement is mostly born of miscommunication - those who know little about CS perceive the theory as being inapplicable, and think there ought be “practical courses.” The CS department perceives theory as being very applicable, and think these envisioned “practical courses” would just be completely watered down and stripped of any and all theory.</p>

16

<p>@DarkEyes: Thanks–that’s good to hear about the departmental focus not likely shifting radically soon. And although hiring more staff would definitely seem to be very important, the collaborative hacking culture sounds great.</p>

<p>Alex Reinking’s editorial says that the CS grads do well after leaving Yale: “Our CS graduates end up at best of the best in industry: Google, Intel and Microsoft. Our CS PhDs teach at the best universities, as well: MIT, Harvey Mudd and Rensselaer. Our CS graduates become Turing Award winners, Gödel Prize winners and MacArthur Fellows.” So it sounds like even with the staffing problems, Yale CS students aren’t being passed over by grad schools or tech recruiters in favor of students from places like Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Princeton, CMU, and Harvard–correct? </p>

17

<p>Well, let’s take a look at these guys: <a href=“http://www.cs.princeton.edu/news/article/three-new-faculty-hires-engelhardt-hazan-and-socher”>http://www.cs.princeton.edu/news/article/three-new-faculty-hires-engelhardt-hazan-and-socher&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Would Salovey say no to them because machine learning is not practical enough, or would the CS department say no to them because machine learning is not theoretical enough? Which side has the problem here?</p>

18

<p>FWIW: My son, a senior, spent two years on the CS track at Yale and switched majors, as the department was just too technically oriented for him – uncreative and boring I think were his words. He was more interested in the “trendy practical technologies” taught at other schools and pursued those on his own. Although he will be graduating this Spring with a degree in psychology, that hasn’t stopped him from being recruited by places such as Spotify, Dropbox, Google etc. </p>

19

<p>@4thfloor: One of the reasons why change has been slow at Yale’s CS department is the faculty department heads think “trendy practical technologies” are fads: <a href=“yaleherald.com”>yaleherald.com;

</p>

20

<p>Thank you Gibby for a most interesting article.</p>

<p>The problem, then, is not Salovey but Eisenstat. It would be quite wrong to characterize those three Princeton hires I picked for examples as “just trendy”. And to call cloud computing just time sharing!?!?</p>

<p>I don’t think Alan Perlis would be pleased …</p>