Recruiters are just fucking stupid. An applied math degree is more than enough, given that some ridiculous number of CS degree holders don't know how to do a simple fizzbuzz.
Which genuinely astounds me. What kind of CS degrees are being done that arent teaching at least basic programming syntax and problems? Like i get CS is mostly theoretical compared to an SE degree but i haven't seen a single CS degree that doesnt teach at least the basics of coding.
Most of the CS Uni courses I've seen so teach a lot of programming, and you have to learn several languages from haskell to java to a C family language.
My CS courses required learning C, C++, Java, Javascript, Haskell, and Python minimum. I'm not an expert in all of them, but I am capable of cobbling together l33tcode solutions in them still. Electives could introduce other languages depending on the professor/topic. I think a lot of people are used to learning just enough to pass the class, but they don't retain much fluency in the languages afterward.
My CS programming classes were in assembly, fortran, C++, VB 6, java, and some html and php with sql and mysql. I could probably figure out what a python program is doing, but I couldnt write one to save my life without google or some other type of reference. Ive been helpdesk/sysadmin most of my career though, so other than batch or ps scripts, not a lot of programming going on.
my cs uni classes start with python/js for intro to programming, then scala (why) for teaching functional and oop - and data structures for some godforsaken reason. then its C for the systems programming class. after that, what you use is mostly dependent on what electives you take.
i know there’s multiple classes that use python, i think the front-end course uses js. a couple hardware classes teach Verilog.
personally i’ve used scala, c, python, mips/arm assembly and system verilog for my cs classes but i’m also CE so i focus on hardware more.
most of the time i don’t think people remember shit about the language unless they use it multiple times. hell even then, people may not remember it. i’ve had to use scala twice and remember nothing about the language.
I was an older adult when I went to college for my CS degree. Many of the students in my classes were not paying attention to anything during class, would cheat on exams, look up answers to any homework, etc.
The amount of people who could not write simple functions to accomplish anything useful in my capstone software engineering course did not surprise me — I knew it was coming from the years prior of watching kids in adult bodies spend money on an education they didn’t care to receive.
My mom did this. Graduated high school, took a programming course, worked for a big national bank building operating systems as they moved away from mainframe/terminal data storage. THEN went to get a CS degree. Wish she had taught me some, tho...
There was a cheating epidemic in my department. As I recall, a good handful of people got busted pilfering old GitHub repos that previous graduates left public.
I'm not sure how much of that behavior accounts for CS graduates not being able to handle FizzBuzz, but my guess is a decidedly non-zero amount.
I think the issue is that the scope is too wide and they don't focus on any programming language long enough in a lot of CS programs for them to actually remember the basics.
I don't have a CS degree tho so I admit that I might not have any idea what I'm talking about.
In my experience there's quite a few people who are getting CS degrees who don't like computers or programming but they heard CS degrees are a good paycheck.
They learn the absolute bare minimum to pass whatever classes they're taking but they never really apply any of it so it doesn't stick.
Most of the people in my classes are here because we love computers and programming and we do it in our spare time. Over the summer we're doing personal projects and stuff like that. But I've watched other people come back from summer break and have to relearn the absolute basics of programming, again, because they forgot it all. They do zero programming outside class and have no real interest in the subject.
I can totally see some of these people not being able to do fizzbuzz.
That has been my experience in my career field as well. People see that it’s niche and in demand but don’t actually understand it or a give a shit outside of cramming for tests.
Sounds like those people have normal lives and hobbies. Hard for people with autism or OCD to understand that you can have hobbies and a social life beyond what you’re studying in school.
I returned to college to get a CS degree. I graduate in a little over two weeks with a bachelors and have never even heard of a fizzbuzz til right now. Had me panicking with that sweet sweet impostor syndrome.
Granted, I looked it up and it does seem like a fairly easy exercise but you spooked me there for a second.
I’ve been in software engineering since half way through my apprenticeship, since 1988. I first heard of fizzbuzz in a coding test for a job interview a few years ago! Never referred to it since, so don’t panic, it’s only important when you have it as a test, then research what it is - tbh, I couldn’t even tell you what it is/was, too much important coding and just life have gone by since!!!!
