Aside from the question of publishing source code, I wanted to applaud the author for his observation that students want to do meaningful work. I work as a programmer (and have done so for more than a few years) and am only going to school to "get my degree". Nothing is more frustrating to me than when people who have spent their whole careers in academia correct me on dumb things. I once got marked down because my curly braces were on the same line as the function definition in Java. They said it wasn't "the way it was done in the industry". I learn 10 times more from my job than I ever have at school - their students would be far better off if their projects were more realistic, and if their teachers had real experience.
"They said it wasn't "the way it was done in the industry". I learn 10 times more from my job than I ever have at school - their students would be far better off if their projects were more realistic, and if their teachers had real experience."
Definitely my experience! And one of the most important comments I've seen on hn in ages. Cut it out and put it on your bulletin board.
As smart people who deal a lot with binaryness (there is a right answer), we place high regard for education, as we should. But please understand that business and academia are 2 different animals with only a little overlap. I have lots of education and lots of practical work experience, and I have to be careful when to apply my formal education, which isn't often.
Classic example (I'm sure many of you have many more):
I graduated Allegheny College with the founders of ijet.com. At an alumni event, they presented their business case and web site. It was very interesting, like many discussions here. At the end, a business professor summed things up. Not a single thing he said made any sense or had anything to do with the presentation. I wondered if he had even watched it. That's when I decided to stop feeling bad about sleeping through all that Cost/Value Curve bullshit so many years ago.
Get your degree. Get your education. But please understand they aren't necessarily the same thing.
{{{{{{Aside: If anyone wants to talk about my curly braces, I give them 2 choices: discuss issues with me or discuss details by themselves.}}}}}}
What I do find though is experience at university does vary greatly. I had a fantastic module on Software Quality. The lecturer in question has been working in the real world before he became a lecturer so had many practical examples of software quality, but he was also able to quickly gloss over the irreverent stuff.
I really did enjoy that module, and recommended it to a friend who was a year below me academically at the same university. Unfortunately the lecturer in question left the university before my friend started the module. As a result his experience with the same module was vastly different than mine. The replacement lecturer was very much into mathematics and didn't have the real world experience his predecessor had. As a result a lot of time was wasted on the maths of how to calculate cyclomatic complexity. When I did the course about half an hour to an hour was covered on how to calculate it, when to use, why you'll need it and so on. Plus there was further reading in the lecture handouts. When my friend did it he had to spend about 9 hours running through just the maths. He told me it was very detached from the real world, there wasn't much connection to when you'll use it.
I've had a few good lecturers and a few bad ones too.
For me I find the good ones know how to practically apply things.
Well, just skip the intro classes. Just dive into the middle of the "major sequence" at the zone you feel is appropriate. I did this. The professor laughed at me when I asked to enroll without the prereq courses, then agreed as long as I didn't whine about anything, and finally recommended me for more advanced electives when I got an A.
Really, if you're going for the "I hate college, OMG its so lame" route, you really need to rethink your stance.
> Really, if you're going for the "I hate college, OMG its so lame" route, you really need to rethink your stance.
Don't troll.
The problem I identified in school is this: my internal motivation (passion, largely unexplained) would be replaced with external motivation (grades, competition). How many great artists became great because they had a strange compulsion to create and learn, versus being paid a commission?
