5 ms·

What did you cover in your undergrad CS degree?

34 points by sharksforcheap 14y ago

anusinha 14y ago
This doesn't look like a CS degree---this looks more like software engineering requirements. CS and SE focus on distinctly different things. I might suggest changing the page title.
- gte910h 14y ago
  Many CS degrees are all there are at institutions. SE is merely a focus you can take in that.
- esrauch 14y ago
  Only one or two more check boxes on the survey are covered by a SE degree over a CS one at RIT. I think this is largely vocational degree not even SE. That might reflect an industry bias in the CS degree though (revision control required in all classes, technical writing and software engineering are required in the cs degree) Edit: I should note that SE and CS are separate departments at RIT, there is a real difference in curriculum and that difference is not what this survey is getting at. A major in the IT department is what is closest to this survey, not SE. Somewhat anecdotal because its one University though.
- quanticle 14y ago
  Unfortunately, there isn't any distinction between the two yet. I would posit that very few people graduating with a bachelors of science in computer science are actually doing computer science work. I would posit that the vast majority of them are doing software engineering work. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like software engineering is a bachelor's level degree (I know of a few M.S. Software Engineering programs, but none at the bachelor's level), there really isn't much of the way in formal software engineering education for someone who wants to go to school for a few years and then get a job.
anonymoushn 14y ago
I got to check three of these, but one (version control) was only because I took game programming. A person could easily earn a CS degree from my school without using version control for any class.
lumberjack 14y ago
Personally I find things like version control and system administration to be things that students should learn for themselves. They should be encouraged, even actively encouraged (in fact they are already in most institutions) but there shouldn't be a class dedicated to this stuff. You are in University, studying CS ffs. If you can't learn such petty things for yourself, what good are you?
- shawndrost 14y ago
  While I agree that a course on version control wouldn't make any sense, I'm pretty torn about this. Most of the developers I know have shitty git habits, and it's not an accident.
  - larskinn 14y ago
    I think the best approach is to integrate tasks like version control across many subjects. For instance, many programming exercises in various subjects taught at my university give the students a basic framework with missing functions, or a test harness, or some other piece of code that needs to be finished. These could have been shared via a version control system, and delivery could be made that way as well (using pull requests, branches, or some other feature). That way, students would be encouraged to use version control while working on the exercises. The way it actually is done here, though, is basically "learn version control yourself and justify your choice of version control system in your report" when doing group projects.
    - snuze 14y ago
      I agree with integrating version control into the exercises/labs. When I was at school, we had to submit our work over email/Blackboard, but submitting work through a version control system makes much more sense.
- baddox 14y ago
  I left a lot of options blank that were in fact encouraged, and which professors would help us with if asked, but were not really part of the curriculum. For example, we were strongly encouraged to use version control for our group projects, especially in third and fourth year courses (like operating systems and theory of computation) and obviously estimating timelines is a necessity for any project (computer science or otherwise). Code testing is a big one I wish we would have learned or been encouraged to learn, since I'm still horrible at that, but I hear that same sentiment from nearly every programmer I've ever met, so I suspect a handful of college lectures wouldn't have helped much.
Mystitat 14y ago
The table of results is hard to read. More contrast between the results bars and the background would help.
hkarthik 14y ago
I graduated with a CS degree ten years ago and I could only check the following: Designing data structures Analyzing algorithmic complexity (Big O) Version control was glossed over in my class with little importance given to it.
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago
  Yes, the date when one was studying is a vital facet of the data being gathered here. It's a big oversight IMO to have missed out on asking a question to gain date information (eg graduation year). I've only got, in this respect, an undergrad diploma in computing and covered 6 of these things in any depth; it would be around the same time as you were studying and we never covered version control at all.
barakm 14y ago
So I did EECS at Cal. And while some of these things are definitely in the category of software engineering and not computer science, I have to say that, in the few years between my undergrad and today, I've kept in touch with the community. And it's my sense that a lot of skills which one might find on this list are starting to be emphasized more: testing, version control, scale, timelines, communication -- so it does feel like undergrad curricula "get it" and are supplementing the standard courses with some generally useful stuff. Not replacing, but suggesting/providing/using some of the useful stuff in the context of the greater course. I'm a little surprised schools didn't touch upon complexity already; that's been around for awhile. Yet, it is the biggest category in the responses, so that's probably why. I'd also say that things like deployment, sysadmining -- browser incompatibilities? These are a lot more role-specific and better learned in situ. If the guy who knows browser incompatibilities needs to know how to do deployment, you are either (a) a pre-funding startup or (b) spreading your talent kinda thin. I'm sure most of the responses here will say something like "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education" -- which is all well and good for you. But if we want more and better candidates, it couldn't hurt to adopt some of the best-of-the-best practices (version control!) into CS curricula.
