I'm a second year CS student and probably not a typical example, but I've found University education fairly comprehensive and useful. I have been programming an

I'm a second year CS student and probably not a typical example, but I've found University education fairly comprehensive and useful. I have been programming and fooling around with robotics and such through high school, so I guess I knew a lot more stuff than most of my classmates. This is probably reflected by the 20%-30% or so (my approximation) drop rate after first year. Anyway, in my first year we've studied different layers of a computing system: * Computer Engineering - and implemented [MU0](http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~pjj/cs1001/arch/node1.html http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~pjj/cs1001/arch/node1.html) on an FPGA * Architecture - general principles and ARM ASM * OO programming - theory and a lot of Java * Computation - finite state automata, regexp, a bit about complexity * Math Plus some more specialized course units: * AI * Distributed Systems * Team project - which was mostly about team work, but some web apps stuff too In the second year there are a lot more specialized units: * Algorithms (implemented in C) * Operating systems (just pen and paper for the first 2 labs, boring for now) * Databases (SQL) * Machine learning (labs with Matlab) * Networks (Wireshark FTW) * Microcontrollers (with real dev boards - ARM + FPGA) * Architecture (again) * CGI * Distributed systems (again) * Mobile systems (seems to be mostly about radio comm and codecs) I mean, really, you have to be an idiot to blag your way through all of these and not learn anything useful for potential employers. It is true that it probably helps a lot if you have some previous knowledge and/or do independent work as the learning curve is steep. But if you can't do it, maybe you should be studying something else. The geek culture is visible both among students and staff, but to be honest it's clearly a minority. BTW, this is CS @ Manchester Uni. And a WTF moment, because not everything's this good: We've had a "careers workshop" and then we had to submit a CV and cover letter to get marked on and receive feedback. I've submitted the ones that landed me an internship this summer and I've been failed (this probably means I need to resubmit a corporate-looking one).