My background is a CS degree from a liberal arts college, and I've found that my coursework in compilers and operating systems has often come in very useful. Ad

My background is a CS degree from a liberal arts college, and I've found that my coursework in compilers and operating systems has often come in very useful. Additionally I've found that recent grads who have "computer *" degrees (e.g. "engineering" instead of "science") often are lacking exactly the most helpful and applicable knowledge I picked up in undergrad. That said, I completely agree with your sentiment: Had my priority been to establish a software engineering career, a whole lot of what I did could have been skipped and substituted for things like learning how to write good unit tests. I also strongly agree with you on "finished apprenticeship" vs. "master."