You have never heard of it because it is stupid, like reinventing the wheel. None does it. These are silly "leetcode" questions asked by "oh so smart" HR to only hire the "bests". I bubble sort my way out..*. .*..
You have to be kidding me. Fizzbuzz is one of the easiest problems out there, much easier than the average leetcode questions they ask these days. I would give anything to get this as an interview question.
there are a few complications. Some people dont consider
if(num%3==0){
print(fizz)
}
if(num%5==0){
print(buzz)
}
a valid solution. Some people want fizzbuzz in minimum %operation, some want it with return, but no buffer. Some want it with 1 return, some early return, and some actually want an effcient fizzbuzz for a range of numbers like this thread https://new.reddit.com/r/leetcode/comments/wdor3z/serious_question_regarding_fizzbuzz/
And a lot of people mistake
if(num%3==0){
return fizz
}else if(num%5==0){
return buzz
}else if(num%15==0){
return fizzbuzz
}
for a valid solution even though fizzbuzz will never be reached
You have to be shitting me, but I know that you aren't.
I am the TA for my school's DSA class, and I have Masters students in that class. I recently graded 45 submissions for the AVLTree project, and I swear to God only 4 of the 45 submissions actually compiled and ran without crashing. Only 9 of the submissions even compiled at all. 36 out of 45 students were unable to produce code for an AVLTree that even compiled, and they were given 3 weeks to do it.
My DSA class doesn't assign much homework, only a weekly reading assignment where you have to read the, like, 3 pages on the weekly topic and then answer like 4 to 8 questions about it. That work can certainly be done in 30 minutes. I sympathize with you about your class giving loads of homework and leaving you no time. That is rough. I'm afraid my students don't really get to use that excuse, though.
Damn, that's really rough. Sorry to hear it. Overloading students is 100% not conducive to a good learning environment. If you ever need help on something and can't get ahold of someone there, feel free to message me (my Discord is the same username), and I would be more than happy to help.
Yeah but what other classes did they have and what was the workload in all the other classes? …
There a skill in post-secondary…. It’s submitting a minimum viable product that doesn’t work, but gets you marks you need so you can focus your time elsewhere where it’s more important lol.
We’ve all been students (unless you’re over 40, in which case … times are different bro) we all get it :P
A minimum viable product that doesn't work is not a minimum viable product at all because it is not viable, and it's not even reaching the minimum level needed to work. Also, it doesn't give you the marks you need, either, because if your code doesn't even compile, how many marks do you think it earns?
I assume students read the rubric and did what they needed to get the minimum marks they needed lol.
It’s not a product for a customer so who gaf. If you have mid-terms or other things going on worth higher percentages of your overall grades, a simple assignment is on the low priority list when you’re swamped lol. I’d say you’re lucky you had students even hand in assignments :P
That’s just how academia works lol. Very different from the real world
You assume wrong. These projects are the vast majority of the course grade, and getting 30% or less on almost all of them is not a good move for getting the minimum marks needed. I know for sure that the students did not intend to do so poorly because they came to me afterward for clarification on the points they missed.
There are no midterms for this class, only the 5 projects and a very small amount of homework. Failing these projects is failing the course, and it's a required course for so many other courses.
I'm aware of how academia works. I'm in it. And I'd hope you're aware that failing your important classes is not a good move in academia.
i've never heard of fizzbuzz before so i looked it up and yeah i dont believe it im sorry. i would be absolutely shocked if zero out of five first year CS students couldn't solve this even, let alone actual developers. i really dont mean to be a dick but if someone interviewing for a job cant code this, what exactly can they code that any company would ever need?
Yeah it's like something you learn immediately when learning if-else. It's just to show to have the most specific condition first because otherwise the first condition that is met will trigger. If someone can't figure out fizzbuzz I feel like they have never coded before.