joncalhoun 14y ago
I feel like there should be a follow up survey asking recent grads what their degree enabled them to learn outside of their coursework. My CS degree hardly taught me anything in comparison to everything I learned outside of my coursework, but I don't feel like my coursework was lacking. On the contrary, my education allowed me to learn new things on my own that would have been significantly harder otherwise. eg a basic algorithm course lead me to get involved in TopCoder. An introductory course on software development (source control, testing, etc) gave me enough knowledge to find an internship where I learned about peer reviews and how to work effectively with a large codebase - something that is very hard to pick up in a semester of college.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
mememememememe 14y ago
I am not surprised with "Interviewing candidates" getting low score, but it did receive some votes.... any proof?
abhayb 14y ago
In my mind, a CS degree is all about rewiring the student's brain to better interact with computers and to instill attributes in the student that are useful when working with those computers. Very few of the points in the article cover things that vastly change your computational world view. Off the top of my head, the five things (in no particular order) that I'm getting out of my degree are: - Understanding down to processor and assembly level. And the visceral (and unfulfillable) desire to eliminate "magic" from things. - Extensive exposure to functional programming. And finding out for myself what it does better than imperative programming and what it does worse. - A deep appreciation of the need to know the user and the need to consider people at every stage of specifying, building and shipping software. - A rigorous grounding in discrete mathematics. Not because I'll use it every day, but because it completely altered the way I reason about the functioning of my programs. - Learning to work in groups ranging from two to ten people. And learning how to put myself in their place even when that's really, really hard. I will probably never use 80% of what I learnt after I graduate. But the mental restructuring caused by learning those things has already helped me many, many times in practical situations. I think that there's a false distinction between the "practical" and the "theoretical". Just because something is not immediately useful, doesn't mean it's intellectual masturbation or ivory tower naval gazing. I don't think that CS degrees should neglect the directly practical aspects of the field, but I would much rather learn things that I wouldn't otherwise pick up (such as machine learning or parallel algorithms) than something I will have to learn eventually anyway (such as version control or system administration).
basseq 14y ago
The key question that some have touched on is this: What should comprise a CS degree? (E.g., should these (and/or other areas) be a part of a CS degree?) I think the right balance needs to be struck between the academic and vocational views. Big-O, grammar, automata, etc. are the fodder of academic papers, not the Real World. But when you talk about higher ed, here's the rub: its supposed to be the theoretical foundation, not a purely vocational preparation. The danger of the more vocational point of view is that you're supporting what I see as the slide from "skilled software engineering" to "coding". (Think the difference between having John Carmack on your team, versus some guy making $8/hr in a developing country.) This is hyperbole, but if you focus on the day-to-day elements of any job, then you're advocating for movement to a technical school curriculum (which, right or not, has a different level of career momentum, responsibility, etc.). CS (using the term to apply to the genre, inclusive) is maybe unique in that there are very vocational components, but also very intellectual/academic components. I think, like any career, there are going to be Things You Don't Know coming out of school. Interviewing, for example. Is that in ANY university-level curriculum, for ANY major? Are you expected to be 100% "operational" in a particular job immediately after your degree is awarded? Moreover, since when are all CS jobs the same? Why should it be any different for CS? This is what bothers me about this argument: CS is not equal to programming, and not equal to a (particular) job. And moreover (and I think most here would agree), the greatest hallmark of a great "technical thinker" (programmer, academic, problem-solver, tester, DB admin, whatever) is their willingness, nay INTEREST, in pursuing the details of their craft beyond the structure of a class or a job or (god forbid) an employee handbook. I don't want to work with someone who goes through the motions. I don't want to work with someone who comes out of college thinking they're prepared for their capital-C Career. I want a lifelong learner, and someone who wants to get into the guts of operations and make an impact. Educate and train for THAT.
- pjscott 14y ago
  > Big-O, grammar, automata, etc. are the fodder of academic papers, not the Real World. I have personally needed all of those things in the Real World. I suspect that if more people remembered the stuff they learned in college, it would get a lot more use. "I'm never going to use this in the real world!" can be a terribly self-fulfilling prophecy.
TwiztidK 14y ago
On the results, rather than displaying the % of votes that each subject received, it would be more helpful to show the % of voters that selected it. Instead of this: Total voters: 613 Total votes: 3168 Designing data structures (543 votes, 17%) Show this: Total voters: 613 Total votes: 3168 Designing data structures (543 votes, 89%)
