Yeah, that's closer to what I think would work. But it's actually not all that different than "co-op" programs. For engineering majors, it's common to have pr

Yeah, that's closer to what I think would work. But it's actually not all that different than "co-op" programs. For engineering majors, it's common to have programs where you work at a company for 6 months in the middle of school instead of a semester of classes. I happened not to take advantage of that because I was having fun in college. But I know people who did. Really, CS majors shouldn't be complaining that they didn't learn any skills in college, because they learned about the halting problem and network flow rather than source control and automated testing. Logical thinking is a transferable skill. Liberal arts majors should the ones complaining! The current system is somewhat broken in that a lot of smart kids get sucked into academia without realizing how little what they're doing matters in the professional world. But there are a lot of other systems that would be equally or more broken. I think there are some schools with a mandatory coop program for engineers. I think Waterloo in Canada? Looking back I think that's pretty close to ideal... within 4 years you can't really do much more for a student.