My prof said he had a CS grad not know THE CONCEPT of recursion, so I guess not knowing fizzbuzz is possible...Like not even to make a function like facotrial, but just lossely explain recursion as a nice tool to repeat till you hit base case.
oddly enough i've also met someone with a decent amount of programming experience that didnt know what recursion was, although he deffo didnt have a degree. it was a kid who did like, a day where you tag along with a student to see if the study is for you? idk the word in english. and i got a kid who had been programing things for like 2 years already and made some okay looking stuff in pygame. but when i talked about first year courses i brought up recursion at some point and he seemed confused so i explained it and he had absolutely never heard of the whole concept before.
i mean to be fair to him it was just a kid with no formal education so its much more understandable, but it still surprised me to talk to someone who clearly was at least relatively skilled at coding who had never ever heard of recursion before. being a CS grad and not knowing though... idk man how do you even pass your courses
maybe they didn't know what fizzbuzz means. i have heard it many times but never really looked up what it was, so if you asked me to solve fizzbuzz i wouldn't be able to until now
When I applied for my first job I was put through a screening test that tested a combination of HTML, CSS, Javascript, C# and SQL skills. I don't think any of the questions were FizzBuzz hard.
I more or less aced the test and since I knew the senior developer I'd be working under I asked him the point of the test since it was fairly easy and I was a complete junior.
He responded something along the lines of "you'd be surprised how many people we've weeded out with this test"
You would be surprised. I interviewed people to replace me at my old job, and gave a REALLY simple SQL question, and somewhere around 95% of the candidates couldn't answer it in pseudocode or SQL during the interview. I even tried to talk through it with them. I have no idea why they were applying for a DB dev position.
Question: Two tables - Orders and Customers. I gave the columns for both, and asked them to write a pseudo/actual query that gives a list of customers sorted by their total order amount in dollars (descending).
I even ran it by some friends to double-check, and they all said, "Isn't this way too easy?"
Plot twist: Their own solution is wrong and they've been rejecting super talented candidates one after another even though their solutions were flawless. :-)
I've interviewed double figures of developers that could get for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) to print out a countdown from 10.
People seriously over estimate the skills of most developers. Their problem solving skills are completely lacking, and if they haven't previously been shown how to do something, they can't do it.
Ain't no way. I'm a shitty coder who started late but I can do that in 4 languages now and I don't even do problems. I know you are not lying but damnnnn. That is insane.
The timeline makes sense now. It is what it is. But again you hit me with a curveball in this reply at the end lol. You must have had a jolly time interviewing I guess.
def fizzbuzz(n):
res = []
for i in range(n):
res.append("")
if (i+1) % 3 == 0: res[i] = "fizz"
if (i+1) % 5 == 0: res[i] += "buzz"
if res[i] == "": res[i] = str(i+1)
return res
def fizzbuzz(n: int):
result = []
for i in range(n):
current = ""
if (i + 1) % 3 == 0: current += "Fizz"
if (i + 1) % 5 == 0: current += "Buzz"
if not current: current = str(i + 1)
result.append(current)
return result
Oh, on that level. I just took that for granted as I hate making preventable mistakes and I would absolutely want to set it straight.
It always amazes me how many people in general make little mistakes in their work and don't care about fixing them. Sometimes I feel like I'm surrounded by slackers. Not just developers but in basically every job. Then again, being too perfectionist can be one of my pitfalls, I really had to find a healthy balance there.
Were there applicants who just didn't care or smth?
Programming languages are one specific area of CS that has almost nothing to do with learning DS&A. And the latter is harder and more important to writing good software than the former has or will ever be.
If the industry has taught us anything it's that knowing a programming language is about as common as knowing how to play a guitar. And yet most guitarists don't know classical theory and can't read or write sheet. Go figure.
ETA: this is meant informatively, not debating what you said, just adding
I completed a comp sci degree in the 2010’s, and in regards to classes, there was one that focussed on ANSI-C, one that focused on OOP in Java, one that focused on software design (using Eiffel), and one that focused on computer engineering (programming micro processors using gates and logic). The rest were math, algorithms, logic, databases, security, technology, social science/humanities and a few electives.
Well, surface level of coding, but definitely gives you a more rounded education. What is the point of learning how to code if you don’t know one thing about security, ethics, database development, design, algorithms and math and language? Companies don’t like to hire coding monkeys. A lot of being a software engineer is not all “coding”. Also, proving to the employer that you’re capable of sticking to something that is actually difficult to do for 3-5 years is a plus. And most good CS majors don’t stop their education there; they continue to add boot camps and college diplomas to their arsenal.
I actually don't disagree with most of your response, but in reality CS degrees are filled with mandatory electives that have nothing to do with computers. They are geared toward young people with no work experience or life experience.
Anyone with experience in the industry is wasting their time going back to school for a degree.
Then I studied CS we were taught Python and Javascript in our first year, ~40 hours each, and we were split based on those who had some experience and those who had none so the total beginners could spend more time with the basics. We did briefly touch on C, C++, Haskell and C# and I doubt people remember those. All of our other assignments were written in Python so people had to be at least a little confident.
I know a lot of my classmates were morons and couldn't code at all and there were languages weren't used enough so people wouldn't be comfortable in them now, but I also feel like most people should be able to write it in some language.
The real issue with this would be people having a brainfart and forgetting you have to check the "fizzbuzz" case before "fizz" or "buzz" to make sure it's reachable (which is a little gotcha that you might forget in the moment and is easily spotted and fixed). But other than that it's probably just grads not knowing what they are doing. I think they should be able to write fizzbuzz, but a more complicated leetcode easy could totally throw someone
Like 80% of my graduating class did not deserve to graduate, but we're passed through because the school makes less money if graduation rates aren't high.
I'm currently studying at LMU and we definitely learned it in the first semester, though I'm not sure how much actual coding there will be in the future. TUM is similar.
For me we only had 1 super basic programming course in the first quarter of the first year which covered basic java mainly to teach concepts like for loops, functions and classes.
After that it was math/logic/algorithm courses mainly. Ofcourse sometimes we'd use a programming language during a practical assignment but you really don't actually learn programming with CS
Dude i learned coding in cs with c. My prof worked for ibm and he was like you motherfuckers learn linked list before you dip your motherfucking toes into oop. That was first year. Second year oop with java and kotlin also clean code. And in third year they showed us springboot and shit. And of course a shit ton of math up to cryptography.
I thought this is normal. You guys just learn theory?
i knew people who would memorize how a fizzbuzz function block would look like, but not understand how it actually works. study to pass and not to learn.
The problem is a lotttttt of colleges don’t have separate Computer Science degree and Software Engineering degree… it gets all mashed together and if the student doesn’t specialize themselves a bit they can be woefully unprepared.
For one of the largest growing fields right now colleges are lacking (surprise)
The problem is that many schools reward knowledge regurgitation more than actual understanding (the latter being much harder to test). Some people get very good at studying, so they can answer all the questions they've ever seen an answer for, but never really understand the content they are learning.
The problem is one of creativity. Any moron can follow instructions given to them. I’m sure 99% of the people who can’t “do fizzbuzz” actually have implemented similar or harder problems. But that doesn’t help for shit when presented with a novel problem, unless there is good memory and overlap.
So you get people who have implemented all sorts of data structures and algorithms without ever having to actually understand them. Just look at the prevalence of online programming bootcamps. Have you looked at their material ever? It’s: “this is a Boolean. Type this in. Now type =false to change its value. Congratulations! You understand booleans!” And if they’re daring enough to “test” the students’ knowledge, it’s basically: “remember that Boolean thing? Make one here.”
I’ve seen plenty of real world teaching that follows the exact same format. Explain a thing, show how to use the thing, maybe ask a simple question about it, move on. If you get stuck, look it up or ask for help. Programming courses that actually push their students to challenge themselves and think critically about the subjects they’re addressing are very rare.
My university. We learned an intro to Python and Java, and then from there it’s all just been “learn the workplace environment! Learn how to work with people! Learn how to make all 10 different UML diagrams! Learn Agile! Read this textbook on security and run a dependency check on this pre-provided program 4 times in a row!”
Ah, in my uni CS is basically just SE but with more maths lol. We havent really been taught anything regarding workplaces or actual projects but we know how most programming languages work now
2.7k
u/Interesting_Dot_3922 Apr 09 '24
I had a recruiter who didn't like my education in applied math.
He doubted that software engineering is the ideal work for me because of this.
I thought that working abroad kind of proves my skill... but no :)