marvin 14y ago
-Philosophy of science, the scientific method -Object-oriented programming -Basic calculus -Basic discrete mathematics -Linear algebra -Algorithms, data structures and asymptotic analysis -Basic compiler design -Theory of computation, Turing machines and formal languages -Basic practical computing technology, from the gate level -Basic software engineering: SE methodology, version control and developing software in a team -Cryptography, ciphers and data security -Overview of the role of operating systems -Networking, encapsulation and the TCP/IP stack -Basic web technology, server-side programming and client-side scripting Anything outside of this, I've learned on the job or in my spare time. This includes AJAX and the use of heavier web technology. To my intuition, this is more descriptive of an undergrad degree in computer science rather than a software engineering degree. But it'd be nice to hear what others think.
- eru 14y ago
  I don't see what OOP has to do with Computer Science. Isn't that Software Engineering?
  - marvin 14y ago
    I agree, but this is where my department is being pragmatic. A computer scientist with no experience at all in OOP or basic software engineering will initially be pretty useless in the private sector, which is where 90% of graduates go.
archagon 14y ago
One thing that I wish my undergrad CS degree taught me was how to manage and structure larger programs. It's a vast topic that I still have a lot of difficulty with two years into my career.
TYPE_FASTER 14y ago
CompSci should include at least a semester or two of business classes, including the delegation lessons in the HBS article posted earlier today.
- pjscott 14y ago
  Be careful when saying things of the form "$DEGREE_PROGRAM should also include at least one class in $SUBJECT." You can make persuasive arguments for the relevance of a dizzying range of subjects, and at some point you have to prioritize.
j45 14y ago
Very little that was directly transferable to the real world. Some may argue this doesn't apply to CS, but I think applied computing science is what I'd look for. Things that were not covered included: - Basic business skills - Basic sales skills (We all have to sell our ideas, be it to peers, departments, customers.) - Storytelling skills - People networking skills - Understanding very few businesses have technology problems, but instead business problems that they are trying to solve with technology. - You don't understand anything if you don't understand how the data in any system inputs, exists, interacts, and outputs. You don't understand the business if you don't understand the data. You should not be allowed anywhere near building software for an organization if you don't understand the data. - Understanding that the data in many ways is the system. No software/system is useful without data. - Learning an organization's competitive advantage and magnifying it with software. Too often programmers interpret things killing the competitive advantage. - It's not about you, it's about the user. Users rarely care what you code in, or the frameworks, or whatever you've done to make your own life selfishly easier and continuing to neglect actually getting to know their world, their data, and the the problems they face with it. - Marketing skills - eliminate feature babble and focus on benefits once you've been in user's shoes working on users problems. - Communicating with the world to first understand, and then address their needs. You are no better than a technically clueless business guy if you make assumptions as blindly in other ways about the business process. - How the real world does not start every project with a clean slate like CS projects. This is probably one of the biggest gaps. - Learning to learn other people's code, refactor + more. Instead, we learned the theoretical using many languages building the same kinds of things over and over for 4 years. It was awesome to the geek in me. Sprinkle in some UI or database skills, and yes, I did get very good at learning any technology I needed, but implementing it in a meaningful, sustainable way. But the real world used very little of what I learnt for 4 years. When I took CS in the late 90's I had to learn to build web apps, databases, load balancing, administrating servers, all on my own, not to mention getting a business education largely by learning to swim by diving in. The social skills are really big. Partially I think CS attracts folks that aren't extroverted, and it can be a problem. We're at or nearing a crossroads in my opinion where the entire world has come to the internet and technology, and those building technologies and online need to be better bridges in interfacing with humanity.
zt 14y ago
"We believe that the bar for training and hiring of front end JavaScript developers is even more attainable, and that is why we have chosen to be the first, and as of now, the only training program specifically for that market." You know what I want--a twelve week, intense course on scientific computing in something like Python--for people who already know some core scientific subject and statistics. If we took http://www.drewconway.com/zia/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Data_Science_VD.png http://www.drewconway.com/zia/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Dat... as a guide (and yes, yes, data science is just a name for something that has existed for twenty years), I want a program to move people from traditional research to data science.
antiterra 14y ago
Browser incompatibilities? That's a candidate for the 'information to be most quickly rendered outdated/irrelevant after graduation' award. I would rather spend my $1400 a credit hour on poetry workshops (and I did.)
- eru 14y ago
  Are American universities really that expensive?
breckenedge 14y ago
So did anyone ask these same questions to businesses that hire CS grads? How about business that hire programmers/non-CS grads? Would be useful to see the flip side.

