6 ms·

Unemployment among UK computer science graduates

35 points by Futurebot 11y ago

dijit 11y ago
The problem is that a batcholers in computer science doesn't actually mean anything from the UK, you can learn the course material in six months of study- and employers know this. so when employers are looking for applicants, they look for CV buzzwords and then test the person applying. Pass the test? great. you're in. a degree for software/systems engineering really only helps later in life when you're going for a leadership or management role. the UK is also guilty of denying education about how computers work for a couple decades, opting only to teach microsoft office with a few CCNA college courses which inevitably get cancelled. So computer science students are really learning how computers work when they first go to university- and that's just mental.
- ciaranm 11y ago
  Woah there - let's not write off the CS department of every UK institution, shall we? This is definitely a case of 'YMMV'.
  - dijit 11y ago
    ok, but even if you did full time hands on study of computing then you're still starting from a 0-basis foundation of knowledge on entering since there is no formal education before that. and a little like hub networking we can only operate at the rate of the slowest peer. We can't "negotiate up" the curriculum. so it's a waste of time and resources for many people. - like another poster said though there is a lot of mathematics involved so it's not like I'm saying it's useless, just that it's certainly not necessary and that we should be (and are) putting computers into the hands of children rather than teaching people -only once they arrive at university- about how computers function.
    - arethuza 11y ago
      "there is no formal education before that." I don't know about the rest of the UK but Computing Science is on the curriculum at schools in Scotland - I studied computing at school in the early 80s and had projects doing 6502 assembler on an Apple (NB and I did not go to a fancy school). Here is a SQA Advanced Higher paper - looks pretty good to me: http://www.sqa.org.uk/files_ccc/ComputingScienceSQPAH.pdf http://www.sqa.org.uk/files_ccc/ComputingScienceSQPAH.pdf
      - dijit 11y ago
        "there is, now" for the last 10 years there hasn't been. (even at college level) the closest that comes near is the BTEC National Diploma in IT systems support (which I took) which teaches you the OSI model and how to crimp cables. (and also that Worms are "bad" and viruses are also "bad" and hackers are "bad" etcetc) it's definitely not computer science but it's a somewhat close approximation for the low skilled workers that will someday become level 1/2 support. if that's your intro into university then it's still a very low base to take you forward.
        chrisseaton 11y ago
        I went to university over a decade ago to do CS, and before that I did an A level computing, and an A level discrete maths module which taught basic algorithms like path finding, shortest tour, bin packing etc. That's a pretty good foundation for CS.
      - flooq 11y ago
        In the 90s, when they introduced the Advanced Higher they changed the Higher Grade to remove a lot of the deeper computer science components. Having been in one of the last years to sit it I then ended up studying a lot of the same information in my first year at university anyway. Unfortunately having a good school curriculum didn't automatically make the degree level education better.
    - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
      Exactly you don't get to start A Physics or Chemistry Degree without doing it at GCSE and A Level.
- arethuza 11y ago
  "you can learn the course material in six months of study" I don't know what courses are like these days - but that absolutely wasn't the case in the 1980s when I got a CS degree. However, the course I did was fairly heavy on the maths/formal side of things rather than focusing on the craft of programming.
  - nightcracker 11y ago
    I'm an undergraduate at Leiden university in the Netherlands. I can confirm that this is still the case, at least here. I would say it's around a 30/70 split between practical/formal teachings.
- UK-AL 11y ago
  I think the issue is employers are looking for web/mobile/whatever developers with heavy emphasis on building quality code and the latest trends. CS at university does not teach that.
  - arethuza 11y ago
    "CS at university does not teach that." Personally, I don't think that CS courses should be even trying teach that kind of stuff. CS courses should be about fundamentals not craft or process. [NB Craft and process are obviously more important that fundamentals for at least 95% of development roles - which is why I hate CS courses being regarded as "learn to develop" courses].
    - wfn 11y ago
      ...and that's why I think it's a good thing that some universities have separate CS and software engineering diplomas/tracks..
    - jon-wood 11y ago
      There should be far more focus on software apprenticeships, which is why I welcome the flurry of development bootcamps that have been springing up over the last couple of years. The best of them know that they're only really getting people to a minimum level, and work hard to place their graduates with companies that are able to commit to spending a year or two continuing to train them, rather than just throwing people with 12 weeks development experience in at the deep end.
      - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
