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I think that is fair but remember over half of the classes you took in the pursuit of a CS undergrad were not CS classes. Of the half remaining maybe half of th
by pcmoney 7y ago
I think that is fair but remember over half of the classes you took in the pursuit of a CS undergrad were not CS classes. Of the half remaining maybe half of them were truly vital? Even the example of building a microprocessor (or your own compiler as a right of passage) totally useless to 99.5% of practitioners in industry. That is a quintessential "hoop-jumping" class. Did you also learn the proper way to heat sand to extract silicon to make your own transistors? At some point we have to climb up the abstraction ladder and academia is always a rung or two behind and moves too slowly.
I would contend there are 6 classes worth of truly important information for practitioners to be equivalently informed as your top 20% CS undergrad.
- innocentoldguy 7y agoThat was my experience in college. Most of my classes were fluff and filler. Of course, I finished college in my 40s after taking a 20-year break to raise my kids, so my perspective is probably a little different than most.
- chrisco255 7y agoIt's not a hoop jumping class. You are learning how the machine actually works. And I've used those hardware skills to design my own circuits, so I don't find it useless at all. It's very empowering and it opens up possibilities for my career that I wouldn't otherwise have. If I want to go into robotics or some more hardware intensive discipline, I've got a good foundation for that. I wouldn't be starting from zero.
- anongraddebt 7y agoWhich six classes?
- pcmoney 7y agoThats the trick right I would say: 1. The standard Data Structures and Algs class. 2. Discrete Math (if needed) 3. Systems design 4. A Nand To Tetris type survey class 5. Databases 6. Networking Bonus: An ethics class. Because the tech world needs more people with functioning moral compasses.