This doesn't look like a CS degree---this looks more like software engineering requirements. CS and SE focus on distinctly different things. I might suggest changing the page title.

gte910h 14y ago
Many CS degrees are all there are at institutions. SE is merely a focus you can take in that.
esrauch 14y ago
Only one or two more check boxes on the survey are covered by a SE degree over a CS one at RIT. I think this is largely vocational degree not even SE. That might reflect an industry bias in the CS degree though (revision control required in all classes, technical writing and software engineering are required in the cs degree) Edit: I should note that SE and CS are separate departments at RIT, there is a real difference in curriculum and that difference is not what this survey is getting at. A major in the IT department is what is closest to this survey, not SE. Somewhat anecdotal because its one University though.
quanticle 14y ago
Unfortunately, there isn't any distinction between the two yet. I would posit that very few people graduating with a bachelors of science in computer science are actually doing computer science work. I would posit that the vast majority of them are doing software engineering work. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like software engineering is a bachelor's level degree (I know of a few M.S. Software Engineering programs, but none at the bachelor's level), there really isn't much of the way in formal software engineering education for someone who wants to go to school for a few years and then get a job.

anonymoushn 14y ago

I got to check three of these, but one (version control) was only because I took game programming. A person could easily earn a CS degree from my school without using version control for any class.

lumberjack 14y ago

Personally I find things like version control and system administration to be things that students should learn for themselves. They should be encouraged, even actively encouraged (in fact they are already in most institutions) but there shouldn't be a class dedicated to this stuff. You are in University, studying CS ffs. If you can't learn such petty things for yourself, what good are you?

