And a lot of the time they leave University with a BS in Computer Science and can't find (code) their way out of a paper bag.
I think these students are failed by the system as programming’s core concepts are quite basic, it seems to be the tooling around it that students struggle with.
Comp Sci is 'Sci' :)
It just so happens that being a good programmer is mostly an applied skill, and that you don't have to have rocket science Comp Sci chops to be a decent developer.
In fact, in 2019, a lot of development just isn't really Comp Sci.
That said, I wonder if programs should adapt and be more applied to have more of a professional kind of designation.
It's the same way with CS. It should be part of the college of science, just like chemistry. Software engineering should be a separate discipline, and be within the college of engineering. And having a CS degree doesn't really prepare you to work as a software engineer.
Unfortunately, what we have is CS departments turning out graduates, most of whom will work as software engineers rather than computer scientists, and who are therefore badly trained for the career that they're going to try to have...
Partly due to the fact 'Engineering' is a hard thing to apply in the computer world.
Partly because software R&D and Enterprise Software isn't engineering either!
Well, no. Of course not.
Theoretical computer science, for instance, might be defined as mathematics that pertains to computation.
Rice's Theorem isn't the result of any programming. Neither is information theory.