Just my 2 cents....

1. Enter to a top college in either Electrical Engineering or Physics... or some other technical major
2. Do as many as possible CS courses while there
3. Do few internships in CS related field
4. Self-learn whenever you can, whatever you can find in CS field

I did Electrical Engineering in college. But half way through I realized that only thing I liked about that major was, digital logic and programming. So I enrolled into as many as possible CS related courses; did my senior year thesis something close to CS (communication protocol simulation using distributed network); and read/learned as many as possible CS related topics (mainly programming theory and parallel computing). Then I did my PhD in Electrical Engineering too. I managed to make my thesis much more CS related (machine learning + pattern recognition) and used much of my knowledge in algorithm, optimizations and distributed computing.

Just 2 weeks ago, I secured a web developer position at a software firm (somewhere in far east). Still I had to go through a written + oral technical examinations on programming, algorithm and puzzle solving. But the knowledge and experience came in handy. One added advantage I have, coming from Engineering background, is knowing everything from how the microprocessor, cache, memory works up to the level of how protocols at WWW level works. And when you start programming with "so-called ancient" multi-paradigm languages like C++ and some assembly in college (most microcontrollers still use C/C++ and/or ASM), it gives you a good foundation on whatever language you need to learn later on. Over the years, I've learned MATLAB, Python, JavaScript, SQL, C#... and now Ruby... but still, fundamentals concepts I understood while learning C/C++ was critical in most cases.

Gordan Gekko from The Wallstreet............. Greed (to suck up) is good !!!

I am always surprised to see the heavy usage of blackboard at places like Stanford, MIT (check http://www.academicearth.org./ Even some of the later successes, like the Khan Academy or Paddy Hirsch's financial market mini-lectures, are primarily relying on blackboard centered teaching methods. One may disagree, but I still think analog-alike blackboard based teaching is still the best, compared to power-point based lectures.

Overall, I consider technology is merely "a tool" to get information faster and crunch numbers faster. Still, education or any other intellectual pursuit is down to heavy-use-of-brain, discipline, and hard work/perseverance. And yes, I do not deny, having good teachers is always a plus.

I think High Frequency Trading (HFT) is a good topic to talk about, considering the recent media attention on financial meltdown, new NYSE trading facility in NJ and occupy wallstreet and what not. It covers most CS topics like 'algorithms/math' to maximize profit, 'data mining' to beat the competition, 'IT infrastructure' to minimize latency, and 'global influence' in terms of market impact, fat-cat bankers and boom-bust economy (you may consider positive phrasing on last 2 points).

Finally, I remember reading here in slashdot, a C++ native dev who writes algorithms for one of those HFT firms, who earns 1/2 million per annum. Now that is serious money right ?

I did a STEM degree abroad... and it is far beyond sitting in a lecture hall.

The biggest thing of all (at least for me) is, learning how to survive independently in a different country/environment.
Also, how to live on a "shoe-string budget" was quite useful too.. especially last few months (yep, am unemployed).
 

ARM is relatively new to the pipeline and super-scalar architectures, and yet to see "out-of-order" execution. Assume it will take some more years to produce a highly efficient processor.

My guess why ARM didn't reach desktop yet, it can't handle complex multi tasking stuff. For an example, how about viewing 20 web pages, HD video playback, downloading multi-gig file at 1 Mbps, applying PS touches on batch mode, while compressing 1000+ files. My other guess is, ARM is yet to produce a CPU that can communicate with modern graphics cards, SSDs and other demanding I/Os. They require additional transistors/processor to get around it I guess.

People have got together and demonstrated, picketed and rioted long before the advent of social media. It is just that, communication is much more efficient and easier today. And surely, people will find ways to circumvent even if social media gets banned tomorrow.

I think UK PM is focusing on the wrong stuff -- social media -- to begin with. I mean, he should deeply analyze what are the root causes behind these massive riots. The reason (according to my understanding) is the youth who are denied a better future because of the greed of preceding generation(s).

