
New York City gets a Software Engineering High School - apress
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2012/01/13.html
======
seer
I am actually astonished that this is the first time something like this is
tried in the US. And I also don't understand the negative comments here in HN
- most of you guys probably had a passion for computers at even earlier age
and would have enjoyed this kind of school greatly. Here In the Sofia (the
capital of Bulgaria) this is long established practice - we have loosely
specialized schools and students decide where hey want to learn at about 13
years of age. You can of course switch schools as you like, but more
prestigious ones have some requirements. The point is that I did know I wanted
to work with computers and made this decision then to go to he programming
school here and I consider this one of he best decisions in my life. Most of
my classmates have ended up with quite accomplished careers in IT but a
surprising number end up with very different professions - doctors, dentists,
musicians - the emphasis on programming did not hinder their progress that
much maybe even helped hem.

~~~
tokenadult
_I am actually astonished that this is the first time something like this is
tried in the US. And I also don't understand the negative comments here in HN_

Specialized high schools are moderately common in the United States, some
organized as general public schools, and some organized as "charter" schools
(a form of regulation in the United States with public funding, but less
public funding than most schools, and some variation in regulations that apply
to general public schools). In my part of the United States, Minnesota, there
is public school open enrollment (any student can enroll in any public school
district, anywhere in the state) and quite a few charter schools (Minnesota
was the first state to have any charter schools). My public school district
receives students from forty-one public school districts, the farthest one
more than 100 miles away. (I've heard that the child stays with relatives
during the school week and goes back to his parents' home on weekends. That is
perfectly legal here in Minnesota.) There is another charter school, far
across the metropolitan area from where I live, that purports to be a Math and
Science Academy.

<http://www.mnmsa.org/>

But as I think any European or east Asian reader of the school's website will
soon recognize, the Math and Science Academy charter school in Minnesota does
not have a credible academic program in mathematics or science up to
international standards. (One of my good friends had a child in that school,
and she is bitterly disappointed by how much the school killed her daughter's
interest in mathematics and science with its underchallenging curriculum.) A
regular public school in Minnesota is permitted to have an internal program
that is academically selective, for example a "school within a school" for
gifted students, as my local school district does

[http://www.minnetonka.k12.mn.us/ACADEMICS/NAVIGATORPROGRAM/P...](http://www.minnetonka.k12.mn.us/ACADEMICS/NAVIGATORPROGRAM/Pages/default.aspx)

and as other Minnesota public school districts had first.

<http://www.invergrove.k12.mn.us/atheneum.html>

[http://www.springlakeparkschools.org/schools/la/la_lighthous...](http://www.springlakeparkschools.org/schools/la/la_lighthouse.asp)

[http://department.services.bloomington.k12.mn.us/modules/cms...](http://department.services.bloomington.k12.mn.us/modules/cms/pages.phtml?pageid=201931&sessionid=)

By contrast, charter schools in Minnesota cannot be academically selective in
any way, but must accept all applicants (which is also the plan for the New
York City school in the submitted article), allocating spaces by lottery if
the number of applicants exceeds the number of spaces. That is one of several
ways in which regulations on charter schools are more restrictive than the
regulations on regular public school districts.

Minnesota has a specialized program for mathematics only

<http://www.mathcep.umn.edu/umtymp/>

that draws in students from all over the Twin Cities metropolitan area for
classes at the University of Minnesota. I like that program a lot. My oldest
son is an alumnus, and I will have two other children take that program's
qualifying test in a few months, for two different entry points into that
program.

In general, the cultural attitude in the United States is highly hostile to
advanced programs for bright learners, as you can see in some of the comments
here. Many programs for "gifted" students may not even have added value for
academic growth,

<http://educationnext.org/poor-results-for-high-achievers/>

academic achievement even in wealthy school districts is often below the
standards achieved in poorer countries,

<http://globalreportcard.org/>

and the United States especially lags behind in teaching mathematics to its
most advanced students.

[http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/PEPG10-19_Hanushe...](http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/PEPG10-19_HanushekPetersonWoessmann.pdf)

So I'm glad to see the New York City experiment in offering a software
engineering high school, and will be curious to see if that example is
imitated in other parts of the United States.