        Apprenticeships <> Bootcamps And for a "professional" Job its debatable if using such a low status term is a good idea - in the UK Apprenticeships are seen as blue collar low status jobs at best. Ask most people in the UK about Apprentices and they will think of the lusers on that ghastly TV Show. Oh And I say this having followed the vocational track into IT
tracker1 11y ago
I think that is because most of the actual jobs are for programming, software development and systems/network administration. The CS degree programs are more centered on math and some electrical engineering concepts. I think the problem is partly in terms of perception and partly in regards to expectations. There simply aren't that many jobs out there for entry level (fresh out of college) computer science types. My suggestion would be for those who want to work in a given field to consider their internships carefully, and work on projects and in positions that lend themselves towards learning their desired field of employment over the specifics of the educational learning. The CS concepts can help, but actual experience tends to count for more. This is as an outsider who's worked in software development for almost two decades now without a formal education. I've worked with programmers with degrees that were very good at their job, and others with masters in CS that couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag. Theory does not equate to practice, and software in particular is much more of a craft in practice than engineering or science.
- paulojreis 11y ago
  > and software in particular is much more of a craft in practice than engineering or science. Definitely agree. I have some experience (8 years) and most of the software development jobs I've seen aren't "engineering" at all, and shouldn't require higher education.
  - pjmlp 11y ago
    Hence why bare coding is being off-shored with the real engineering (Architecture, Design, Planning, Customer Relations,...) is left on the destination countries. Those that want to stay pure coders will be left behind, given the current market trends, even here in Europe.
    - paulojreis 11y ago
      Customer Relations as real engineering? I'd say that only "architecture" or, better, system design should be engineering work. Conceiving and planning a product (not its implementation), as well as making it fit the market, that's not engineering.
rm554 11y ago
Northumbria Uni has 'HTML, XHTML & CSS for dummies' and 'PHP & MySQL for dummies' on the reading list of their Computing and Information Technology MSc. https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/study-at-northumbria/courses/computing-and-information-technology-dl-dtpcti6/modules/cm0728-website-development-and-deployment/ https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/study-at-northumbria/courses/c... One of the programming modules in the same degree is titled 'Programme Design & Implementation'. https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/study-at-northumbria/courses/computing-and-information-technology-dl-dtpcti6/modules/cm0718-programme-design-implementation/ https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/study-at-northumbria/courses/c...
- arethuza 11y ago
  A lot of UK MSc courses are "conversion courses" for people with degrees in others subjects and who want to get into computing. In my experience the level the MSc courses are taught at can be a good bit lower than the undergraduate courses in the same department. NB This doesn't apply to all UK masters degrees, obviously. Some of the 5 year courses are really good.
Dakuan 11y ago
Computer Science isn't a massively useful degree in the real world. It's a shame there isn't a more vocational 'Software Engineering' course similar to Civil / Mechanical engineering which is geared towards teaching immediately useful skills in addition to the academic theory.
SandB0x 11y ago
I would guess the main factors are a) the huge range in prestige or quality between universities and b) the large number of media and business degrees that are classified as computer science. On the first point, look at the difference between the numbers at the top and bottom of this table: http://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2015/may/25/university-guide-2016-league-table-for-computer-science-information http://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2015/may... These rankings are nonsensical in many ways, but some universities consistently appear towards the top and some towards the bottom and the employment stats plummet towards the bottom of the table. On the second point, click on a university name in the link above and you will see a list of degrees. You can a) see that "Computer Science" can mean all sorts of different things and b) you can click on the degree name to see the actual course contents, which may not match what you think of as computer science: * Business Information Technology BSc (Hons) http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/courses/course-finder/business-information-technology-bsc-hons#course_tab_modules http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/courses/course-finder/business-informa... * Computer Graphics Technology BSc(Hons) http://www.kingston.ac.uk/undergraduate-course/computer-graphics-technology/ http://www.kingston.ac.uk/undergraduate-course/computer-grap...
harryc2011 11y ago
