Stanford Golf Phenom Rose Zhang Turns Pro, Vows To 'Never Code Again' 75
theodp writes: Golf reports that amateur golf legend Rose Zhang will compete for the first time as a professional when she tees off in the first round of the Mizuho Americas Open Thursday. Golf news is rarely fodder for Slashdot discussion, but when the 20-year-old Stanford student (who plans to complete her degree after a leave of absence) was asked by Golf to identify her toughest class, she threw CS under the bus.
"CS 106A," Zhang replied, referring to a computer science course. "Currently and still trying to grind in that class. It's been a little unfortunate for me. I'm not a CS major. Will never code again after this class." Back in April, Zhang expressed some doubts about being able to juggle the demands of an already-renowned golf career and CS 106A. "I'll be super, super busy," Zhang said in an interview. "I'm planning on taking CS 106A. I don't know if it's a smart decision but it's kind of an essential intro CS class into Stanford so I'm going to try to navigate that, balance that out."
The Stanford Daily reports that CS 106A: Programming Methodology is an introductory programming course taken by 1,600+ students from all academic disciplines each year (2015 Slashdot post on CS 106A's growing pains). According to the syllabus, CS 106A "uses the Python programming language" and there's "no prior programming experience required," although the schedule indicates a lot of ground is covered for someone new to coding (the same could be said of Harvard's famed CS50).
Lest some take Zhang to task for the sin of stating programming is hard, consider that Stanford's CS 106A website suggests the same, reporting that the median score on the midterm exam was only 68%, despite a plethora of review materials and sessions. CS 106A students were offered the chance to submit formal 'regrade requests' to try to improve their midterm scores and can also vie for "a Jamba Juice gift card and 100% on the final exam" by entering a Python programming contest -- one prize will be awarded for "Aesthetic merit", another for "Algorithmic sophistication" (a number of runners-up will be awarded "a grade boost similar to getting a + on one of their assignments").
"CS 106A," Zhang replied, referring to a computer science course. "Currently and still trying to grind in that class. It's been a little unfortunate for me. I'm not a CS major. Will never code again after this class." Back in April, Zhang expressed some doubts about being able to juggle the demands of an already-renowned golf career and CS 106A. "I'll be super, super busy," Zhang said in an interview. "I'm planning on taking CS 106A. I don't know if it's a smart decision but it's kind of an essential intro CS class into Stanford so I'm going to try to navigate that, balance that out."
The Stanford Daily reports that CS 106A: Programming Methodology is an introductory programming course taken by 1,600+ students from all academic disciplines each year (2015 Slashdot post on CS 106A's growing pains). According to the syllabus, CS 106A "uses the Python programming language" and there's "no prior programming experience required," although the schedule indicates a lot of ground is covered for someone new to coding (the same could be said of Harvard's famed CS50).
Lest some take Zhang to task for the sin of stating programming is hard, consider that Stanford's CS 106A website suggests the same, reporting that the median score on the midterm exam was only 68%, despite a plethora of review materials and sessions. CS 106A students were offered the chance to submit formal 'regrade requests' to try to improve their midterm scores and can also vie for "a Jamba Juice gift card and 100% on the final exam" by entering a Python programming contest -- one prize will be awarded for "Aesthetic merit", another for "Algorithmic sophistication" (a number of runners-up will be awarded "a grade boost similar to getting a + on one of their assignments").
Tempest in a teapot (Score:5, Insightful)
She's not a CS major - it says so right there in TFS. So why should her statement that she "will never code again" a big deal? She almost certainly would "never code again" even if she never took that course!
Also - why is a CS class even required for a non-CS major?
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Also - why is a CS class even required for a non-CS major?
This is pretty typical for any liberal arts degree. You're expected to have a well-rounded education, and a basic familiarity with programming is broadly useful.
I'm skeptical of her claim that she'll never code again. She might not write software, but basic coding practices are used in a lot of other disciplines. Even if all you want to do is something mildly fancy with a spreadsheet.
Re:Tempest in a teapot (Score:4, Funny)
Also - why is a CS class even required for a non-CS major?
This is pretty typical for any liberal arts degree. You're expected to have a well-rounded education, and a basic familiarity with programming is broadly useful.
