> But I respectfully decline your advice and take the opposite stance that it is my duty to not devote my time for years to staged academic exercises but instea

> But I respectfully decline your advice and take the opposite stance that it is my duty to not devote my time for years to staged academic exercises but instead work on real problems I have no idea what particular university or course you are talking about. You might be right for some of them. But I have been working only 5 years after finishing university and I can already spot right away backgrounds in engineering, computer science or none. It's not about the piece of paper, never cared about those. It's not for everyone, so it's your choice, really. But I had the time (and money) to go through very theoretical cs courses and I am extremely happy I did not choose the "real problems". I feel I have a lot more options, and I can understand the various problems I find a lot better. I will admit I found the applications of a lot of the theory only much later than I initially though, and I don't use the theory of some of the course I followed, but I still find that knowledge irreplaceable. I had (and shared with colleagues) a few "so that's why we studied that!" moments, I found those very insightful, sorry you might not have had yours. Good luck in life, but I guess if your experience has been only of "staged academic exercises" either you did not get the point or they could not transmit it.