Re: (OT) Should math (or adv. math) be required in CIS degrees?

[Ryszard]

I personally think could be a part of CIS courses. I say this because (typically) in Australia a young grad student may really not know where they want to go in their career as a programmer.

I like the idea of math subjects to be elective in any resprctive course, and not mandatory.

For me as a mature age (22y.o) student I had a reasonable idea where I wanted to go in my career. Math didnt play a big part in my choices.

From experience (part way thru' my career) I've found I've needed to be more analytical while developing financial models, websites etc... My university course gave me a good grounding in accounting, as well as the tools to build extensible programmes.

So if a career path of a student heads toward some hard core game programming, weathing forecasting etc, then a high level of math may be a good choice. If a student wants to move in a direction that involves "less complex" algorithms then perhaps high school level math will suffice.

IMHO, CIS, CS courses should have copmponents centred around structured program design, security and problems that will develop ones analytical ability (not necessaryily math based).