~~~
jedc
Wow... it's been ages since I thought of UMTYMP. I went through two years of
UMTYMP, and it was the most amazing program. In those two years we covered
four years of high school math. It taught me math quick, and also how to work
hard.

A side benefit is that because I was taking math at the University of
Minnesota outside school hours, I had a free period at school when I would
normally take math. (Along with two friends.) We had free reign over our
Macintosh computer lab for nearly an hour a day for two years and it was
AWESOME. I programmed some pretty wicked stuff in Hypercard, messed around
with ripping audio from TV shows onto the computer, f __ked around on the
school's network, and loved it all. (I'm dating myself a bit; this was around
1990-1992 or so.)

Programs like this are amazingly awesome, and they should spread far more than
they do.

------
snikolov
There is a lot of worry in this thread about the curriculum being too narrow.
While I do not know how it will work in this new school, let me offer some
perspective as a Stuyvesant alum.

Like many have said, it can be possible to have a "normal" school with all the
usual subjects in addition to a prominent computer science program.

Take my experience, for example:

Freshman year I learned things like recursion, Scheme, dynamic programming,
and cellular automata. Sophomore year, I learned basic data structures and
algorithms and wrote a couple of games. Junior year I learned systems
programming in C, signals, processes, network communication and wrote a
filesharing system. The next semester I wrote a computer graphics engine from
scratch --- all the way from line drawing to complex lighting and implementing
an animation and scene graph language. I also took the independent research
class where I worked on information retrieval research.

I am not bragging. This is _typical_ (in fact, many of the projects, or
variations thereof, are things that everybody in those classes does). And yet,
I still took tons of math, physics, chemistry, european history, american
history, classical literature, modern literature, tech shop, architecture, and
many other things. This was also typical! Other kids took the same common
stuff but instead of so much computer science and math they took special
electives in philosophy, literature, history, economics, and so on.

You really can fit all that stuff in. Stuyvesant is a great example that you
can have a serious, multi-year computer science program and still have more
than enough focus on other subjects.

------
jrockway
I'm not sure it's a great idea to get so focused at such an early age. There's
a lot to learn about the world when you're 14, and it might be good to explore
a wide range of topics. (I personally took most of my "real" classes in high
school, so by the time I got to college, I had an idea of what I wanted to do.
After going to college for a year, I realized my needs would not be met in
that way. But deciding at 20 is a lot different from deciding at 14.)

~~~
mjwalshe
Yes you do need to have a wider range than just CS

In fact a lot of what industy needs is more Computer Enginering and lees hyper
secpecialised CS majors - you dont see Audi or Mercedes saying we need
engineers lets train a load of physicists.

~~~
tghw
Computer Engineering is generally hardware and firmware design, something that
is becoming less and less important as generalized processors have become
smaller, cheaper, and more powerful. At this point, almost everything can be
done in software, so a Computer Science degree _is_ more important.

Also, your Audi/Mercedes analogy is flawed. Physicists and engineers are very
different, and if they needed more engineers, they would sponsor engineering
schools. Right now we need more software developers, so training kids in
Computer Science makes complete sense. Some schools (including my alma mater)
do provide a separate Software Engineering degree, but they generally overlap
so much with CS as to be virtually indistinguishable. It's also somewhat
laughable to call Software Engineering "engineering", as there is a general
lack of rigor and no formal qualification for software engineers like there is
for every other branch of engineering.

~~~
sliverstorm
Computer Engineer here- while I would selfishly argue that Computer Science is
not more _important_ , the CS field is even now still growing, while our field
is contracting. I do not expect ours to ever go away entirely, but the answer
is not to make everyone a CE.

I think maybe what mjwalshe is thinking about, is the Computer Scientist
graduates who cannot even program.

~~~
mjwalshe
yes that's what i was getting at theorys all very well but you need to be able
to apply this to real world which is what most employers of programmers want.

My first job after school (as a technical programmer) was at an Elite RnmD
organistion (our boss was the mechanical engineers president at the time) and
I remember I was told one way to think about it is that "engineers" are
scientists with thumbs.

