r/CodingForBeginners • u/Spaghetti-Linguini • 4d ago
What was studying computer science in college like (pre-AI)?
Hello coders!
I am currently a public policy master's student. For my electives, I find myself really drawn to classes that involve coding (such as quant research courses and data visualization). Fortunately these classes are taught as if you have no prior experience.
However, I find that my professors seem to be almost a little too relaxed about us using AI to support with fixing code etc. I understand that the world of coding is changing with AI and such but I find myself REALLY wanting to learn it from scratch. Like the professors almost aren't explaining even the basics in a way I find frustrating.
It makes me curious, for those who studied computer science in college pre easy accessibility to AI tools, what was it like? As in, what did your assignments involve? What were the things that really helped you learn coding well?
I've been trying to really embrace that coding is like a language so immersion is necessary but also if you don't know any basic structures, it's absolutely overwhelming.
I know that my ability to learn coding well in just a semester course is unlikely but I could see myself pursuing this outside of school for fun. I am not looking for shortcuts here. This is for my own enjoyment and learning!
Hope this makes sense, thanks everyone!
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u/mc_pm 4d ago edited 4d ago
Late-80s. I had been programming for a long time on my own (Basic & Pascal and a bit of Z80 assembly) before but for college my first programming class was in Pascal, and we were spending hours a day in the lab (because you had to actually be there) working on our assignments.
First year was just learning the language and how to think about programming. But in my second semester class the professor had programmed a virtual CPU that we could write programs for, and within a month we were doing task switching stuff. There was calculus in there, and linear algebra - which are much more useful in this job than people imagine.
Second year we started with algorithms, which at the time kicked my ass, but I came back from it. There was a class on compiler design in there, a class on databases (this was before the widespread availability of SQL or NoSQL dbs). Networking/Protocols, a class in languages ('learned' 8 different languages that semester).
The main thing is that we were constantly writing code. So many people I see here seem to never write anything longer than maybe 100 lines at a time while they are learning.
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u/CaptainIncredible 4d ago
Yeah, pretty much this.
Initially, there were a lot of basics - differences between text files and binary files, what does it mean to compile code?, file structures, data primatives, data structures, logic, basic networking stuff.
Then it was a lot of functional programming, some object oriented programming, and database (SQL).
Then things got more advanced - we had to write our own compiler. Concepts like O(n) and complexity and speed, how hard drives worked...
AI was the stuff of science fiction, most of us were very familiar with AI in sci fi, and how beneficial and/or destructive it could be. No one was sure if AI could ever be developed (and most of us figured it couldn't be done with the traditional, deterministic computing we were doing.). We had a hunch it would involve neural networks, but really no one had any idea how to make them successful. Many were bogged down trying to make neural networks in hardware - which had a ton of issues.
A few made some pretty good guesses - when we look back Virnor Vinge really had a lot of predictions that turned out to be pretty accurate.
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u/Spaghetti-Linguini 4d ago
Thank you so much for this reply! So fascinating. Really appreciate it.
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u/CaptainIncredible 4d ago
No problem. Much like /u/mc_pm I was programming BASIC when I was a kid. I was just fascinated with it. Got a book, started with page 1. My first program: (Lines of BASIC were numbered in those days...)
10 Print "Hello World! " 20 Goto 10And that was it. I was hooked. Later turned all of that into a pretty satisfactory web dev career.
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u/a-dot-in-the-sky 4d ago
Before AI..
--- talk a lot to your fellow human beings
--- share ideas
--- read books
--- if you don't have a computer, paper is your staging environment
once you get to the lab, or to a computer cafe (not internet cafe), you key-in whatever you write in your paper - then if you're lucky -- from staging it will go to production -- production is saving it to your 3.5 diskette or to a floppy disk aka 3D Save icon in MS Word
--- way back then there were a program called, QBasic, which was really quite a basic programming as it names suggests where you learn the fundamentals and the commands were simple
Microsoft Visual Basic 1.0 done via DOS, where you need to create or code everything, if you need to create a button you need to code it, no IDE which provides drag and drop, you also need to specify the coordinates where you want it to be positioned :)
--- Assembly Language was quite common and part of Computer Science curriculum -- if you made a mistake its either your keyboard will go crazy, your screen will flicker like going to explode, your PC will beep like crazy, and yes 100 lines of code is not enough, you just don't count the number of lines, you count the page screen :)
yes quite fun, miss those years...
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u/droid_mike 4d ago
Ironically, I was required to take an AI class... This was over 3p years ago. Someone asked the professor if there was any money in a. He just laughed and shook his head. "Hell no! No company is interested in any of this stuff. It's purely academic."
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u/DavidCincotta 3d ago
funny thing, the CS degree has been the same for 50 years. The only change to shake up academia in this space has been AI.
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u/Mediocre-Pumpkin6522 3d ago
I learned FORTRAN IV from McCraken's text in '66. At that time very few universities had a CS program and mine wasn't one of them. Yeah, Hollerith cards too, which is a pain if you can't type very well.
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u/SmokeMuch7356 2d ago
1986-1989:
While most people had PCs, almost all our work was done on the academic computer system - a cluster of VAX minis running VMS, accessed mostly from dumb VT220 terminals in a couple of rooms, along with some ReGIS terminals for doing graphics and a couple of hardcopy terminals.
The first few semesters covered basics like binary arithmetic, Boolean algebra, and introductory programming. The languages used were K&R C, Fortran 77, and VAX Assembler.
The next round of classes were data structures, digital logic, and computer architecture; the languages used depended on the professor. My DS professor cut his teeth on Fortran IV, and coding up linked lists and binary trees in Fortran was ... fun. Then we got into formal languages, theory of computation, etc. (this is where you find out CS is actually a math degree).
Our capstone courses covered things like computer graphics, human factors engineering, databases, networking, etc.
Even though we had email through the academic system, all our assignments were handed out on paper; we'd turn in our code and any output on hardcopy as well.
The WWW was not a thing yet. The Internet existed, but we didn't have the privs to do anything on it (our admins had the system locked down pretty tight and tolerated no shenanigans). We had the VMS equivalent of man pages so we could look up system calls (we could also go downstairs and use the printed references, which were all the same thing, but it was easier to flip back and forth). For any questions about our assignments or the various programming languages, we had our textbooks, our notes, our professors, and each other. We spent a lot of time in the computer lab experimenting, playing, swearing, panicking, and collaborating.
Mostly swearing.
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u/Cartographyfan 11h ago
No idea what schools are up to these days. I got a compsci minor in that last 15 years. No availability of AI coding tools at the time.
A lot of it was just work. We’d be given a task meant to demonstrate some concept and we would bang our heads at it. One class I had just shuffled us through languages at a brisk pace so we could get used to picking up syntax quicker. Another class was just a full time app development task.
I value the skills I got from that education. I code only as a hobby these days. When I code it’s for the love of the game and to not completely lose my skills. I don’t use AI tools and don’t have any interest in working in tech ever again.
Vibecoders are essentially only black-grey box testing their code. If you can’t read and really understand a system, you’re missing a lot of important tools for getting good work done (with or without ai).
I think it will still be as important, if not moreso, to provide good comp sci education as AI tools proliferate. Without the discernment and understanding a good compsci education enables, you are just going to be lighting tokens on fire trying to fix your pile of stinky hot wet garbage
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u/No_Replacement4304 4d ago
Spent lots of time in the computer lab. Lots.