Isn't the problem right there in the first sentence? - "Almost every university in England offers courses in computer science". Obviously not all institutions offering a CS degree are equal & a quick look at a league table [1] shows that the 'Graduate Prospects' range from 100 (St Andrews) to 38 (Bolton). Elsewhere in the thread someone mentions software apprenticeships and I think anyone thinking of enrolling on the CS course at Bolton might be better off doing an apprenticeship instead. [1] http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings?o=Graduate+Prospects&s=Computer+Science http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/ra...
- Symbiote 11y ago
  That's exactly right, and the article goes on to explain that. The scatter plot compares "UCAS Tariff" (A-level results etc) to unemployment. I used to work with / mentor students who were somewhere in the middle to poor end of the scale. An apprenticeship is probably better, now that tuition fees are so high.
anjc 11y ago
I've seen these threads numerous times, because the exact same effect has been seen in numerous western countries and studies keep popping up. Invariably commenters try to explain away the results, typically by blaming the people afflicted, and I can see it happening already in this thread. E.g. the popularity of CS in the media means that it attracts poor candidates; the quality of courses isn't good and people should choose carefully; people can't expect to get a job without spending all extracurricular time in quality internships and having x number of projects and OSS contributions under their belt and an active Github account; [insert country] is different because of [insert reason] (ignore that the same thing is occurring in many countries), etc etc. My question is, why should CS be different than any other subject in terms of foisting responsibility onto kids who just want to gain employment? I have a feeling that if you started telling medicine/architecture/engineering/science departments that they need to start teaching students about entrepreneurial skills, and that students need to spend their spare time working on projects and battling for internships or they'll likely remain unemployed, that you'd be laughed out of the building. I'm not sure why CS is a special case, and why practitioners perpetuate this situation via blame in threads like this. It makes intuitive sense that employers want the best candidates, and these are mechanisms by which candidates can demonstrate suitability, but every other area seems to cope without them, so...why CS?
- viraptor 11y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with the idea that you should be doing extra work just to get hired (there are cons and pros), but CS is a special case, along with a few other professions. These professions have a simple way to practice and extend your knowledge outside of work. You say medicine is different, but I'd say it's in between - you'd rather hire a more skilled doctor, right? Well, to get more skilled they pay for extra courses and exams with their own money, spend extra time and get more credentials. But they can't easily practice what they do in their free time. While junior doctor positions are not free internships, add course costs and they're not far off. How about translators then. You've got two translators with (officially) the same level of training. But one constantly reads specialist literature in foreign languages, while the other one doesn't. Would you not hire the first one? Would you still claim that's foisting responsibility?
andrewingram 11y ago
One of the thing that's bothered me about the English education system (basically since I realised what was happening), is that it's basically a continuous process of limiting your option. For GCSEs I did 3-4 fewer subjects than the 3 preceding years, for A-Levels I did 8 fewer subjects than that. For university I did exactly one subject. And commitment to a subject at each stage is for the full duration of that stage (more-or-less). There's no concept of dabbling in a subject for a semester to see if it takes. At university, the furthest I could deviate from a pure CS module, was "Russian for Scientists" and a few maths/stats modules. If you wanted to do anything more diverse, you needed to get special permission. I certainly wouldn't have been able to take do a calligraphy module and revolutionise computer typography. And if i'd decided computer science wasn't for me, i'd have had to throw away all degree progress and start over with the new subject, there was no concept of carrying over any accumulated credit into the new degree.
- aianus 11y ago
  > At university, the furthest I could deviate from a pure CS module, was "Russian for Scientists" and a few maths/stats modules. Lucky you. I was not allowed to take any more Math/CS courses by my last semester because I had already taken 'too many' and needed to fulfill my 'non-math' credit requirements. No joke -- the requirement literally just said 'non-math - 5.0 credits'. What a load of bullshit.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    I'm a guy who is teaching himself mathematics so curious to ask: is there a point where you can't just teach yourself and someone has to actually teach you in person?
    - aianus 11y ago
      If you have the discipline, no, not at the undergrad level at least. But it's a lot more fun with classmates to collaborate with and compete against.
    - charlieegan3 11y ago
sklogic 11y ago
I always thought that computer science graduates should only be employed as scientists. Anythig else is a waste. Why don't we have more software engineering courses instead?