------
humanfromearth
At my high-school in Romania we silently eliminated religion (yeah,
surprised?), philosophy, 1 lesson of geography, 1 lesson of french and maybe
something else.. and at the end we got 2 cs theory lessons and 6 full lessons
of coding in the lab per week. We all had a linux shell on the school's server
and most used vim to code C with gcc and makefiles.

That had a lot to do with what kind of programmer I am today even if I was one
of the worst students in the class.

~~~
rgrieselhuber
Religion class aside, it seems a loss to do away with geography, philosophy
and foreign languages. I love that you guys had a shell and learned so many
great tools, but I think programming is also enhanced by being exposed to many
non-CS topics.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Compare unemployment rates in geography, philosophy and foreign languages. We
need more CS people. We don't need more philosophers.

(Though admittedly, knowledge of English or German might be very useful if you
are coming from Romania.)

~~~
rdouble
According to census data from 2010, foreign language majors have a lower
unemployment rate (5.2%) than computer science majors (5.6%). Geography (6.1%)
and philosophy and religion (7.1%) don't fare as well, but are doing about as
well as computer engineers (7.0%).

Worst off are clinical psychologists (19.1%), best off (0%) are actuaries,
pharmacists, school administrators, and surprisingly, geologists and
astronomers (!).

<http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/#term=>

~~~
yummyfajitas
I stand corrected, foreign languages are probably also a worthwhile field of
study.

------
postfuturist
I'm so jealous of people who had the opportunity to take CS classes in high
school (none at mine). I've seriously considered volunteering to teach intro
CS classes at local high schools, just to pay it forward, I guess. I'd done
some BASIC and C programming by the time I entered high school, and I would
have taken any programming or CS classes in a heartbeat.

------
vigilanteweb
I think this is great. The kids who are going to be applying and accepted to
this school already have the desire to pursue CS and I would imagine are
already investigatingthe topic on their own time. To be able to be exposed to
formalized education in a field that you're already excited about is an
amazing opportunity.

------
YuriNiyazov
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.

~~~
asnyder
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

~~~
dzlobin
What year did you graduate?

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

~~~
dvdhsu
APCS is still Java at this point.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Placement_Computer_Sci...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Placement_Computer_Science)

------
systemizer
I love computers and I work with them everyday, but I believe the idea of a
high school geared primarily towards software engineering is wrong.

Computer Science teaches you to think logically about problems. It gives you
primitives to build complex systems that will later help you understand the
world. In fact, most computer scientists think the same when they approach a
problem.

But there are other kinds of thinking that are also important which high
schools should introduce to students. Art. Music. Athletics. Each subject
requires you to think in a different way.

I will always remember what Marvin Minsky told me when I was taking his class:
when he approaches a problem, he first chooses how he will think, not how he
will approach the problem itself. He also said that he studied how the great
minds of the past approached problems so that he could think like them.

Do I want to think like a Richard Feynman or an Albert Einstein? Have you ever
thought about that question and what it means? If not, I recommend you start
reading books that they've written so you can try to capture that brilliance.

~~~
tikhonj
That's a false dichotomy--a school focusing on CS does not preclude covering
other subjects well. I doubt anybody wants to do away with art or music or
English--rather, they want to take the existing curriculum and _add_ CS, more
than they've been able at normal schools.

Both my father and my uncle went to a mathematically oriented school in
Russia; however, this does not mean their education suffered. What it meant
was that on top of doing normal school, they had more math taught at a faster
pace.

Specializing in high school does not stop you from getting a well rounded
education, but it can provide focus and ensures an exceptionally thorough
grounding in whatever subject you're specializing in.

------
blueprint
Mike Zamansky was my AP CS teacher in high school. Way to go Mr. Zamansky!

Edit: If anyone has any questions about him or his teaching style I might be
able to answer.

~~~
danjvowelsn
I have a question: how does he always come up with such brilliant ideas for
Halloween costumes?

~~~
blueprint
This is just a guess but he's been teaching for long enough that each year he
probably keeps an eye out for concepts that he can use during Halloween and
then works on the ones he judges to be the best.

Some say brilliance is often a product of hard work over a long time.