shawndrost 14y ago
While I agree that a course on version control wouldn't make any sense, I'm pretty torn about this. Most of the developers I know have shitty git habits, and it's not an accident.
- larskinn 14y ago
  I think the best approach is to integrate tasks like version control across many subjects. For instance, many programming exercises in various subjects taught at my university give the students a basic framework with missing functions, or a test harness, or some other piece of code that needs to be finished. These could have been shared via a version control system, and delivery could be made that way as well (using pull requests, branches, or some other feature). That way, students would be encouraged to use version control while working on the exercises. The way it actually is done here, though, is basically "learn version control yourself and justify your choice of version control system in your report" when doing group projects.
  - snuze 14y ago
    I agree with integrating version control into the exercises/labs. When I was at school, we had to submit our work over email/Blackboard, but submitting work through a version control system makes much more sense.
baddox 14y ago
I left a lot of options blank that were in fact encouraged, and which professors would help us with if asked, but were not really part of the curriculum. For example, we were strongly encouraged to use version control for our group projects, especially in third and fourth year courses (like operating systems and theory of computation) and obviously estimating timelines is a necessity for any project (computer science or otherwise). Code testing is a big one I wish we would have learned or been encouraged to learn, since I'm still horrible at that, but I hear that same sentiment from nearly every programmer I've ever met, so I suspect a handful of college lectures wouldn't have helped much.

Mystitat 14y ago

The table of results is hard to read. More contrast between the results bars and the background would help.

hkarthik 14y ago

I graduated with a CS degree ten years ago and I could only check the following: Designing data structures Analyzing algorithmic complexity (Big O) Version control was glossed over in my class with little importance given to it.

pbhjpbhj 14y ago
Yes, the date when one was studying is a vital facet of the data being gathered here. It's a big oversight IMO to have missed out on asking a question to gain date information (eg graduation year). I've only got, in this respect, an undergrad diploma in computing and covered 6 of these things in any depth; it would be around the same time as you were studying and we never covered version control at all.

barakm 14y ago

So I did EECS at Cal. And while some of these things are definitely in the category of software engineering and not computer science, I have to say that, in the few years between my undergrad and today, I've kept in touch with the community. And it's my sense that a lot of skills which one might find on this list are starting to be emphasized more: testing, version control, scale, timelines, communication -- so it does feel like undergrad curricula "get it" and are supplementing the standard courses with some generally useful stuff. Not replacing, but suggesting/providing/using some of the useful stuff in the context of the greater course. I'm a little surprised schools didn't touch upon complexity already; that's been around for awhile. Yet, it is the biggest category in the responses, so that's probably why. I'd also say that things like deployment, sysadmining -- browser incompatibilities? These are a lot more role-specific and better learned in situ. If the guy who knows browser incompatibilities needs to know how to do deployment, you are either (a) a pre-funding startup or (b) spreading your talent kinda thin. I'm sure most of the responses here will say something like "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education" -- which is all well and good for you. But if we want more and better candidates, it couldn't hurt to adopt some of the best-of-the-best practices (version control!) into CS curricula.

joncalhoun 14y ago

I feel like there should be a follow up survey asking recent grads what their degree enabled them to learn outside of their coursework. My CS degree hardly taught me anything in comparison to everything I learned outside of my coursework, but I don't feel like my coursework was lacking. On the contrary, my education allowed me to learn new things on my own that would have been significantly harder otherwise. eg a basic algorithm course lead me to get involved in TopCoder. An introductory course on software development (source control, testing, etc) gave me enough knowledge to find an internship where I learned about peer reviews and how to work effectively with a large codebase - something that is very hard to pick up in a semester of college.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

mememememememe 14y ago

I am not surprised with "Interviewing candidates" getting low score, but it did receive some votes.... any proof?