35 points by Futurebot 11y ago

dijit 11y ago

The problem is that a batcholers in computer science doesn't actually mean anything from the UK, you can learn the course material in six months of study- and employers know this. so when employers are looking for applicants, they look for CV buzzwords and then test the person applying. Pass the test? great. you're in. a degree for software/systems engineering really only helps later in life when you're going for a leadership or management role. the UK is also guilty of denying education about how computers work for a couple decades, opting only to teach microsoft office with a few CCNA college courses which inevitably get cancelled. So computer science students are really learning how computers work when they first go to university- and that's just mental.

ciaranm 11y ago
Woah there - let's not write off the CS department of every UK institution, shall we? This is definitely a case of 'YMMV'.
- dijit 11y ago
  ok, but even if you did full time hands on study of computing then you're still starting from a 0-basis foundation of knowledge on entering since there is no formal education before that. and a little like hub networking we can only operate at the rate of the slowest peer. We can't "negotiate up" the curriculum. so it's a waste of time and resources for many people. - like another poster said though there is a lot of mathematics involved so it's not like I'm saying it's useless, just that it's certainly not necessary and that we should be (and are) putting computers into the hands of children rather than teaching people -only once they arrive at university- about how computers function.
  - arethuza 11y ago
    "there is no formal education before that." I don't know about the rest of the UK but Computing Science is on the curriculum at schools in Scotland - I studied computing at school in the early 80s and had projects doing 6502 assembler on an Apple (NB and I did not go to a fancy school). Here is a SQA Advanced Higher paper - looks pretty good to me: http://www.sqa.org.uk/files_ccc/ComputingScienceSQPAH.pdf http://www.sqa.org.uk/files_ccc/ComputingScienceSQPAH.pdf
    - dijit 11y ago
      "there is, now" for the last 10 years there hasn't been. (even at college level) the closest that comes near is the BTEC National Diploma in IT systems support (which I took) which teaches you the OSI model and how to crimp cables. (and also that Worms are "bad" and viruses are also "bad" and hackers are "bad" etcetc) it's definitely not computer science but it's a somewhat close approximation for the low skilled workers that will someday become level 1/2 support. if that's your intro into university then it's still a very low base to take you forward.
      - chrisseaton 11y ago
        I went to university over a decade ago to do CS, and before that I did an A level computing, and an A level discrete maths module which taught basic algorithms like path finding, shortest tour, bin packing etc. That's a pretty good foundation for CS.
    - flooq 11y ago
      In the 90s, when they introduced the Advanced Higher they changed the Higher Grade to remove a lot of the deeper computer science components. Having been in one of the last years to sit it I then ended up studying a lot of the same information in my first year at university anyway. Unfortunately having a good school curriculum didn't automatically make the degree level education better.
  - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
    Exactly you don't get to start A Physics or Chemistry Degree without doing it at GCSE and A Level.
arethuza 11y ago
"you can learn the course material in six months of study" I don't know what courses are like these days - but that absolutely wasn't the case in the 1980s when I got a CS degree. However, the course I did was fairly heavy on the maths/formal side of things rather than focusing on the craft of programming.
- nightcracker 11y ago
  I'm an undergraduate at Leiden university in the Netherlands. I can confirm that this is still the case, at least here. I would say it's around a 30/70 split between practical/formal teachings.
UK-AL 11y ago
I think the issue is employers are looking for web/mobile/whatever developers with heavy emphasis on building quality code and the latest trends. CS at university does not teach that.
- arethuza 11y ago
  "CS at university does not teach that." Personally, I don't think that CS courses should be even trying teach that kind of stuff. CS courses should be about fundamentals not craft or process. [NB Craft and process are obviously more important that fundamentals for at least 95% of development roles - which is why I hate CS courses being regarded as "learn to develop" courses].
  - wfn 11y ago
    ...and that's why I think it's a good thing that some universities have separate CS and software engineering diplomas/tracks..
  - jon-wood 11y ago
    There should be far more focus on software apprenticeships, which is why I welcome the flurry of development bootcamps that have been springing up over the last couple of years. The best of them know that they're only really getting people to a minimum level, and work hard to place their graduates with companies that are able to commit to spending a year or two continuing to train them, rather than just throwing people with 12 weeks development experience in at the deep end.
    - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
      Apprenticeships <> Bootcamps And for a "professional" Job its debatable if using such a low status term is a good idea - in the UK Apprenticeships are seen as blue collar low status jobs at best. Ask most people in the UK about Apprentices and they will think of the lusers on that ghastly TV Show. Oh And I say this having followed the vocational track into IT

