University of Florida CompSci

[Hawkbit]

I was trying to see if this was an April fools day joke, but initially it looks real.  It is mind boggling. 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2012/04/22/university-of-florida-eliminates-computer-science-department-increases-athletic-budgets-hmm/

[Merusk]

One group donates back to the university more than the other.  Guess which.

[Nevermore]

The correct answer is: Rick Scott is an asshole.  It wouldn't surprise me if this was a deliberate move to spark outrage and draw attention to the fact that Florida's Republican elected state officials have been plundering the state education budget for years now.  Also, in before the move to Politics.

[shiznitz]

That makes so much sense.  I mean, keep Women's Studies and dump Computer Science.

[Ghambit]

I went to UF and their comp. sci dept. was a joke at best.  So for me, let it die a quick death.   
Plus having to compete with FAU and UCF (world class comp. sci depts) along with the private bohemoth Full Sail makes UF's comp. sci seem pretty subpar.   They could never attract any real talent even being the best school in the state.  It'd be like going to Harvard to learn basket-weaving.

When you combine all that with a severely restrictive/time-delayed public curricula, that's a recipe for wasting money no matter what.

Srsly, when I went there I could learn more in my dorm on my own time then going through their comp. sci. tracking, which took inordinate amounts of time and money and left you with very outdated knowledge.  So fuck it... kill it.

[Yegolev]

I have met several UF graduates, and I am not at all shocked.

[Salamok]

That makes so much sense.  I mean, keep Women's Studies and dump Computer Science.

I can see a comp sci degree costing more to provide than Women's studies.  I say fuck it, they should carry that whole argument to it's ludicrous conclusion and cancel all other degree programs but Women's Studies.

[Lantyssa]

Women's Studies programs' students are passionate about their subject.  Only a handful of Comp Sci majors were at UH.  The former was worth more.

[Murgos]

Of course, what you are all overlooking is that UF has one of the best Comp Eng courses in the country, which the comp sci dept is being rolled into.

It's probably better for everyone involved.

[Hoax]

Of course, what you are all overlooking is that UF has one of the best Comp Eng courses in the country, which the comp sci dept is being rolled into.

It's probably better for everyone involved.

What the fuck. When did we become no better than reddit?

[Paelos]

Of course, what you are all overlooking is that UF has one of the best Comp Eng courses in the country, which the comp sci dept is being rolled into.

It's probably better for everyone involved.

What the fuck. When did we become no better than reddit?

I blame Luckton.

[Murgos]

UF is 35th for Engineering overall and was 30th for Comp Eng last time I has access to the US News full report, which for a public school is pretty good.

Also, not closing the CIS dept:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danbigman/2012/04/23/university-of-florida-responds-to-post-about-plans-for-computer-science-department/

[Paelos]

That response sounds like horseshit, tbh.

[Morat20]

Women's Studies programs' students are passionate about their subject.  Only a handful of Comp Sci majors were at UH.  The former was worth more.

Half the Comp Sci guys at UH...shouldn't have been. Master's program was almost all foreign students on a visa. Out of every thirty, maybe one or two had a real feel for the 'science' part and one or two had a real feel for programming or design. The other 25 or so just...learned the material for reasons I'm uncertain of.

Having partnered with that 'other twenty five' at times, I was always shocked at what exactly was going through their head. It's like we were getting different degrees, and I did not understand theirs. (There were a lot of moments where I had to bite my tongue and come up with a more reasonable way to say "I suppose you could do it that way, if you ignore half the things you know are going to be added to this assignment, and are also an idiot.")

The undergrad program, from what I recall, was mostly people looking for code monkey jobs or what really should have been CIS focused jobs, that somehow stumbled into Computer Science and didn't mind the Calculus. One of the guys I remember best was a born project manager -- I mean, I'd kill to have a guy with his skills as a manager. Couldn't code for the life of him, but understood design and management well enough to fit people to jobs and make it all work.

Tutoring him through basic C++ was a nightmare, but he made up for it in any of the required software engineering classes or larger group projects.

[luckton]

I blame Luckton.

I'm intrigued, though it's nice to be thought of at random (even if it's at my displeasure  ) but how did you come to such a conclusion?