abhayb 14y ago

In my mind, a CS degree is all about rewiring the student's brain to better interact with computers and to instill attributes in the student that are useful when working with those computers. Very few of the points in the article cover things that vastly change your computational world view. Off the top of my head, the five things (in no particular order) that I'm getting out of my degree are: - Understanding down to processor and assembly level. And the visceral (and unfulfillable) desire to eliminate "magic" from things. - Extensive exposure to functional programming. And finding out for myself what it does better than imperative programming and what it does worse. - A deep appreciation of the need to know the user and the need to consider people at every stage of specifying, building and shipping software. - A rigorous grounding in discrete mathematics. Not because I'll use it every day, but because it completely altered the way I reason about the functioning of my programs. - Learning to work in groups ranging from two to ten people. And learning how to put myself in their place even when that's really, really hard. I will probably never use 80% of what I learnt after I graduate. But the mental restructuring caused by learning those things has already helped me many, many times in practical situations. I think that there's a false distinction between the "practical" and the "theoretical". Just because something is not immediately useful, doesn't mean it's intellectual masturbation or ivory tower naval gazing. I don't think that CS degrees should neglect the directly practical aspects of the field, but I would much rather learn things that I wouldn't otherwise pick up (such as machine learning or parallel algorithms) than something I will have to learn eventually anyway (such as version control or system administration).

basseq 14y ago

The key question that some have touched on is this: What should comprise a CS degree? (E.g., should these (and/or other areas) be a part of a CS degree?) I think the right balance needs to be struck between the academic and vocational views. Big-O, grammar, automata, etc. are the fodder of academic papers, not the Real World. But when you talk about higher ed, here's the rub: its supposed to be the theoretical foundation, not a purely vocational preparation. The danger of the more vocational point of view is that you're supporting what I see as the slide from "skilled software engineering" to "coding". (Think the difference between having John Carmack on your team, versus some guy making $8/hr in a developing country.) This is hyperbole, but if you focus on the day-to-day elements of any job, then you're advocating for movement to a technical school curriculum (which, right or not, has a different level of career momentum, responsibility, etc.). CS (using the term to apply to the genre, inclusive) is maybe unique in that there are very vocational components, but also very intellectual/academic components. I think, like any career, there are going to be Things You Don't Know coming out of school. Interviewing, for example. Is that in ANY university-level curriculum, for ANY major? Are you expected to be 100% "operational" in a particular job immediately after your degree is awarded? Moreover, since when are all CS jobs the same? Why should it be any different for CS? This is what bothers me about this argument: CS is not equal to programming, and not equal to a (particular) job. And moreover (and I think most here would agree), the greatest hallmark of a great "technical thinker" (programmer, academic, problem-solver, tester, DB admin, whatever) is their willingness, nay INTEREST, in pursuing the details of their craft beyond the structure of a class or a job or (god forbid) an employee handbook. I don't want to work with someone who goes through the motions. I don't want to work with someone who comes out of college thinking they're prepared for their capital-C Career. I want a lifelong learner, and someone who wants to get into the guts of operations and make an impact. Educate and train for THAT.

pjscott 14y ago
> Big-O, grammar, automata, etc. are the fodder of academic papers, not the Real World. I have personally needed all of those things in the Real World. I suspect that if more people remembered the stuff they learned in college, it would get a lot more use. "I'm never going to use this in the real world!" can be a terribly self-fulfilling prophecy.

TwiztidK 14y ago

On the results, rather than displaying the % of votes that each subject received, it would be more helpful to show the % of voters that selected it. Instead of this: Total voters: 613 Total votes: 3168 Designing data structures (543 votes, 17%) Show this: Total voters: 613 Total votes: 3168 Designing data structures (543 votes, 89%)

marvin 14y ago

-Philosophy of science, the scientific method -Object-oriented programming -Basic calculus -Basic discrete mathematics -Linear algebra -Algorithms, data structures and asymptotic analysis -Basic compiler design -Theory of computation, Turing machines and formal languages -Basic practical computing technology, from the gate level -Basic software engineering: SE methodology, version control and developing software in a team -Cryptography, ciphers and data security -Overview of the role of operating systems -Networking, encapsulation and the TCP/IP stack -Basic web technology, server-side programming and client-side scripting Anything outside of this, I've learned on the job or in my spare time. This includes AJAX and the use of heavier web technology. To my intuition, this is more descriptive of an undergrad degree in computer science rather than a software engineering degree. But it'd be nice to hear what others think.

eru 14y ago
I don't see what OOP has to do with Computer Science. Isn't that Software Engineering?
- marvin 14y ago
  I agree, but this is where my department is being pragmatic. A computer scientist with no experience at all in OOP or basic software engineering will initially be pretty useless in the private sector, which is where 90% of graduates go.

archagon 14y ago

One thing that I wish my undergrad CS degree taught me was how to manage and structure larger programs. It's a vast topic that I still have a lot of difficulty with two years into my career.

