🚀 go-pugleaf

david@cs.dal.ca (David Trueman) writes:

>It all depends on your perspective.  I am certainly not qualified to judge
>Acadia's CS program, but I am prepared to believe that it is respectable.
>However, I believe that Dalhousie has a very good undergraduate CS program.
>I base this on personal observation, plus the feedback that we get from
>employers, and graduates who go on to further studies elsewhere and compare
>their preparation with that of others.

>>The main problem with the JSCS is that it lacks hardware big-time.
>>Maybe that problem would be solved with the new amalgamated 
>>system.

>Exactly.  Dal has some very good hardware for both teaching and research,
>plus some of the best management around (if I do say so myself!).  A joint
>program might just provide the critical mass to provide a national-calibur
>computing science program for the Maritimes.  In the absence of such 
>coordination, I fear that we are all doomed to a long slide into
>mediocrity or worse.

>I also think, personally, that Computing Science belongs in a strong Faculty
>of Science, along with areas such as medicine, library science, psychology
>and so on, since it is such an interdisciplinary subject.

Computing Science! Yes! That's it!  That's what they call it at Dal.
I remember when I was in Grade 12, I asked the Dal recruiter whether
their Computing Science program is any different from others since
they call it differently.  He started to get defensive and went into a
description of his background in Biology (He had a honours degree in
Biology).  Eventually, he didn't answer my question and he didn't admit
that he didn't have the answer.  He only told me to make an appointment
with some office in Dal to see some people in the appropriate department.
I was rather pissed-off by that man.  I thought (I did not say it to his
face just to be polite since he's a guest to the high-school), if he
were such an expert in Biology, what is he doing as a university salesman. 

And I remember looking into Dal's calender in my Grade 12 year,  their
computing science program is made up of a lot of math courses and some
obviously math oriented computer courses.

Regarding the strong Faculty of Science thought, I agree that computer
science is quite an interdisciplinary subject.  However, it does not get
too inter-disciplinary until one is ready to apply it.  Such an
inter-disciplinary set up will benefit the researchers far more than
benefit the STUDENTS.  Furthermore, if the subject really has such
a high degree of inter-disciplinary, then it should not only belong to
the Science Faculty.
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Oliver Oey                              email: 871323o@aucs.acadiau.ca
Jodrey School of Computer Science
Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada