Re: [SAGE] Computer Sciences degrees in IT

[Ruth Milner <rmilner@nmt.edu>]

Brad Knowles wrote:

 > curriculum was almost identical, except that the BACS program had a
 > couple more math classes than the BSCS program,

Weren't there other science courses, e.g. Chem 100, that were required
for every BS but not for a BA? I had to take at least two courses each
in chemistry, biology, and physics, which were required of all first-year
BS registrants (though as I switched partway through I didn't end up
taking them that way); plus several more advanced physics classes as
part of the BSCS curriculum specifically. It was great.

I've also seen BS degrees require stronger courses than BA, i.e. they
didn't let you get away with "Astronomy for People Allergic to Math"
or whatever. :-) This seemed to be especially true in math electives.

 > I did manage to figure out what the combination was to the lock on the
 > line printers

Heh. The night after our last exam the first year I was doing CS courses,
a friend and I went into the terminal room in, um, a less-than-sober state
(ever had a PHONE conversation this way? you can type really fast, but
only those equally inebriated can understand what you're saying) and
figured out how to redirect the output of HELP * to the line printer.
It took a while to print, even at 600 lpm. I actually kept the resulting
stack of paper for the next couple of years, and even read it. I guess
that was my first crack at trying to learn more about the system than
they were interested in teaching me.[1]

Ruth
[1] Reminds me of a story about Rob Pike. Some years before I was a
summer student at a Canadian observatory in 1984, Rob had worked there
as a summer student for their system manager. He told me Rob lived for
the summer in a trailer on observatory grounds and spent most of his
free time poring over printouts of UNIX source code that he'd brought
with him. So you see, being thirsty for knowledge can really get you
places - though he was clearly much more serious about it than I was!