~~~
zamansky
actually, I generally procrastinate until early October and than something
hits me.

~~~
danjvowelsn
Hey, it's Mr. Z! You know, all of the tools that I use every day (i.e., Python
and Emacs) I first learned from one of your classes. If it weren't for you, I
would never be where I am today.

Thanks for being an awesome teacher, and congrats on this new project!

~~~
borski
I have to echo this. I learned emacs, python, scheme (and then elisp, and then
lisp), linux system administration, and assembly all as direct results of
either Z's classes or being on the ZTeam and being pushed to learn more. Most
of what I do now on a daily basis stretches directly back to those days.

So thanks, Z. :)

------
molmalo
I don't know if that's novel in the US, but this is pretty common here in
Argentina. Secondary school here takes 5 years. Where I did it (1997-2001),
before starting the 3rd year (14 years old), we had to choose the speciality
(software engeneering, chemistry, civil engeneering, media and communications,
musical production, business administration, electronic engeneering, graphic
design).

I choose software (while most of my friends of that time choose electrinics
engeneering). The next three years we had lots of subjects related to CS. This
is what I learned there: \- Computer architecture, \- Networking (osi model,
ip stack, that sort of things), algorithms, \- Structural programming (1st
year), then oop (2nd year) (with C and C++), then Events Driven Programming
with VB6 (3rd year) \- systems analysis and design, database design (er model)
\- internet programming (back then, that was ASP, CSS and Javascript)

And all along the final year, we had a subject called Final Project, where we
had to develop (from the requeriments to the implementantion) a REAL system
(mostly done for family companies or NGO's ).

When I finished high school I was really prepared to start working, so I did,
while at the same time, started going to the university. I can tell that it
was REALLY easy to do my grad career because of my background. Even when at
University some topics where seen in much deeper detail, i did it much faster
than other people, because I already had my mind used to that things, and I
just needed to learn the details.

But then again, even when I keept studing CS, some of my high school
classmates chose other things to study (e.g: medicine, law school, economics,
etc). But I think anyway that I must have to be a good experience for them, at
least to learn that CS was not for them, and dont lose their time later.

Hope it helps!

~~~
molmalo
I need to add that it was a private school (sadly, public school here is going
down the tubes). And that CS subjects were additional to the standard subjects
(maths, literature, geography, history, foreign language, philosofy, sports,
etc).

------
jamesmanning
Will they record/share the videos/lectures/notes?

It seems like it could also be a boon to many others if they can take the
efforts of this school and share them out, similar to OCW at MIT, or Stanford,
or even Khan Academy.

I think it would be particularly interesting because the other material out
there tends to target either too high (the university material is at a
university level, of course) or it doesn't have the same kind of feedback as
what the students will be able to give here.

While Joel doesn't want it to just be superstars, it seems fairly likely that
a good number of the kids would be the kind that already wrote their first OS
and compiler before they attend, so I'm wondering if there will be a similar
'level divide' as what's seen in industry, and if so, what that ends up doing
to the ones below that Mendoza line...

------
toblender
This is fantastic! This is the same thing I want to start in China someday.

------
borski
As a Stuyvesant alum and a supporter of Z (a.k.a. Mike Zamansky), I can't wait
to see what Z does here.

While Stuy was immensely fulfilling and I learned a lot, it was not thanks to
the general history and drafting classes. While those were (sometimes)
interesting, it was the fact that I was no longer bored as I was in JHS and
got to take subjects that allowed to me excel and "stretch my brain," for lack
of a better term. Those were limited to my CS classes (Z's classes), the math
classes, and psychology.

The CS courses I took at Stuy were on par with, and occasionally better than,
some of the courses I took at MIT. At the very least, it prepared me to do
very well at MIT and allowed me to take more advanced courses.

If it hadn't been for Z, I know for a fact I would have been significantly
more bored in HS and probably wouldn't have done as well. Being a part of the
'Z-Team,' as we affectionally called the network team at Stuy (yes, we were
lucky enough to have a network team; sadly, due to the roadblocks placed in
front of Z, I'm not even sure this exists anymore) was easily the best
experience of my academic career up until that point, and one I still fondly
look back upon.

I truly can't wait to see what Z does with a bit of freedom to build what he's
been trying to build for over 10 years.

------
jilebedev
As a person who finds immeasurable delight in programming, I am immediately
wary of this idea. My impression is that this HS's curriculum would be
narrower than usual, to accommodate a deep focus on SEG.

If that is the case, I feel this is a disservice to young humans: we ought to
be exposing them to as broad a range of human thought as possible, and not
narrowly focusing on a passion. The idea (as I understand it) seems to be a
recipe for producing narrow humans.