Its more about improving the university employment stats for liberal arts graduates. :-)
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Liberal arts includes business majors.
I'm not so sure. Typically business has its own school separate from the schools or arts or science. They often also have their own CS-like program, one more focused on corporate applications than scientific applications. I think the business majors takes pretty much the same liberal arts classes as the CS majors, part of their general ed.
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Wait, what? Golf pros are athletes now? Don't they ride around in motorized carts and make others carry their equipment for them? Mowing my lawn requires more athleticism than golf ever would.
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I'm skeptical of her claim that she'll never code again.
Me too, since there's an entire sport [stackexchange.com] that's practically designed just for her.
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why is a CS class even required for a non-CS major?
Many STEM majors recommend a programming class or two, some require it. A physicist or chemist who can code a little can be useful. It only becomes dangerous when they code a lot. :-)
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Hey I was a physics major you insensitive clod!
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Hey I was a physics major you insensitive clod!
All joking aside, a research chemist that I had the opportunity to talk to said he would rather have a CS major with one year of chemistry handle his team's programming than a chemistry major with one year of CS.
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Makes sense - a lot of the programming done can be generally awful. If you're doing research you're probably doing a lot of repetitive operations while changing a variable to see the effects. This automatically means automation - if you're going to do an experiment hundreds or thousands of times, ch
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In embedded systems I find that most programmers don't have a CS background. It really shows in the code as it tends to be badly structured, with more reliance on tweaking code and adding typecasts until it compiles than in learning how the programming language works. Most often EE background, which I find odd since many of them these days don't seem to have a good grasp on EE fundamentals either. High level programming background has it's own issues, and it's rare to find someone in between that can do t
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Why? Programming is an extremely useful skill immediately applicable to any field. It's also so easy to learn that primary school children can, and very often do, teach themselves. You'll find no shortage of working professionals who have picked it up just to make their jobs easier.
She can claim that she'll "never code again" and that might be true, but she'll be making her life significantly more difficult if she sticks to it. Just like those poor misguided high school kids who insist that they'll "nev
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Guys, the person we're talking about here is a rising star pro athlete [nytimes.com]. Her coach at Stanford stated, "She's the absolute GOAT. She is the best amateur of all time." She has an estimated net worth of $30 million [themastersgolftv.com]. She just landed a sponsorship from Delta Airlines [sbnation.com].
She is not going to be spending her life programming computers.
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Okay... so... why is she at Stanford? Just for kicks? For the love of red tile roofs?
She presumably has ambitions beyond playing golf. In whatever profession she intends to apply her education, being able to write computer programs will be an enormous benefit.
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At my university word was that it was a way out of taking a math class. Not even an advanced math class. It's just that it was programming or X, Y, or Z math class.
So you had people already bad at math trying to code...
Of course, as a CS major I had to not only take the programming classes, but enough math that I have a minor in it.
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I think the relevant context is that Slashdot is littered with articles and comments insisting everyone "should learn to code".
Thus, anyone who contradicts that mantra is news...here.
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Indeed. A close relative of mine busted her butt going through pre-med, then med school, and residency. Want to know how much she uses the college-level calculus she needed to take? None. Want to know how much of the organic chemistry (a typical weeder course in pre-med) she uses? None. She is a
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My university required and still require CS courses (intro & fundamental) for math majors and minors.
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And I'll never golf. There we are even and will never cross paths.
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It's using Python, a scripting language, so probably easiest intro to programming class ever. At least the CS for liberal arts majors isn't a sponsored class about how to use Word.
Problem is with CS departments, not students. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not that programming is hard per se. It's that most of these 'introductory' CS courses are designed and paced for students who have significant prior programming experience and familiarity, yielding the same kind of results that you'd get from making an 'intro' calculus class that has no testing or prior coursework requirements.
Sure, students who have had experience with most of the foundational bits will do fine, but the vast majority of the students that don't hit it bounce and never come back. CS departments are just terrible at handling anyone who doesn't want to devote their life to CE/CS.
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Sorry, but programming per se is hard. Like all engineering.
