More Universities Should Shut Down Their Computer Science Programs

Post by jeffreymcmanus » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 8:10 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #38

jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i agree that what i am proposing does not require a 4-year degree. i don't think that most undergraduates should spend four years in school. "no one respects a vocational education" is cargo cult thinking. elite universities don't write world-changing software, educated, motivated people do. i come not to butcher academia. as one of the least reformable institutions in our society, i'm pretty much indifferent to acad…

Oh, an industry supremacist.

Post by jeffreymcmanus » Tue, May 01, 2012, 2:38 AM UTC

milroc wrote: post #29

jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No argument there. Like I say in the post, I'm all in favor of the goodness of the basics. I just think that giving undergrads all theory and very little practice is not optimal, and they should have the opportunity to go minimal on theory if it makes sense for them. Very few universities offer such a choice today.

Where I spent most of my undergrad (Georgia Tech), we had a system called threads. Giving students tracks in which they could focus their study of computer science. These tracks were generally all theoretical (the exceptions being some classes in platforms and devices), even my friends who had a love for software engineering ended up learning the thoughts behind each process rather than blindly learning the process i…