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The degree covers a lot of ground. Different languages, AI, robotics, people management, teams, etc etc Mostly it informs the student of their current level of

The degree covers a lot of ground. Different languages, AI, robotics, people management, teams, etc etc Mostly it informs the student of their current level of understanding. 70% of lecturing is marking assignments. That’s what you don’t get when you teach yourself.

EliRivers 7y ago
What can I say. My fellows did not cover AI, robotics or people management. Sounds like it's become a lot more of a practical degree in the last twenty years. Much more vocational, perhaps. There was a time when CS graduates would be hired and big companies would immediately start training them in how to engineer software, but now people expect to finish a CS degree and be capable of a related but different discipline; software engineering. I can only assume that CS degrees have changed to meet the demand.
- lol768 7y ago
  > What can I say. My fellows did not cover AI, robotics or people management. Sounds like it's become a lot more of a practical degree in the last twenty years. Honestly, it needs to be. Employers are not going to be impressed with grads who've not encountered basic things like version control by the time they've graduated - and it's irresponsible to market a degree as a stepping stone to a e.g. software engineering job without covering these basics properly. The theory is still incredibly important - mathematics, algorithms, performance & time complexity, data structures etc. It underpins everything we do in industry. But there really needs to be some element of practical software engineering too because the vast majority of the UG cohort are there to get a job.
  - EliRivers 7y ago
    Employers are not going to be impressed with grads who've not encountered basic things like version control by the time they've graduate That's true now. It certainly wasn't true in the past; especially with larger companies who would hire people with the intention of training them. I wonder if there will be a bifurcation in education. To some degree (excuse the pun), there already is; software engineering "boot camps" and the like that teach software engineering rather than CS. Maybe we'll see that split reach upwards to the formal education level; a more vocational college for the software engineers, a more mathematical alternative for the informatics enthusiasts.
buckminster 7y ago
Which CS degree? They vary enormously.

EliRivers 7y ago

What can I say. My fellows did not cover AI, robotics or people management. Sounds like it's become a lot more of a practical degree in the last twenty years. Much more vocational, perhaps. There was a time when CS graduates would be hired and big companies would immediately start training them in how to engineer software, but now people expect to finish a CS degree and be capable of a related but different discipline; software engineering. I can only assume that CS degrees have changed to meet the demand.

lol768 7y ago
> What can I say. My fellows did not cover AI, robotics or people management. Sounds like it's become a lot more of a practical degree in the last twenty years. Honestly, it needs to be. Employers are not going to be impressed with grads who've not encountered basic things like version control by the time they've graduated - and it's irresponsible to market a degree as a stepping stone to a e.g. software engineering job without covering these basics properly. The theory is still incredibly important - mathematics, algorithms, performance & time complexity, data structures etc. It underpins everything we do in industry. But there really needs to be some element of practical software engineering too because the vast majority of the UG cohort are there to get a job.
- EliRivers 7y ago
  Employers are not going to be impressed with grads who've not encountered basic things like version control by the time they've graduate That's true now. It certainly wasn't true in the past; especially with larger companies who would hire people with the intention of training them. I wonder if there will be a bifurcation in education. To some degree (excuse the pun), there already is; software engineering "boot camps" and the like that teach software engineering rather than CS. Maybe we'll see that split reach upwards to the formal education level; a more vocational college for the software engineers, a more mathematical alternative for the informatics enthusiasts.

buckminster 7y ago

Which CS degree? They vary enormously.