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Basic (pun semi-intended) programming is not difficult, we did it in my elementary school. It was quite trivial, but kids are doing more complex stuff at that age now when given the opportunity. Whether it's really going to be valuable to people at this point is another story, but I do think one or two programming classes during the course of your education could be valuable in navigating a world which is heavily computerized. Having some notion of what computers actually do under the hood helps make sense
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Yeah so about that.
It's weird. We did it in my senior school, year 1 or 7 as it's now known, age 12 or so.
Me and a friend came along with some prior skills and competed to make the best game. Most people had never done anything at all. I think most if not all of the class got basic scripted adventure games working and I don't ubuntu anyone was stuck forever in the basic syntax. Even the duffers.
But fast forward to age 19 or so and plenty of smart people, at university ego scam do stuff I can't do well, jus
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Hey, sure, everybody can hammer in a nail or fry an egg. But being a carpenter or a chef takes a bit more. Even being a competent home-cook or being handy around the house requires quite a bit more.
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Even being a competent home-cook or being handy around the house requires quite a bit more.
Those are also things everyone should be able to do, and coincidentally, they are things we don't teach in school any more. Shop classes have dwindled and home ec classes including cooking are nearly nonexistent. I was able to take cooking in junior high, and I took a class in plastics as well, and then wood shop in high school.
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Programming isn't anything remotely like engineering. It's even illegal to call yourself a "software engineer" in many places.
It's also really easy. Programming is a skill so easy to learn that children can, and very often do, teach themselves.
If it looks hard to you, that's because the industry has layered on an astonishing amount of needless complexity, cynically in the name of making things simpler. See, we know how to actually make things simpler, but we don't. The modern "software crisis" is one en
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It's even illegal to call yourself a "software engineer" in many places.
Legal in every state I've ever worked in.
An unlicensed engineer can work as such under whatever your state's industrial exemption is.
There are probably some states which don't have industrial exemptions, but I've never lived in one.
My understanding is that it's currently a bit of a legal war up in Canada right now, but I mean... any software engineer trained in Canada is going to move down to the states for the money, anyway.
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Legal in every state I've ever worked in.
This may come as a surprise to you, but your sample of one isn't representative. Texas, for example, is not shy at all about cracking down on insecure programmers who insist on pretending that they're engineers.
Legal or not, it's absolutely disgusting seeing a programmer go around pretending that they're an engineer just to boost their fragile ego. I put it in the same class as stolen valor. You are not an engineer. Pretending that you are is an insult to real engineers.
Stop pretending to be something t
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This may come as a surprise to you, but your sample of one isn't representative. Texas, for example, is not shy at all about cracking down on insecure programmers who insist on pretending that they're engineers.
I love it when you're ignorant.
Texas too has an industrial exemption.
It is perfectly legal for an unlicensed engineer to be hired as a Software Engineer in Texas.
Legal or not, it's absolutely disgusting seeing a programmer go around pretending that they're an engineer just to boost their fragile ego. I put it in the same class as stolen valor. You are not an engineer. Pretending that you are is an insult to real engineers.
lol, I think anyone reading this can see who has the fragile ego, here ;)
I graduated with a BSc. in CS, from a School of Engineering within my University.
Having a PE does not determine whether or not I'm an engineer, it only determines whether or not I'm a licensed Engineer.
You would know the difference between a graduated and licensed engine
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Programming isn't anything remotely like engineering. It's even illegal to call yourself a "software engineer" in many places.
The _practice_ of programming is typically not up to engineering standards. But programming is engineering, period. Look up a definition. ProTip: The US treatment of the term "Engineer" is not what the rest of the world does.
Here is a starting point for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The _practice_ of programming is typically not up to engineering standards.
At least not up to PE standards- for sure.
But as a profession, it's every bit up to those standards as any other unlicensed engineering position.
So I don't disagree with you, just want to add some clarification.
All Engineers are not licensed PEs, and the inverse is invariably true- you don't need to be a licensed PE to be an engineer. This is a weird fucking fiction that the person you're replying to has invented.
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Ah, thanks for the information.
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The _practice_ of programming is typically not up to engineering standards.
"Engineering standards" What do you imagine those to be as they apply to programming? As I've said, there is nothing about programming that is even remotely like engineering. The profession just isn't there, as Dijkstra maintained until his death.