Let's face the truth... we are living in a world of politicians, bankers, financiers, top shots who steal wealth from common people and run away without a scratch; while a poor teenager getting batton-down for stealing a pair of jeans. How fair is that ? isn't bankrupting entire nations and sending financial shock waves across the globe a criminal act?

Aren't they a culprit too in grade inflation debacle ???

I was a TA in a far east university in an Engineering department. Generally I consider my self a tough marker, as I expect students to arrive at answers with right logical reasoning. Having said that, I usually had a partial blind eye for students who has genuine drive towards studies -- post grad research types --, because their future shouldn't be eclipsed by a one bad grade. Also I highly control the grade distribution, such that only 5-10% of the class will get A-grade.

First time when I marked the maths assignments, the feedback was horrible. I was told off by the lecturer for marking strictly, and then he increased marks of everybody by some percentage. Then I was instructed "not to go through the workings" and "give full marks if you see the answer". Since then, more than half the class gets A-grade.

The problem here is, lecturers are evaluated every semester by handing out questionnaires to students (in that university). Bad feedback can kill lecturer's x-mas bonus to getting a promotion in the department. So him (and many others) end up pleasing students not to hurt his career as an academic.

On a separate note, most of engineering course work are now done in software level. As a consequence, hardly any hardware related experiments and report writing. Downside of all this is, it is impossible to catch plagiarism; as all experiments in a software produces same outcome, more or less. Unless all students get it wrong, everybody ends up getting A-grade.

In my time, all course work (labs, assignments) has to be submitted as a report. Highest I ever got was 8/10... mostly 7/10. In one assignment I submitted, marks were slashed for no zooming in a graph (still it covered 90% of the page). In another report, few marks were removed for not using a ruler to draw a circuit diagram. Having few bad grades eventually costed my first class, which became a major issue in my post-grad entry. Considering those days, I think college kids are having easy time now. In a way, I can understand why people in the working world pay little to no attention on college performance.

Thought of sending this to Top Gear... too bad as a human was driving it.

Hope the robot called 911 after the crash...

In a perfect world, everybody is entitled for their opinion... and everybody else (including the authorities) have to listen to them with an open attitude, regardless how mellifluous or harsh it is.Truth is.. we are in an *imperfect world*. Expressing an unpopular opinion could most often put you in a compromising position. And if you do it with your identity out in the wild.. you may consider writing your last will ASAP.

On the other hand, a proliferation of discrimination is imminent with such a move. As in, if lets say I choose my real name as my slashdot ID. You could easily guess which part of the world or even which country I am from. Once those details are in the wild, no longer there is level playing field on the Internet, in terms of expressing your ideas. Recently I moved to a country in the east looking for an employment. I hardly get interviews here, even with a graduate certificate, simply because my name is good enough to identify where I am from. AFAIK, most academic publication houses remove author/institution details prior to sending papers out to reviewers, just to avoid such discrimination.

Also from this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Edge

I agree with you....

DISCLAIMER: I am not meaning to thrash US or its citizens. But I need my opinion to be heard.

The good thing Internet and streaming media has done over the years is, exposing non-americans much more deeper into what's happening in US. As an Asian, sometimes I can't get my head around the *real* American culture and thinking.

Firstly, for the life of me, I can't understand why health care is not universal in US. I remember watching a CBS news coverage where a man dies after catching pneumonia, simply because he couldn't go to a GP while he was having the basic cold. I was brought up in a war-torn poor country. Even still we had universal health care and any civilian can see a GP at any hour of the day.

Secondly, tax is robbing from the rich, at least that's the resonating sentiment there. As far as I know, America began under the democratic principle "no taxation without representation". I wonder people earning more than 100k, who are not paying any taxes, are not eligible for voting ?... like in some middle eastern countries, where no democratic government to represent citizens, as nobody pays tax. I think taxation is crucial for any country to keep things afloat. As I heard, if US impose a 7-10% GST, it can easily cover medicare costs (heard it on CBS sometime back).

Finally, rather skeptic view about science education. Come on.. I grew up watching X-files, NASA achievements etc etc. I always thought science education there is invincible. But when I first heard about people there believing about *Flintstones* stuff and anti-evolutionary tales, I was shocked. I was taught science in a state run school in a 3rd world country.. even with no 1st class facilities, I think I had far better science education there. I just can't think why things are like this in US.

