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Thursday, May 28, 2009

Computer Engineers Should Not Teach Computer Science

Everything started last year, when a commission created by the Minister of Higher Education considered computer engineers unqualified to teach computer science. The decision was widely accepted by computer science departments and did not cause any resistance in most of the academic community, except for several computer engineering professors who found themselves unable to renew their contracts at the end of the academic year.

Yesterday, computer engineers protested again, but I am happy to read that the Ministry made things clear and dismissed the new claims against the decision.

Although most people do not know that, but there are relatively more differences than similarities in the two fields. Most of the computer science departments were first established from math departments, that is why computer science curricula contain a significant mathematical foundation and courses like algorithms, numerical analysis and theory of computation. It is not a coincidence that computer science is regarded as a natural science, like mathematics, physics and chemistry.

Computer engineering is different, it has its roots in electrical engineering and depends a lot on electronics, circuits and other electricity-related stuff. Some universities even find it difficult to consider computer engineering an "independent" major. MIT, one of the world's most important technology universities, has an "Electrical Engineering and Computer Science" degree. Here in Jordan, Yarmouk University provides a B.Sc. in electrical engineering with minor in computer engineering for its students. The same classification is applied on computer engineers that want to sign in the Jordan Engineers Association.

As the two subjects differ, it is very improbable that a computer engineer is able to teach a "pure" computer science course in a proper way. Even the common subjects, like operating systems, computer architecture and networking, are used to be taught by respective departments as the required approach may be different based on the target audience.

It is also known that computer engineers -generally- lack good programming skills and knowledge, that's basically caused by a smaller number of programming subjects in their curricula, in addition to the engineering focus on hardware rather than software.

I do not know why in Jordan this simple issue is opposed, but in other parts of the world a computer scientist teaches computer science and computer engineer, on his side, teaches computer engineering. Anyway, the ministry's decision is just the first step in order to improve the academic level of computer science students, a lot of other steps should be taken: First of them, allow only IT and Scientific Tawjihi students to study CS and encourage the creation of a trade union for computer scientists.

Labels: Jordan

Posted by Issa at 1:30 PM | Links to this post | 8 Comments for this post | Write your comment!

back to the eternal fight between computer science people and computer engineering people!!,
as a computer engineer (JUST graduate) i don't think that's right,
we do take electric engineering and hardware courses but also
we took a lot of computer science courses and labs too,
and most of the graduates gain a lot of excellent programming skills and work as developers.
also the professors who taught us had a strong programming experience.

PS: sorry for commenting more than once because of problems of internet connection.

Posted by Unknown | May 28, 2009, 4:35:00 PM

Two Things:

"Here in Jordan, Yarmouk University provides a B.Sc. in electrical engineering with minor in computer engineering for its students. "

Nop. I graduated from Yarmouk University with a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering. it used to be "B.Sc. in electrical engineering/computer engineering" like 12 years ago.

"It is also known that computer engineers -generally- lack good programming skills and knowledge, "

Statistics say that computer engineers make better programmers than computer science students.

Posted by Anonymous | May 28, 2009, 11:48:00 PM

Thank you for your comment Mohammad.
The main idea of this post was not to claim that computer science is "better" than computer engineering or vice versa. I am a JUST graduate too, and I know there are some CS courses that CPE students take, these include, for example, C++ and Introduction to programming. However most advanced programming courses are not in the CPE curriculum (and that's a good thing), good examples are advanced data structures, concepts of programming languages and computational theory. These courses are fundamental in CS. Do you think that a person who did not take them at first and then studied different subjects who are loosely related to computer software in both Master and PhD will be able to teach properly?
I do not deny that computer engineers that work as developers may get better programming knowledge and skills, the same as computer engineering who self-study some programming concepts. But these two cases are based on personal efforts and do not mean -in any case- that they will gain a good theoretical base in computer science.

Posted by Issa | May 29, 2009, 12:57:00 AM

@ Anonymous,
Very good, this means that the ministry decision is more than right as long as Yarmouk university provides a single BSc. for electrical engineering/computer engineering. This makes electrical engineering able to teach computer engineering and vice versa (nothing related to computer science).
And as my own little and personal experience proves the contrary, can you provide some sources and numbers for your "statistics"?

Posted by Issa | May 29, 2009, 12:58:00 AM

I agree totally!

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Posted by Anonymous | Apr 3, 2010, 2:17:00 AM

I think that engineers should be aloud to teach computer science, most of these guys are experts in Computer Science.

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