Here is a starting point for you [usfca.edu]
But programming is engineering, period.
Why? Because they design and build things? I saw a kid playing in a sandbox earlier. He was designing and building all sorts of things. Is he an engineer too? Let's look at your link:
Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. [...] The creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination
Hm... What "scientific principles" do you
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But programing well is very hard. And programming is just one small part of Computer Science.
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When I studied CS back in the dark ages, programming was indeed a very small part. Take a look at what passes for an undergraduate CS program these days and it looks like it's little more than a 4-year programming boot camp. There was more CS content in my intro course than kids these days get over the whole program.
We're not talking about CS though, we're talking about programming. Specifically, how programmers are not engineers. Adding CS won't change that.
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It's not that programming is hard per se. It's that most of these 'introductory' CS courses are designed and paced for students who have significant prior programming experience and familiarity
The are intro CS classes for STEM majors and non-STEM majors. The latter should be able to keep up, been there, done that, non-CS STEM at the time. No programming experience beyond self-taught programming of my calculator.
Sure, students who have had experience with most of the foundational bits will do fine, but the vast majority of the students that don't hit it bounce and never come back.
I think this is overstating things a little. You sure a bad experience was not due to a bad instructor?
CS departments are just terrible at handling anyone who doesn't want to devote their life to CE/CS.
As they should. Which is why non-STEM majors should have a different intro class than the STEM folks.
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It's worth pointing out that it's always been like that. When I went to college in the 90's, they pretty much just dumped us on to an HP-UX system with an Emacs cheat-sheet and left us to figure out what to do on our own. All our work had to be submit via a VAX account, and they barely even showed us how to log in. For students who only had access to MS-DOS machines (or in my case an Amiga), that was a shock. Prior to college, I never had access to a C compiler at all. It was... difficult. Most people
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This is also Stanford. It is expected that the students be good and not require extensive hand holding. First learn how to learn, then take the 100 level and up classes.
Suck it up (Score:3)
If you are good enough to get into Stanford, you can deal with "a lot of ground is covered for someone new to XYZ". Actually there are more than a few classes like this at Stanford. I've tutored undergrads there. Classes move fast. If you can't handle it, you are in the wrong place. I've seem Olympic level swimmers there have a look of terror thinking, "I'm not going to make it here." Yep. Standford isn't easy.
My CS 101 book was "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs". A challenging book for CS101, but damn was it rewarding. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_Interpretation_of_Computer_Programs).
Classes that push your limits are a gift. Getting into Stanford is a gift. If a class isn't hard, you aren't getting enough benefit.
Not really all thay surprising. (Score:4, Informative)
CS101 is hard for the people who will never get it. When I was in school most of the class was not back next quarter and while some of those definitely got it and wanted to learn it to some other end than getting a CS degree; A lot of dreams were broken too.
The profs were rather relaxed and didn’t bust anyone’s balls. The language was Python. They were really doing all they could and it just didn’t click. Most of the remaining students managed to navigate later hurdles like a lousy Java professor or later assignments being given in languages we were never taught which are both higher bars to clear than learning basic Python.
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I worked closely with computer science professors early in my teaching career. According to them their CS101 course was purposely designed to weed out at least 50% of the students. I understood their side of it but damn that was harsh. This was in the early 2000s and the language used was VB.NET.
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Weeding out as many VB programmers as possible should have been considered a public service.
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I worked closely with computer science professors early in my teaching career. According to them their CS101 course was purposely designed to weed out at least 50% of the students. I understood their side of it but damn that was harsh. This was in the early 2000s and the language used was VB.NET.
It was needed. That was when too many kids starting going into CS because parents or guidance councilors told them it would be a good career path. Better to weed out the dimmer of those. The smarter of those that could squeak through were bad enough. Half the job of hiring programmers is to tell those who have a genuine interest from those on the "good career" ticket punching path.
The faster those not truly interested in STEM are weeded out and transferred to the school of business the better for all.
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This "weeding out process" is certainly thinkable - and to some even desirable - in a required course for CS or engineering, but the course discussed here is a required course for all students. Since this is an expensive private university, I would assume that not too much weeding out will take place, just enough of annoyance that all students gain some "respect for real programmers".
