I went to Stuyvesant HS 10 years ago, and I took all the CS classes that the school had offered from Mr. Zamansky ("Z", as we affectionately call him), and can add some more specific information as to why this was necessary.
Stuyvesant opened in the beginning of the 20th century, and there are some vestigial components that should've been amputated long ago: in addition to the standard math, science, language (English and foreign), gym requirements, it has some requirements that truly made it historically a technical vocational school. To wit:
1 year of technical drafting (1 semester of drawing mechanical designs on paper, 1 semester of CAD), and 1.5 years of technical shop (1 semester of single-period shop, and 1 semester of double-period shop). By technical shop I mean the following: you get to choose two of ceramics, woodworking, metalworking (aka jewelry-making), electronics (aka computer tech), photography and video editing.
It's worth repeating: taking drafting and shop is required to graduate. By and large, these classes are not popular with students at all, the most obvious reason being "why the hell do we need to know this outdated shit? If someone likes it, they can take it as an elective."
Over the years, Z developed an ass-kicking CS curriculum: Intro to CS, AP CS (1 year), Systems/Network Programming, Graphics, and Independent Research. They are extraordinarily popular with the students, partially because Z is a great teacher, and partially because of the support of the previous alumni who would regularly take junior and senior-level college classes in their freshman college year thanks to that curriculum.
It's worth pointing out that none of the CS classes qualify for any graduation requirement. If you take them, you are taking them on your own time because you are interested. Aside from the knowledge itself, there's no carrot, even though the rest of the world is pointedly indicating that we need more software engineers and less metalworkers.
Now, Z goes to the current school administration and says "hey, can we add CS as an option to fulfill some graduation requirements?" and for 10 years straight (not kidding) the response he was getting was a consistent "GFY". Welcome to the NYC public school bureaucracy and people defending their own turf. It's not even that he asked anything outrageous. He didn't say "Hey, can we get rid of drafting and shop?". He said "Can we give our students more choice as to what is required to graduate?"
So, about two years ago Z decided to try a different avenue - working within the structure of Stuyvesant was not feasible, so he might as well go outside of it. Someone I know connected him to Fred Wilson, they chatted, and the rest is what you see in front of you. None of this would've happened if the Stuy HS administration had a few less heads up their asses.
Stuyvesant opened in the beginning of the 20th century, and there are some vestigial components that should've been amputated long ago
It's interesting to hear that Stuy requires drafting and shop. As a former NYC transplant I always thought it was more like a public prep school. My high school in rural Minnesota also required a year of shop, and drafting was one of the electives.
A few of my friends from high school focused on drafting and CAD, and have great jobs with architectural and engineering firms in the area. When I had to return for a while to deal with some family stuff, I could not find a local programming job to save my life.
NYC has continual construction, both with new buildings and public works projects. Drafting certainly seems antiquated, but perhaps there actually is a local need to get high performing students interested in the preliminaries of construction, civil engineering, city planning and other related fields?
It's an interesting question. Certainly, I know of a few people that after high school got urban planning degrees and seem to be happy in their jobs, so I am not one to denigrate fields related to construction. However, on a daily basis I am bombarded with articles that say how the supply of software engineers is low, but I don't often see articles that says that the supply of mechanical and civil engineers is low. Of course, my sample is thoroughly biased because I hang out in software circles - however, I still suspect that the supply of mechanical and civil engineers is just fine.
It all comes back to the difference between "requirement" and "elective". A situation where you must take a class in a field where the supply seems to be ok, but not in a field where the supply is low seems to be wrong.
Not according to Ross Brawn (you know the Best car designer in the world) - He and Mercedes have gone on the record that the CS grads are hopeless as they don't know the mathamatics to do CFD.
Though the last time I used my Mech side was to point out to an engineer in the 4th largest Civil Engineers that he had used the wrong equations for a bridge design.
Do you have any links to his comments? I agree with him (Most ruby "hackers" couldn't write a single line of code for an F1 car), and feel they also don't have enough soft skills, I'd like to see his view on the matter.
well when I did my mech enc Technician day release (in the 70's) we had to be able to design a Victorian era style central belt drive to run machines for a central prime mover.
