CMU provides a good education that's very heavy on theory. I knew a lot of people in CS who didn't really think theory had much bearing on what they wanted to d

CMU provides a good education that's very heavy on theory. I knew a lot of people in CS who didn't really think theory had much bearing on what they wanted to do after undergrad, and for the majority of them this will probably be true. The sad reality is that anything more interesting than having an idea and building the next social x, or ephemeral y over app-engine will probably require understanding that boring stuff from parallel or distributed quite well. I really wish the school could find a better way to provide for people mainly interested in joining industry after graduation without watering down the difficult systems/theory courses that are the foundation of a good CS education. The real benefit of a good education should be giving you the initial knowledge and desire to become an outstanding contributor to your area of interest whether you end up in academia or industry. I know a lot of folks who missed this and viewed the specialized classes they had to take as one more roadblock before being handed a pretty piece of paper and going off to work at fb/google/etc.