[Furiously]

Mostly from your hidden karma score.

[Paelos]

Mostly from your hidden karma score.

I also did a random draw in my head.

[KallDrexx]

I went to UF and their comp. sci dept. was a joke at best.  So for me, let it die a quick death.   
Plus having to compete with FAU and UCF (world class comp. sci depts) along with the private bohemoth Full Sail makes UF's comp. sci seem pretty subpar.   They could never attract any real talent even being the best school in the state.  It'd be like going to Harvard to learn basket-weaving.

UCF's comp sci is world class?  I dropped computer science for MIS because their comp sci blew, and the dean of the department (which I had several classes in which he taught) was terrible at programming nor teaching their students a non-retarded curriculum.   I know several managers here who are very leery about bringing in UCF grads for interviews as they have generally been not that great.

[Ghambit]

I went to UF and their comp. sci dept. was a joke at best.  So for me, let it die a quick death.   
Plus having to compete with FAU and UCF (world class comp. sci depts) along with the private bohemoth Full Sail makes UF's comp. sci seem pretty subpar.   They could never attract any real talent even being the best school in the state.  It'd be like going to Harvard to learn basket-weaving.

UCF's comp sci is world class?  I dropped computer science for MIS because their comp sci blew, and the dean of the department (which I had several classes in which he taught) was terrible at programming nor teaching their students a non-retarded curriculum.   I know several managers here who are very leery about bringing in UCF grads for interviews as they have generally been not that great.

Maybe they went downhill recently as I'm using info. 15+ yrs. old.  Wouldn't surprise me.  Remember the governors we've had in that timespan.   
They also weren't immune to state curricula, so there's that.

[Lantyssa]

Half the Comp Sci guys at UH...shouldn't have been. Master's program was almost all foreign students on a visa. Out of every thirty, maybe one or two had a real feel for the 'science' part and one or two had a real feel for programming or design. The other 25 or so just...learned the material for reasons I'm uncertain of.

When we went through Comp Sci, Tech was the up and coming thing.  They went there because they didn't have any real goals in life besides "get a good paying job".  Those same types of people would later flood business schools.

But then most of the full-time faculty were pretty bad, too.  I can't blame the students for not getting passionate about a subject they stumbled into with profs like that.

[Morat20]

Half the Comp Sci guys at UH...shouldn't have been. Master's program was almost all foreign students on a visa. Out of every thirty, maybe one or two had a real feel for the 'science' part and one or two had a real feel for programming or design. The other 25 or so just...learned the material for reasons I'm uncertain of.

When we went through Comp Sci, Tech was the up and coming thing.  They went there because they didn't have any real goals in life besides "get a good paying job".  Those same types of people would later flood business schools.

But then most of the full-time faculty were pretty bad, too.  I can't blame the students for not getting passionate about a subject they stumbled into with profs like that.

Yeah, but CS is pretty wide open. We had the guy doing research in numerical methods (he had a theory about the RK method and minimal algorithm sizes he talked about constantly), a few machine learner types, one out and out math/language theory guy....but half the guys teaching were Masters folks teaching simple programming.

Generally NASA folks teaching a semester or three of OOD or something. It was really hit or miss. I didn't really get the "science" part of it (I like programming, I'm good at it, so I was there) until years later when I went for my Master's. Heck, I just grabbed my thesis project and started fixing it -- had some ideas, wanted to see how they turned out.....

Also had an idea about local minimas in genetic programs I wanted to take a hack at.

[luckton]

And I'll just leave this here.

[Murgos]

Like I said, they'll roll CIS into ECE and it will probably be overall better for the students to have more low level HW knowledge with their information science.

That said, I love how the first comment is, "Take it out of the football team budget."  Of course, what he doesn't realize is it's almost certainly the football team revenues that are keeping UF from having to make much more drastic cuts at all.

[Morat20]

Like I said, they'll roll CIS into ECE and it will probably be overall better for the students to have more low level HW knowledge with their information science.

That said, I love how the first comment is, "Take it out of the football team budget."  Of course, what he doesn't realize is it's almost certainly the football team revenues that are keeping UF from having to make much more drastic cuts at all.