As a Brooklyn Tech grad, we too had the shop and technical drafting requirements, though we also had a major system, which included Computer Science (http://www.bths.edu/majordesc/CompSci.jsp) as an option, which is technically required for graduation since it's your major. The courses offered as part of the major has changed since then, we had C++, Networking, and Computer Architecture, in addition to Java and Web Development, and perhaps another course or two that I can't recall. Though you can technically not take any of your major courses and graduate with a regular NYC diploma, I don't know anyone that was able to do that and stay within the school
I went to Brooklyn Tech as well and 'majored' in CS. Going into college, it was a huge advantage (maybe disadvantage in hindsight since I became bored in most of my 1st and 2nd year courses.)
I haven't seen the curriculum for this new school, but I hope they balance the theoretical with the practical. I hope it doesn't churn kids who end up being cheap labor for the big IT companies in NYC and who don't see Computer Science as a discipline and an art.
Looking back to my CS classes at Tech, I still recall what I learned about basic data structures and common algorithms. Heck, I still remember and find useful the things I learned about assembly.
The things I don't find useful and wish I could forget: Visual C++ and Windows programming.
I was class of 2006 and we had AP Computer Science (which was Java at this point), computer architecture, networking, A+, some sort of PHP/MySQL web development class but it was mostly useless
Fascinating. I had no idea about the Brooklyn Tech major system. We didn't have one - you had your requirements, and then it's a free-for-all after that.
Very well put, Yuri. A small correction from a more recent alum: I was a freshman at Stuyvesant in the fall of 2003. In the Spring of 2004, the one semester intro CS class became a graduation requirement for sophomores (where the other semester would be a condensed version of the previous drafting courses). Your point still stands though --- this only happened after Z had already been teaching computer science --- and turning out a steady stream of great engineers --- since the early 90s.
"It's worth pointing out that none of the CS classes qualify for any graduation requirement."
Wow.
I've commented with others about the dangers of hyperfocus -- the flip side is denigration of CS by folks who are ostensibly guardians of "general education".
[deletion, material sent in email to poster, probably should have been so in the first place]
But at this point Zamansky has probably gone too far down this other road to have patience for that.
You are right about Z and this other road, but it's sad to see other high schools be left in the last century. However, aside from Z, I don't know of any other potential champion who is inside Stuy to pick up the baton.
Stuyvesant opened in the beginning of the 20th century, and there are some vestigial components that should've been amputated long ago: in addition to the standard math, science, language (English and foreign), gym requirements, it has some requirements that truly made it historically a technical vocational school. To wit: 1 year of technical drafting (1 semester of drawing mechanical designs on paper, 1 semester of CAD), and 1.5 years of technical shop (1 semester of single-period shop, and 1 semester of double-period shop). By technical shop I mean the following: you get to choose two of ceramics, woodworking, metalworking (aka jewelry-making), electronics (aka computer tech), photography and video editing.
It's worth repeating: taking drafting and shop is required to graduate. By and large, these classes are not popular with students at all, the most obvious reason being "why the hell do we need to know this outdated shit? If someone likes it, they can take it as an elective."
Over the years, Z developed an ass-kicking CS curriculum: Intro to CS, AP CS (1 year), Systems/Network Programming, Graphics, and Independent Research. They are extraordinarily popular with the students, partially because Z is a great teacher, and partially because of the support of the previous alumni who would regularly take junior and senior-level college classes in their freshman college year thanks to that curriculum.
It's worth pointing out that none of the CS classes qualify for any graduation requirement. If you take them, you are taking them on your own time because you are interested. Aside from the knowledge itself, there's no carrot, even though the rest of the world is pointedly indicating that we need more software engineers and less metalworkers.
Now, Z goes to the current school administration and says "hey, can we add CS as an option to fulfill some graduation requirements?" and for 10 years straight (not kidding) the response he was getting was a consistent "GFY". Welcome to the NYC public school bureaucracy and people defending their own turf. It's not even that he asked anything outrageous. He didn't say "Hey, can we get rid of drafting and shop?". He said "Can we give our students more choice as to what is required to graduate?"
So, about two years ago Z decided to try a different avenue - working within the structure of Stuyvesant was not feasible, so he might as well go outside of it. Someone I know connected him to Fred Wilson, they chatted, and the rest is what you see in front of you. None of this would've happened if the Stuy HS administration had a few less heads up their asses.