Universities can and should do more to provide CS students exposure to real software development, but I'm not sure that a vocation school is really the way to g

Universities can and should do more to provide CS students exposure to real software development, but I'm not sure that a vocation school is really the way to go. In my mind the greatest benefit of a strong CS degree is that it gives you a broad knowledge base to draw on that lets you easily pick up new technologies and concepts. The exposure to particular programming languages or technologies is less important, in large part because our industry moves at a fast enough pace that focused knowledge can quickly become outdated. All that aside, the best "hands-on" experience you can get is actually working in the industry. I'd much rather see existing CS programs step up their efforts to place students in good internship and co-op experiences than add more software engineering courses.