
Universities should offer a programming interview prep course - azhenley
http://www.pgbovine.net/programming-interview-class.htm
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coreyp_1
An actual course (with credit) for this? I disagree.

You don't need a prep course if you actually know the material. The problem is
that, when pursuing a CS degree, you play academic whack-a-mole over a 4-year
period, and students forget things because they do not use that basic skill
often enough.

I suggest that Universities require a continuous, 0-credit course that
requires students to flex their CS skills and keep them fresh.

A good analogy would be my BM in Piano Performance, in which we were required
to pass 8 (eight!) semesters of a 0-credit class. This class had requirements
including performing every semester in front of other students, attending
other's performances, local and out-of-city concerts (symphony or opera, at
our own cost, usually 2-3 hours of travel each direction, on our own time),
testing over general music knowledge and terminology, etc. We did this every
semester! Basically, it was the long thread of practical involvement
throughout our musical education. (I laugh at CS students who think attending
a Hack-a-thon should be worth extra credit!)

CS should be similar. The problem is that there is no unifying theme to keep
students grounded and fresh in the skills relevant to their vocational future.
Students do little projects here and there, using code that nobody else will
ever have to see or work with, and that they themselves will abandon after a
few weeks. They don't spend time on anything long enough to learn the ins and
outs of a language, paradigm, or code set. They don't have to re-write and
redesign the same API three times in order to make it more powerful or
flexible.

I will state it again, just to be clear on my stance: You don't need a prep
course if you actually know the material. Period. If you say that your
students need a prep course, then you are not teaching them correctly. (I'm
not saying that the educational content is lacking, I'm saying that the
pedagogical approach is flawed.)

(For more context: I don't just have a music degree. I also have a MS in CS,
and am in my 3rd year of PhD work in CS. I plan to be a professor, so this is
actually a subject that I am very passionate about.)

------
theflork
MIT does - and you can use their materials for free as well....
[https://courses.csail.mit.edu/iap/interview/materials.php](https://courses.csail.mit.edu/iap/interview/materials.php)