~~~
blueprint
If they learn to engineer software, surely they'll know how to access
Wikipedia.

~~~
LargeWu
Learning how to accumulate facts is a completely different problem than
learning how to think about ideas. I think teaching children how to think
about things is far more important than focusing on specific skills at that
age, even if they are useful skills.

~~~
blueprint
How can one confirm the benefit that thinking has had in one's life? From my
point of view, it's more important to know both the principle and the problems
(questions) that determine the results that exist in the world, rather than
learning how to think about how to solve problems. It's my experience that I
have to think when there's an important fact that I haven't realized.

------
dr_
This is interesting, but I'm not certain there need be an institution with
just a heavy interest on software engineering. The article suggests that there
are those who may not be proficient at other academic pursuits, but may have a
keen interest in software engineering. To be honest, most of those kids are
the types who will start coding/hacking on their own, not sure if a special
school is needed for this. Plus there are added benefits to learning english,
the arts, maybe a foreign language - I feel all of these have an impact on the
type of person you become, perhaps even the type of software engineer you
become. Just like it is with medical school - in many countries you go to
medical school straight from high school, but here you complete 4 years of
college first. In those four years you learn certain things which med school
won't cover and which you may never be able to learn at any point again - but
they could have a significant impact on the type of doctor you become, esp in
how you interact with your patients. I feel the same applies to any career
choice, including software engineering.

~~~
snikolov
_To be honest, most of those kids are the types who will start coding/hacking
on their own, not sure if a special school is needed for this_

I might be a special case but for what it's worth: I didn't start programming
until I was a freshman at Stuyvesant High School. I took the intro course on a
whim and was hooked. If the computer science program didn't exist, I might not
have gotten into it. I was more into art than math/cs back then. I didn't have
much of an environment to discover that I loved programming before that, and I
bet many other kids don't either.

------
mathattack
My 2 cents on the "too specialized" arguments...

1 - In high school, the people who take multiple CS subjects tend to be
intellectually curious, and good at many other things. The same folks who took
AP CS with me also took AP European history. I suspect it will be similar
here.

2 - Similar to what folks say about Stuyvesant, I don't think there will be a
crowding out effect of other subjects.

3 - If done right, the teachers can connect many other subjects to computer
science: Philosophy, Mathematics, the Scientific Method... This can make those
topics more interesting, not less.

4 - The rigor of learning to program is applicable in many other fields.
Computer Science grads frequently go into other fields precisely because of
this. This diminishes the "Let's fix the software engineering deficit"
argument, but it's true that CS as a major signals ability above and beyond
programming.

If I had grown up in NYC, I would have done anything to go to this school. I
am glad that my children might have the opportunity to go to a place like this
if they so desire.

------
smithhallam
Almost makes me wish I was born in america. I can't think of anything like
this over here in England.

~~~
mattm
Not for programming per say but a different way of eduction -
<http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/>

------
zwilliamson
It is too bad our country doesn't care about education. All I hear about on
the morning news in California is Jerry Brown making cuts to public spending
on education. My wife and I put a lot of time into tutoring our daughter (1st
grade) and it would be nice to know that by the time she reached the secondary
education level that an option like a Software Engineering focus was available
to her. I will try to stay positive and vote for government officials who
support creative and proactive educational systems like this.

------
bri3d
This is awesome, and I would have loved to go to a school like this.