TYPE_FASTER 14y ago

CompSci should include at least a semester or two of business classes, including the delegation lessons in the HBS article posted earlier today.

pjscott 14y ago
Be careful when saying things of the form "$DEGREE_PROGRAM should also include at least one class in $SUBJECT." You can make persuasive arguments for the relevance of a dizzying range of subjects, and at some point you have to prioritize.

j45 14y ago

Very little that was directly transferable to the real world. Some may argue this doesn't apply to CS, but I think applied computing science is what I'd look for. Things that were not covered included: - Basic business skills - Basic sales skills (We all have to sell our ideas, be it to peers, departments, customers.) - Storytelling skills - People networking skills - Understanding very few businesses have technology problems, but instead business problems that they are trying to solve with technology. - You don't understand anything if you don't understand how the data in any system inputs, exists, interacts, and outputs. You don't understand the business if you don't understand the data. You should not be allowed anywhere near building software for an organization if you don't understand the data. - Understanding that the data in many ways is the system. No software/system is useful without data. - Learning an organization's competitive advantage and magnifying it with software. Too often programmers interpret things killing the competitive advantage. - It's not about you, it's about the user. Users rarely care what you code in, or the frameworks, or whatever you've done to make your own life selfishly easier and continuing to neglect actually getting to know their world, their data, and the the problems they face with it. - Marketing skills - eliminate feature babble and focus on benefits once you've been in user's shoes working on users problems. - Communicating with the world to first understand, and then address their needs. You are no better than a technically clueless business guy if you make assumptions as blindly in other ways about the business process. - How the real world does not start every project with a clean slate like CS projects. This is probably one of the biggest gaps. - Learning to learn other people's code, refactor + more. Instead, we learned the theoretical using many languages building the same kinds of things over and over for 4 years. It was awesome to the geek in me. Sprinkle in some UI or database skills, and yes, I did get very good at learning any technology I needed, but implementing it in a meaningful, sustainable way. But the real world used very little of what I learnt for 4 years. When I took CS in the late 90's I had to learn to build web apps, databases, load balancing, administrating servers, all on my own, not to mention getting a business education largely by learning to swim by diving in. The social skills are really big. Partially I think CS attracts folks that aren't extroverted, and it can be a problem. We're at or nearing a crossroads in my opinion where the entire world has come to the internet and technology, and those building technologies and online need to be better bridges in interfacing with humanity.

zt 14y ago

"We believe that the bar for training and hiring of front end JavaScript developers is even more attainable, and that is why we have chosen to be the first, and as of now, the only training program specifically for that market." You know what I want--a twelve week, intense course on scientific computing in something like Python--for people who already know some core scientific subject and statistics. If we took http://www.drewconway.com/zia/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Data_Science_VD.png http://www.drewconway.com/zia/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Dat... as a guide (and yes, yes, data science is just a name for something that has existed for twenty years), I want a program to move people from traditional research to data science.

antiterra 14y ago

Browser incompatibilities? That's a candidate for the 'information to be most quickly rendered outdated/irrelevant after graduation' award. I would rather spend my $1400 a credit hour on poetry workshops (and I did.)

eru 14y ago
Are American universities really that expensive?

breckenedge 14y ago

So did anyone ask these same questions to businesses that hire CS grads? How about business that hire programmers/non-CS grads? Would be useful to see the flip side.