PGA Tour has an good pension plan (Score:3)
PGA Tour has an good pension plan now days most jobs don't have that.
but EVERYONE needs to learn to code! (Score:3)
*cough* bullshit *cough*
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Cough cough your point is flawed cough cough
Not everyone NEEDS to be able to read and write. Illiterates can survive in society. Likewise with the innumerate.You don't NEED to know anything about civics. You did NEED to be able to cook or even make a sandwich.
An ignorance of coding is like ignorance of those. You should know the basics of how life works in this world even if you are not a professional or even amateur expert. People need to have some grounding to be able to separate
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Coding is not an ~everyone~ skillset or aptitude. Additionally, many people -perhaps a majority- shouldn't code.
Anyone who's spent anytime in maintenance or QA will attested to that.
Tiger Woods was never much of a coder either (Score:3)
Not everyone can be good both at golf and software engineering.
But luckily CharGPT can solve the golf part.
drivel passing for education these days (Score:4, Interesting)
Curious, I examined the Stanford and Harvard introductory courses. Is this really how they teach these days? Both classes are just awful, my god. How they handle the psychology of the learner and the knowledge navigation is appalling.
Am I being elitist? No. The Harvard CS50 is absolutely awful. They jam sets of topics into one week that should be covered in more time; even with motivated students doing a lot of outside reading, the course material is utterly ridiculously done. Either this is only a summary outline kind of course, or it completely fails the purpose of giving new students a solid grounding. one week for data structures? One week for algorithms? You have got to be kidding.
As for the Stanford course, its side introduction to Python is laughably bad in its sketchiness.
For shame, both schools.
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Am I being elitist?
No, but I think you're probably like me and still think education is about learning useful things.
The majority of the people doing this course are not interested in learning to code. They are going to be the executives and managers, and will just hire a contractor or outsourcing firm to do any coding for them. What they want at the end is to be able to say they got a pass mark in CS101, where they covered 'algorithm design', 'data structures', and 'programming in 5 different languages'. They want to have a
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Almost no college professor has any pedagogical training.
Coding is weird (Score:2)
And it makes you weird. I'm proof of that.
Luckily it's not for everyone. We all have bills, income, and most have assets and investments. But does everyone do their own accounting just because we are all capable of basic arithmetic? Turns out accounting is more complicated and boring than one might initially assume. Just as we hire weirdos that like to fill computers with code, we will hire accountants, landscapers, and proctologists to do the things that we don't want to learn to do for ourselves.
Python? (Score:1)
Look, I get some of the reasons why. But that language is trash, something that's meant to be used to write one-liners ought to be a joke. I suppose it's possible to write readable and easy to follow code in python, but most examples I've seen was so damn hard to parse it made my little grays revolt.
When I started CS we used sml, I know it's not the most modern of languages but at least it was meta-like. Even basic would be better than python to use as a first language.
But certainly, there are lots of reas
I always thought I deserved more pay (Score:2)
And this proves it. The number of times I was tempted to terminate a sales rep who said "it's just a small matter of programming".
Not all needs to code like not all need to Golf (Score:2)
As much I like to code, not everyone needs to know how to code to have a decent life.
How would you react if being on par with other pro golfers was a requirement for a CS Degree?
Also, the way CS is taught is not appealing to the masses. Again, great info and I like it but not appealing to the masses who are not tech savvy.
Also, why is it such a big deal... some people like to code, some people like mashed potatoes, some like to golf... we don't like the same things
At least she knows it. (Score:2)
Some folks two years away from graduating who expect to won't be coding (at least professionally). They just don't know it yet.
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Data point (Score:2)
I watched and worked through the YouTube Stanford CS106A series with Mehran Sahami in 2008. I had some limited experience with programming and found it interesting and reasonably paced.
Mr. Sahami was an engaging instructor and sitting here eons later I still remember him describing little baby cow and launching fusilades of candy in more-or-less the general direction of students that asked good questions. The class started off with a little robot (Carl? Carol?) that you learned to drive about similar to
Feel the PAIN of Coding (Score:2)
It's not the class topic that needs appreciation.. (Score:1)