However, I wonder if the school will become a place for people who are
passionate about software to expand their coding talent at an early age, or if
it'll become a place for kids whose parents want them to make money later in
life to slog their way through a curriculum. It seems like there's a mixture
of both types even in college CS programs, and one kind is a _lot_ more
pleasurable to learn with (as well as a lot more useful) than the other.

------
JonWood
I'm not convinced by the idea of heavily specialised high schools. At that age
you should be discovering what you're passionate about, and sampling a wide
range of subjects.

The focus here seems to be more on training kids up for a job - would anyone
be so enthusiastic if we replaced "software engineering" with "assembly line
work" or "street sweeping"?

~~~
digitallimit0
The thing is, those aren't fair comparisons. Software engineers are in
exceedingly high demand at this stage. This is just a reaction to that demand.
In addition, software engineering is a very flexible field. You can engineer
under or tangentially to almost any position or field and be a part of what
makes those things interesting. Assembly line worker and street sweeper are
not so similarly blessed.

~~~
randomdata
> Software engineers are in exceedingly high demand at this stage.

When I was in high school, teachers were in exceedingly high demand. Because
of this, teaching was a career highlighted often by our teachers.

The result is that most of my friends ended up choose teaching careers; along
with a significant number of others in my age group. I have watched my friends
really struggle to find work in the field and a couple have even chosen to
leave the field altogether because there are far more people than jobs now.

Anyway, the point is that being forcefully reactive to the problem of career
demands is never a good idea. You will just end up with a bunch of highly
trained people who are unable to use those skills. I do not believe that
software development is immune to this fact: Both teaching and programming are
skills that are useful everywhere, but it still didn't help my friends.

The market will naturally sort itself out. As pay for programers rises, more
people will become interested in the field until the pay declines again. The
influx becomes manageable this way. Any additional incentives will cause the
problems above. It is best to not mess with the market.

------
tomjen3
Hmm, won't that be a problem for the students given that the ratio of males to
females is going to be far from 1:1?

------
johnrob
I am certain that if this thing actually happens, it will spin out companies
on par with any accelerator.

------
ambertch
About time!

I would actually accept a much lower wage than in industry (as long as I could
live off it - which I doubt would be very low in NYC haha) to teach at such a
school

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feralchimp
One of my dreams upon someday achieving FU money is to found a school like
this in my home town (Rochester, NY). They need it.

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grifaton
Could anything like this ever happen in the UK?

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mjwalshe
Probaly not they wouldnt get 5 good GSCES which have to include english so
school would be put in special needs and the head and 80% of the staff woudl
be fired.

And a "technical" school getting anyone into oxbridge mm that will be the day.

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tomjen3
Does Oxbridge really matter, anymore? I mean for those of us who aren't
planing on becoming the next PM.

Similarly I am sure Eton (which seems to be one of the most popular ways into
Oxbridge) provides a very good education, but I am also certain that it is
almost impossible to pay that much for most people.

~~~
mjwalshe
Its does for a lot of jobs I am afraid and places like Google do seem to like
elite universities.

Also Ox-bridge along with Bath, Imperial and Queens (British telecoms Belfast
engineering Center used to get the pick of those) do have a rep as being the
best universities for CS.

Eatons where the thickos go :-) Years ago when Mum had had a stiff Gin she
commented if we had stayed in Birmingham she would have tried to get my
grandfather to pull strings to get me into King Edwards (Tolkien's Old school)
which along with The Oratory (Tony Blairs school) are considered the top 2
schools.

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mikecaron
If my girls show any interest in CS, I'm moving the family to NYC. Done.

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mkramlich
from the article:

"Starting salaries for smart programmers from top schools are flirting with
the $100,000 mark. "

By that logic, we better start churning out more doctors, lawyers and CEOs
because, gosh, the salaries for those folks are flirting way way past the
$100k mark. And we can't have that!

"One of the reasons the elite US colleges seem to turn out so few computer
science majors every year is that they are only drawing from a narrow pool of
mostly white and asian males."

Ooooh... we definitely can't have that! There's also a startingly low
percentage of redheads and part-time harpists. Let's fix this, stat.

