Ask HN: What's missing in a CS degree?

We have our whole lives working in the real world to pick up those things that the University environment can only really introduce us to.

I don't want to waste my CS education on just getting a simulation of what the rest of my life will be like, I want to learn CS especially the things that might be harder to learn via experience in industry.

The devil is in the details! Stuff you think isn't a big deal As an undergrad CS student might well be a freaking big deal! Example: in my current project, we've found that in the new system version, the vendor's "type and the list selects the matching prefix" functionality kinda works, but slowly. (As in, over 3 keystrokes a second is too fast and the system loses track of the full prefix.) To our users, it doesn't work at all. Their accustomed workflow is disrupted across the whole app, so I have to go and patch it.

In academia, stuff like this is considered a triviality. In the real world, it matters a lot!

Fortunately, it appears to be a relatively small drawback. Particular details may change in a few years anyway; being prepared for the change is more important, as is being capable of learning, and this normally comes with a solid foundation which a good university program can provide to a good student.

This is a very general answer. I apologize that I cannot give a more detailed answer; my exposure to the CS education was through a graduate school which gives a different perspective.

You correctly said that Physics majors do not study which details of bridge building. Indeed this is part of a different major (Civil Engineering, I suppose).

In contrast, Computer Science is a very broad discipline. Large portions of it are science; large portions are engineering (or similar to engineering, if we exclude Computer Engineering per se). A good student, or a student with a good mentor, should be able to choose a more theoretical (scientific) or more practical (engineering) path and work on the curriculum accordingly. I understand that it is not always possible (in some places, for example, students cannot choose classes), but at least a student should be able to choose where to focus.

A small point about "picking languages on their own". I think basics of languages can be taught to freshmen, at least selectively, to help those students who may be lacking in previous exposure to computers in high school. (Depending on the university, this may or may not be an issue.) Teaching basics of C or Java or, I don't know, Python, whatever, this way does not turn a university in a Java school or anything like that. Indeed it may be as useful as remedial classes in calculus.