tracker1 11y ago

I think that is because most of the actual jobs are for programming, software development and systems/network administration. The CS degree programs are more centered on math and some electrical engineering concepts. I think the problem is partly in terms of perception and partly in regards to expectations. There simply aren't that many jobs out there for entry level (fresh out of college) computer science types. My suggestion would be for those who want to work in a given field to consider their internships carefully, and work on projects and in positions that lend themselves towards learning their desired field of employment over the specifics of the educational learning. The CS concepts can help, but actual experience tends to count for more. This is as an outsider who's worked in software development for almost two decades now without a formal education. I've worked with programmers with degrees that were very good at their job, and others with masters in CS that couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag. Theory does not equate to practice, and software in particular is much more of a craft in practice than engineering or science.

paulojreis 11y ago
> and software in particular is much more of a craft in practice than engineering or science. Definitely agree. I have some experience (8 years) and most of the software development jobs I've seen aren't "engineering" at all, and shouldn't require higher education.
- pjmlp 11y ago
  Hence why bare coding is being off-shored with the real engineering (Architecture, Design, Planning, Customer Relations,...) is left on the destination countries. Those that want to stay pure coders will be left behind, given the current market trends, even here in Europe.
  - paulojreis 11y ago
    Customer Relations as real engineering? I'd say that only "architecture" or, better, system design should be engineering work. Conceiving and planning a product (not its implementation), as well as making it fit the market, that's not engineering.

rm554 11y ago

Northumbria Uni has 'HTML, XHTML & CSS for dummies' and 'PHP & MySQL for dummies' on the reading list of their Computing and Information Technology MSc. https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/study-at-northumbria/courses/computing-and-information-technology-dl-dtpcti6/modules/cm0728-website-development-and-deployment/ https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/study-at-northumbria/courses/c... One of the programming modules in the same degree is titled 'Programme Design & Implementation'. https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/study-at-northumbria/courses/computing-and-information-technology-dl-dtpcti6/modules/cm0718-programme-design-implementation/ https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/study-at-northumbria/courses/c...

arethuza 11y ago
A lot of UK MSc courses are "conversion courses" for people with degrees in others subjects and who want to get into computing. In my experience the level the MSc courses are taught at can be a good bit lower than the undergraduate courses in the same department. NB This doesn't apply to all UK masters degrees, obviously. Some of the 5 year courses are really good.

Dakuan 11y ago

Computer Science isn't a massively useful degree in the real world. It's a shame there isn't a more vocational 'Software Engineering' course similar to Civil / Mechanical engineering which is geared towards teaching immediately useful skills in addition to the academic theory.

SandB0x 11y ago

I would guess the main factors are a) the huge range in prestige or quality between universities and b) the large number of media and business degrees that are classified as computer science. On the first point, look at the difference between the numbers at the top and bottom of this table: http://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2015/may/25/university-guide-2016-league-table-for-computer-science-information http://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2015/may... These rankings are nonsensical in many ways, but some universities consistently appear towards the top and some towards the bottom and the employment stats plummet towards the bottom of the table. On the second point, click on a university name in the link above and you will see a list of degrees. You can a) see that "Computer Science" can mean all sorts of different things and b) you can click on the degree name to see the actual course contents, which may not match what you think of as computer science: * Business Information Technology BSc (Hons) http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/courses/course-finder/business-information-technology-bsc-hons#course_tab_modules http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/courses/course-finder/business-informa... * Computer Graphics Technology BSc(Hons) http://www.kingston.ac.uk/undergraduate-course/computer-graphics-technology/ http://www.kingston.ac.uk/undergraduate-course/computer-grap...

harryc2011 11y ago

Isn't the problem right there in the first sentence? - "Almost every university in England offers courses in computer science". Obviously not all institutions offering a CS degree are equal & a quick look at a league table [1] shows that the 'Graduate Prospects' range from 100 (St Andrews) to 38 (Bolton). Elsewhere in the thread someone mentions software apprenticeships and I think anyone thinking of enrolling on the CS course at Bolton might be better off doing an apprenticeship instead. [1] http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings?o=Graduate+Prospects&s=Computer+Science http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/ra...