You know, you hear that all the time -- but it's actually generally total fucking bullshit from front to back. Unless you're a BIG team -- like "Notre Dame" big, sports programs cost far, far, FAR more than they bring in. I'm too lazy to google the last set of studies and articles on it.

But people like to say that they do, because it makes spending millions on a local sports team seem virtuous instead of, you know, kinda sucking down money from the 99% of the student body who doesn't play sports.

Just as a local example -- local community college is a BIG one. Big enough that when Clinton was doing a CC push in the 90s, he came to it to give a speech on how CC's were an integral part of education, yadda yadda. (Had Secret Service all over the place. No hookers that I recall).

Anyways, what Clinton didn't mention was this particular CC despite being fucking huge, and despite being in Texas where college-level football is an actual religion, didn't have a sports program. At all. Physical education classes, but not a single team for any sports. There was a huge stadium that the local pre-junior high football teams played at that was otherwise empty and neglected, there were a bunch of banners and old trophies from a dozen sports, but not a single team.

See, turns out that despite the athletics department -- and the Dean -- claiming football brought in all this money, despite all the expensive things the program was buying (huge stadium, expensive sports equipment and sports therapy equipment, renovating locker rooms, new buildings -- millions and millions of dollars a year, from a community college) --- it turned out to be a giant steaming pile of bullshit.

They were raiding tuition funds. Same year that the campus had to shutter a building due to a 'shortfall' and aging and broken equipment went unreplaced.

They got audited by a local watchdog group (Texas has some seriously good open records laws) who discovered the shenanigans. A few people were fired, some general "mistakes were made" comments were made, and they promised to totally never do it again.

Three months later the landscaping budget increased tenfold. The local watchdog group was still auditing their books and caught it, and asked tough questions like "What the fuck did you spend all this money on? You guys aren't doing anything different. Did you hire butlers and maids for your gardeners, and use mulch made from pandas?"

No, they funneled it to the sports program! The program that "more than paid for itself". The Dean got sacked, the entire athletics department was effectively let go, and the school shuttered ALL sports programs. Surprisingly, there was a lot more money for buildings, teachers, books, replacement equipment...

And it'd ain't just my local community college. If you're not, say, Texas A&M, your local college football program costs a hell of a lot more than it brings in.

[Ghambit]

You have a point Morat, but not even big programs really see net gains.  Once the Athletic Dept., Scholarship Admisisons, and the Bowl Committees get done with the bottom line there's nothing left.  The ONLY sports in any University that make any money are football and sometimes basketball.  All the other programs are losers, meaning the latter has to subsidize the former in the overall department... INCLUDING club and intramural sports like lacrosse, sailing, softball, etc.   Also, since they're not really allowed to profit off student tix, that means half the seats in the stadiums (if not more) are breakeven.  Next we've got scholarships and paid meal plans, etc.  That aint cheap obviously.

And the giant in the room, the bowl committees.  They take the lion's share of the profits of any bowl games, after not having much overhead to begin with.  This includes TV spots, etc.  The same can be said for most regular season games, wherein the kids/school really dont see the majority of the advert. revenue.

[Murgos]

You know, you hear that all the time -- but it's actually generally total fucking bullshit from front to back. Unless you're a BIG team -- like "Notre Dame" big

Uh, I'm sure you're rant is true but UF is probably a bigger team than Notre Dame, you know.  Which was my point, that team pays for a lot of stuff at UF.

[Morat20]

You know, you hear that all the time -- but it's actually generally total fucking bullshit from front to back. Unless you're a BIG team -- like "Notre Dame" big

Uh, I'm sure you're rant is true but UF is probably a bigger team than Notre Dame, you know.  Which was my point, that team pays for a lot of stuff at UF.

Iffy. But as Ghambit mentioned, even then it's probably teh football team keeping the rest of the athletics department afloat -- not helping out, you know, actual education.

[Ghambit]

I remember our football team essentially buying us an entire fleet of new racing sailboats (I was on the sailing team at UF).  Each one was like $10k and we got 20 of em.   

We also never paid a dime to attend regattas all across the U.S.  All expenses paid.  Including two invitationals at Tulane; one of which was during Mardi Gras.   

Part of the draw of the school was having the ability to do all this stuff to begin with.  There are only a handful of public Univs. in the U.S. that could pull it off.  But yah, pumping money into weak scholastic depts. wasn't on the table I guess.

