From: clipper@gleep.csd.uwo.ca (Khun Yee Fung)
Subject: Re: US vs British university degree
Organization: The University of Western Ontario, Department of Computer Science
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 05:12:25 GMT
	<1992Aug27.033625.29449@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg>

>>>>> On 27 Aug 92 03:36:25 GMT, eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg (Othman Ahmad) said:

Othman> clipper@gleep.csd.uwo.ca (Khun Yee Fung) writes:
Othman> : 
Othman> : Probably. But the list of books I had to read to prepare for my

Othman> I had to read a lot of books to prepare for my BSc exam in UK.
Othman> The answers do not come from one text book. It can come from
Othman> any text book or even research papers.

Sure. That is what qualifying exams are for, right? I was saying that
was the reading list. The questions asked did not have to come from
them. And it turned out that some were from the books in the list and
some were not.

Coming back to the comparison. We have to have a honor thesis or
project to graduate in our fourth year. Other than that, the courses
are just ordinary courses. I take that you had to pass a BSc exam?
Care to describe some more about it?

Othman> : comprehensive exams was certainly very long and comprehensive. And I
Othman> : doubt too many Students from Hong Kong can answer the question
Othman> : ``Describe your original ideas to triangulate a simple polygon''
Othman> : paraphrasing from my advanced graphics exam. The alternate question
Othman> : in the exam was ``extend the Bresenham algorithm to three
Othman> : dimensions''. Both were research questions.

Othman> These are fair BSc exam questions in UK, at least in 1981 at
Othman> my City University.

Then your university is certainly very good indeed. The first question
I will work for a while early next year. I don't think I will be able
to solve that problem in linear time though. Too tough. But very
interesting.  Tarjan thought he got a solution to do it in linear time
(in '86) and it turned out to be not so. He still thinks it can be
solved in linear time. I don't know if anybody is still working on it.
But this kind of geometric questions interest me a lot.

And I remember seeing a paper on the second question recently.
Apparently they now think that that is useful although 3D displays are
still rather primitive. I wonder, is it useful to extend further to
4D, 5D, etc. How easy is it to extend it? Is there a universal program
that can be written to handle any dimensions? What will be the
applications? Interesting questions. If they could be solved, might be
good enough for a paper or two.

Your university must be grossly underrated. And again, the qualifying
exams are qualifting exams. They were not meant to show how brilliant
you are, but rather whether you know enough. No marks were given,
only pass/fail.

Othman> For example, in 30 minutes design a microprocessor and explain
Othman> its functions in solving a "particular problem".

Othman> I ended up inventing opcodes and explaining about pipelining
Othman> within that time even when pipelining has not been implemented
Othman> in microprocessors yet.

Good for you. Did you have time to write a paper or a report to
further expand your ideas?

Othman> Remember that this is only a BSc, not PhD.

Right. Good for you. Although I am skeptical that a BSc in your
university is equivalent to a PhD here (or even higher), I won't say
it is impossible. Research is a funny thing.

Hope your university's reputation will come out one day.

Khun Yee
--
Khun Yee Fung    clipper@csd.uwo.ca
Department of Computer Science
Middlesex College
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario
Canada N6A 5B7
Fax: (519) 661-3515
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