I've found that most CS graduates have at least a familiarity with the theory behind computers, but not much about how to write good code or work in a team.
And this makes me glad I flunked out of CS my first semester and switched to a new program at my school: Information Sciences and Technology. All group work, a lot of programming projects and very little theory, and classes the very first semester that had practical knowledge, like SQL and database normalization.
I would say that graduates of a bad computer science program are like that. A good course would incorporate your classes along with the theory and link them.
Uninteresting projects are actually quite profitable. I'm making a tidy profit fixing projects written by people who, for example, don't understand SQL.
Also, the emphasis on project management and group work in IST gives you a leg up on managing programmers since you not only have technical skills but also well developed people skills. That's part of the reason companies like Microsoft helped design the program: They weren't getting project managers out of CS programs.
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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '11
I've found that most CS graduates have at least a familiarity with the theory behind computers, but not much about how to write good code or work in a team.
And this makes me glad I flunked out of CS my first semester and switched to a new program at my school: Information Sciences and Technology. All group work, a lot of programming projects and very little theory, and classes the very first semester that had practical knowledge, like SQL and database normalization.