[Engels]

I can't comment on other universities, but at the University of Washington, sports bring in a ton of money through alumni fundraising. Its a sacred cow because alumni from everywhere still get to root for their alma mater and continue to feel a bond to their institution. Don't think for a moment that these institutions haven't done the numbers. The numbers are in, and fundraisers wouldn't harm a hair on the head of the dumb ass Huskies.

Think about it for a moment. Well-educated, upper-middle class people still flock to their college's football games in droves every single year. Those people donate.

[Chimpy]

I can't comment on other universities, but at the University of Washington, sports bring in a ton of money through alumni fundraising. Its a sacred cow because alumni from everywhere still get to root for their alma mater and continue to feel a bond to their institution. Don't think for a moment that these institutions haven't done the numbers. The numbers are in, and fundraisers wouldn't harm a hair on the head of the dumb ass Huskies.

Think about it for a moment. Well-educated, upper-middle class people still flock to their college's football games in droves every single year. Those people donate.

Illinois is very similar. Though here, they are an entirely separate budget from the rest of the University. They use booster fundraising earmarked specifically for sports for all facility upgrades, salaries, travel, etc.

[Engels]

By fundraising I mean university 'general' fundraising, not associated with the football team in any tangible sense. However, alumni donate because of their continued sense of belonging to the university, in large part due to the sports teams. This is why they are sacred cows. The funds from that fundraising do not go towards sport facilities necessarily, although I'm sure some do. The endowment for 2011 was 2.1 billion dollars.

[Murgos]

In 2009 UF Football generated a profit of ~44 million dollars for the University.  Most of that is used to fund other athletic programs but my initial point still stands, cutting the Football budget would decrease funding for other departments, not increase it.

http://businessofcollegesports.com/2011/07/13/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-floridas-football-revenue-and-expenses/

[Khaldun]

Folks really need to read up on this issue. There are a lot of misconceptions out there, most of them already covered here.

1. The vast majority of college sports operations do not bring in revenue directly to the general budget of their sponsoring university. Most of them are a net loss, sometimes quite dramatically so once you factor in construction of facilities. This includes football and basketball EVEN at some Division I institutions.

2. Those football and basketball programs that do not lose money outright often do not contribute funds directly to the general budgets, but instead subsidize other athletic activities. Which, I guess, keeps their host institutions from having to spend much on those other teams, but this is not what people imply when they talk about these programs making money--they imply that these programs are supporting academic departments. This is simply not the case except at a tiny handful of institutions.

3. Even at (especially at!) those institutions where Division I football and basketball actually contribute money to the general budget, they often put other burdens on the university as a whole. Most crucially, the frequent corruption of academic programs of study that are tailored to keeping athletes within NCAA eligibility guidelines. There are faculty positions and even a few programs/departments that exist primarily to keep athletes from being exposed to academic danger, which is an indirect cost in real financial terms and a bigger cost in terms of undercutting the entire point of higher education.

4. Alumni giving is in some cases clearly driven by loyalty to athletic teams. Guess what alumni giving driven by athletics often leads to? Restricted donations to athletics. *Especially* the big-name donors. T. Boone Pickens, for example, has given close to $300 million to OSU--entirely for a stadium and an "athletic village".  Elite institutions with very little emphasis on athletics in relative terms do just fine in getting donations--and non-selective institutions that have a lot of investment in athletics don't find that the sports teams particularly help them build their endowments.


Look, sports *is* an important part of the emotional ties between universities, alumni and communities. But there's nothing that says that they have to operate under the penumbra of a non-profit budgetary structure. I think NCAA Division I football and basketball should be spun off as for-profit minor leagues with a majority ownership stake given to their founding universities. The athletes should be paid and given "right of admission" at any time if they decide to quit and attend the university that owns their team. Drop all the bullshit about the athletes being students. And make the budgets clean--if they produce revenue for their owners, great. If they don't, they don't and that'll be clear and if they can't be made profitable, then we won't have all these lies and misconceptions about how big college sports are the only thing keeping higher education going.

[Lantyssa]

[insert bravo picture here]

[Yegolev]

/joel_mchale