> Also perhaps there’s a lesson here about the CS curriculum being too vocational at most colleges? Or not needing a 4 year college if it aims to be vocational?

> Also perhaps there’s a lesson here about the CS curriculum being too vocational at most colleges? Or not needing a 4 year college if it aims to be vocational? I heard a claim that sounded plausible to me: CS in the US originated from electrical engineering, and so is based on a degree that is based on the ability to directly influence things and make stuff happen - pretty vocational. In Germany CS is derived from maths and places a greater emphasis on the theoretical underpinnings, and yes, the ability to do scientific work and research. I guess the optimum lies somewhere in the middle: It's mildly shocking to me to hear of US CS bachelors who never heard of complexity (Big-O and all that), while it's also a bit mad that it's possible to obtain a CS bachelor degree in Germany with the only experience in making computers do stuff being 100 lines of Pascal (although that would require a rather arcane set of elective courses, so it probably won't happen all too often)