Symbiote 11y ago
That's exactly right, and the article goes on to explain that. The scatter plot compares "UCAS Tariff" (A-level results etc) to unemployment. I used to work with / mentor students who were somewhere in the middle to poor end of the scale. An apprenticeship is probably better, now that tuition fees are so high.

anjc 11y ago

I've seen these threads numerous times, because the exact same effect has been seen in numerous western countries and studies keep popping up. Invariably commenters try to explain away the results, typically by blaming the people afflicted, and I can see it happening already in this thread. E.g. the popularity of CS in the media means that it attracts poor candidates; the quality of courses isn't good and people should choose carefully; people can't expect to get a job without spending all extracurricular time in quality internships and having x number of projects and OSS contributions under their belt and an active Github account; [insert country] is different because of [insert reason] (ignore that the same thing is occurring in many countries), etc etc. My question is, why should CS be different than any other subject in terms of foisting responsibility onto kids who just want to gain employment? I have a feeling that if you started telling medicine/architecture/engineering/science departments that they need to start teaching students about entrepreneurial skills, and that students need to spend their spare time working on projects and battling for internships or they'll likely remain unemployed, that you'd be laughed out of the building. I'm not sure why CS is a special case, and why practitioners perpetuate this situation via blame in threads like this. It makes intuitive sense that employers want the best candidates, and these are mechanisms by which candidates can demonstrate suitability, but every other area seems to cope without them, so...why CS?

viraptor 11y ago
I'm not sure I agree with the idea that you should be doing extra work just to get hired (there are cons and pros), but CS is a special case, along with a few other professions. These professions have a simple way to practice and extend your knowledge outside of work. You say medicine is different, but I'd say it's in between - you'd rather hire a more skilled doctor, right? Well, to get more skilled they pay for extra courses and exams with their own money, spend extra time and get more credentials. But they can't easily practice what they do in their free time. While junior doctor positions are not free internships, add course costs and they're not far off. How about translators then. You've got two translators with (officially) the same level of training. But one constantly reads specialist literature in foreign languages, while the other one doesn't. Would you not hire the first one? Would you still claim that's foisting responsibility?

andrewingram 11y ago

One of the thing that's bothered me about the English education system (basically since I realised what was happening), is that it's basically a continuous process of limiting your option. For GCSEs I did 3-4 fewer subjects than the 3 preceding years, for A-Levels I did 8 fewer subjects than that. For university I did exactly one subject. And commitment to a subject at each stage is for the full duration of that stage (more-or-less). There's no concept of dabbling in a subject for a semester to see if it takes. At university, the furthest I could deviate from a pure CS module, was "Russian for Scientists" and a few maths/stats modules. If you wanted to do anything more diverse, you needed to get special permission. I certainly wouldn't have been able to take do a calligraphy module and revolutionise computer typography. And if i'd decided computer science wasn't for me, i'd have had to throw away all degree progress and start over with the new subject, there was no concept of carrying over any accumulated credit into the new degree.

aianus 11y ago
> At university, the furthest I could deviate from a pure CS module, was "Russian for Scientists" and a few maths/stats modules. Lucky you. I was not allowed to take any more Math/CS courses by my last semester because I had already taken 'too many' and needed to fulfill my 'non-math' credit requirements. No joke -- the requirement literally just said 'non-math - 5.0 credits'. What a load of bullshit.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  I'm a guy who is teaching himself mathematics so curious to ask: is there a point where you can't just teach yourself and someone has to actually teach you in person?
  - aianus 11y ago
    If you have the discipline, no, not at the undergrad level at least. But it's a lot more fun with classmates to collaborate with and compete against.
  - charlieegan3 11y ago

sklogic 11y ago

I always thought that computer science graduates should only be employed as scientists. Anythig else is a waste. Why don't we have more software engineering courses instead?