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Small case-study I know but I work with somebody who just came out of Cambridge and did a CS-like degree. He cannot program for shit and talks like he does but

Small case-study I know but I work with somebody who just came out of Cambridge and did a CS-like degree. He cannot program for shit and talks like he does but show him a bit of C(++), PHP, javascript (even bash or Python) and his eyes just glaze over. I was teamed with him but he was forever unable to get anything done. In the end I was left with it all and made much better progress and he was left to book to overheads. I'm certain he's an edge case though, I've met a few others who went to Oxbridge and they are definitely on the ball. However, I've found those who went to Bristol, Imperial or Loughborough are people that are the smartest.

swombat 15y ago
That's not a case study, just an anecdote. In my experience, there were almost no people in Oxford that I wouldn't consider "very smart". Probably the only place in the world where that's been true. That said, I don't know how Cambridge's "CS-like" degree is/was, but Oxford's was very bad at actually teaching programming. Then again, are you really sure he went to Cambridge? Smart people have no problem with learning to program when they need to. That guy doesn't sound so smart...
- regomodo 15y ago
  Yeah, anecdote is the correct term. He definitely went to Cambridge which is why we questioned his choice of employer (the hirers decision). It doesn't matter what language he's given a task in others are always curious as to why he's taking so long or when it's ever going to be done. It's not like he's making a cathedral of every task as ctrl+c & ctr+v are his key tools along with a good smattering of ugly hacks(i get the feeling he has no grasp of OOP or VCS). He's comfortable in Access though.
AlisdairO 15y ago
That's not really all that surprising - Cambridge's CS course is highly theoretical, and very grounded in mathematics. It doesn't really train programmers as such. I decided before going to uni that I wanted a more practical degree, but I think it's important for some universities to teach pure computer science as opposed to a programming/cs mix.

swombat 15y ago

That's not a case study, just an anecdote. In my experience, there were almost no people in Oxford that I wouldn't consider "very smart". Probably the only place in the world where that's been true. That said, I don't know how Cambridge's "CS-like" degree is/was, but Oxford's was very bad at actually teaching programming. Then again, are you really sure he went to Cambridge? Smart people have no problem with learning to program when they need to. That guy doesn't sound so smart...

regomodo 15y ago
Yeah, anecdote is the correct term. He definitely went to Cambridge which is why we questioned his choice of employer (the hirers decision). It doesn't matter what language he's given a task in others are always curious as to why he's taking so long or when it's ever going to be done. It's not like he's making a cathedral of every task as ctrl+c & ctr+v are his key tools along with a good smattering of ugly hacks(i get the feeling he has no grasp of OOP or VCS). He's comfortable in Access though.

AlisdairO 15y ago

That's not really all that surprising - Cambridge's CS course is highly theoretical, and very grounded in mathematics. It doesn't really train programmers as such. I decided before going to uni that I wanted a more practical degree, but I think it's important for some universities to teach pure computer science as opposed to a programming/cs mix.