
Want to be a software engineer? Don't go to university - rjknight
http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/want-to-be-a-software-engineer-dont-go-to-university-20111111-1na57.html
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nosequel
I read the article thinking there would be some fundamental flaw pointed out
that the AUS universities were doing. Instead, it complained that the CS
curriculum was theoretical and used old languages like C, instead of PHP,
Python, and Ruby. IMHO, that's what a CS degree should be. Most Universities
in the US seem to follow the same structure. They try their best at times to
use newer languages, but their job is to teach the fundamentals of Computer
Science. Once you have those fundamentals, picking up new languages should be
easy. The argument that you should be able to come straight out of the
university, without any of your own studying on the side (outside of the
curriculum), and be ready to work at a company is sort of foolish. There is no
possible way to ready a student for all aspects of a Software Engineering
position, so the best thing to do is teach them the theory and fundamentals
and hope that enables them to learn quickly on their own. I've hear arguments
of why someone should skip school, and honestly this is one of the poorer
reasons to do so. As an aside, does any major fully prepare you for work in
that field? Electrical Engineering at a University is highly theoretical, and
when you get out you start to learn about the real world building blocks to
the profession. That is to be expected in that field, so why should Software
Engineering be any different?

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rjknight
I think the headline might be slightly over-the-top, especially since the
article is basically a plea for _better_ university. The fact that non-
university-educated developers can, fairly regularly, turn out to be better
developers than those who did get a university education (at anything other
than a top-tier university) proves there's a problem, but the solution is
probably a rethink of how university treats the subject. Kudos to Harper for
putting together his own internship program rather than just complaining about
the standard of state provision too.

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duedl0r
This article is total rubbish