Once I tried to get into a US grad school, and eventually move into US. As I said, more I watch programs in CBS, Bill Maher show, CNN, what not...... I feel not moving there was a wise choice, considering how tough it would be for me to adapt the situation there. I'd rather move to an EU country, even though they are bankrupt as much as US, still those governments treat their people with much more dignity and respect.

1. Digitally wired brains

If you have listened to Philip Zimbardo's 'The Secret Power of Time' lectures (here is the summary version:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3oIiH7BLmg), he mentioned about students with 10,000 odd hours of video gaming having 'digitally wired brains'. Even though it sounds preposterous, as someone who worked as a TA for last 3 years, I have to agree with his thesis. I taught number of units ranging from computer-based lab classes to just paper-and-pencil math tutorials. Though students were doing alright in lab classes, they were paranoid in math tutorials. Simply they hated staring at a white-board. Their concentration levels dips in few minutes, ended up taking out their tablets, mobiles to rectify it (which mostly annoyed me and everybody else).

Literally, modern day class room is too 'analog' for the 'digitally wired brains' coming into study. I don't know the solution. But education as a whole should address this issue. Perhaps we should put up LCD screens instead of white boards.

(side note: I am still impressed how big univ like Stanford, MIT manage to survive with blackboards alone.)

2. Student attitude

About 10% of a class population is genuinely interested and enthusiastic about their learning (DISCLAIMER: just my rough observation). Rest just want to get through the unit, possibly with higher grade if possible. And the latter group are the usual troublemakers, who push the assessments to be more "tick-point-like", and line up at your office door pushing you to give higher marks (and some of them go to admin and lodge complains even).

It is an idealistic dream to bring everyone in a class to the same level of maths or physics or . If the student has the desire to learn, he/she will soldier on. Others will find their own way. I had one math student under me, pretty average student, and he took his 2nd year off to go tour with his metal rock band (he is bloody good at playing the guitar). My thoughts and wishes are with him on this, and I repeatedly asked him to drop out from college and work on his band. Simply because, he will be average in a classroom, while top in his game at a live stage.

3. Institution's attitude

I worked in a private institution. I think they are moving from 'educational institute' model to 'business company' model. Institution I attached to introduced a massive 'performance monitoring' exercise, where each department is rewarded based on their performances. It went down to the insane level, where you as a lecturer will get x-mas bonus only if your students' feedback is positive.

This led to a sea change in teaching attitudes. Instead of teaching, lecturers were giving away high grades generously while pampering them in classrooms. As a math TA, I always marked assignments giving high priority towards methodology and logical reasoning. It takes 4-5 days to mark 160 scripts. Eventually, the math lecturer accused me of marking them strict and insisted me to "just give marks if you see the final answer" in the next round of assignments (voila!, I marked the next batch in just one afternoon, and half the class got A+).

I think any educational institute (be it school, college, university) shouldn't run like private companies who are desperate to make profit to show off to their investors. Such attitudes certainly kills the "education" aspect of the institute, and becomes more like "degree issuing factories for a fixed price".

(similarly, there were dodgy practices in research dept as a consequence of institution's attitude)

As somebody said , "degrees kills education". So might well as close all the schools, or get rid of grades. (kidding!)

agree for the most part....

I had to leave grad school at the three year milestone, as funding wasn't there to continue even a semester more. So if you do not generate enough results to back up your thesis, you are toasted, you have just wasted 3 years of your life (if lucky, you will graduate with a Masters). I really wanted to produce a prototype/demo version of what I did (or at least clean up the code removing all the scaffoldings and debug junk). But time was just enough to write up my thesis.

Also remember, researchers do not do coding all the time.. they have so many other activities to engage, such as finding relevant research material, reading books, learning new topics, work with collaborators, reverse engineer code written by others, write papers, peer-review other's work etc etc. So coding is just a minor task of the whole research experience; and you can't possibly expect them to write production level code, which professional coders get 100% of their work time to engage in.