In fact, I'd argue that a graduate knows much more than most people think. The problem is that it's usually general knowledge that doesn't apply to some specific framework that 90% of developers use. It's all abstracted away to learning X framework.
And once you get into industry you have to unlearn that because the clear objective goals and grades disappear, and you are left with an array of subtle values and more pernicuous consequences to any action. And that stuff is absolutely vital to being good at intellectual jobs - it's mostly crushed out by the system, fostering the "narrow STEMlord" mindset that is constantly surprised by things blowing up when they followed the book exactly.
Which is one reason I continue to think that a broad education, including humanities and social sciences, is valuable even for folks looking to work in STEM fields. It's in those academic disciplines that you learn to work with subtle nuances, and how to originate and defend an opinion or point of view.
Why? Here's the repo, clone it, set up the dev env, maybe connect to VPN to reach some test instances, here's the issue tracker, here's a ticket, explore it, see if it's reproducible, if yes, get to the root cause, solve it, get it reviewed, goto 10.
Naturally, this should lead to a lot of questions, but which part is not a clear step with clear goals? Plus in industry the employer has vested interest to make you efficient, because it pays you. It'll check up on you daily. (Or initially/constantly you will do pair programming, get mentoring, sprint retros, etc.)
And if you are stuck you can ask questions and there are usually domain experts right next to you.
Part of it is because most businesses are run by people that have no knowledge of the timescale of their projects and therefore try to squeeze as much work as possible in ridiculous time frames and society trains you to stop "whining" and get it done.
The lack of empathy in industry is enormous due to profit motive. And because of the ambiguous nature of software, it's always difficult to know exactly what needs to be done. And because most people want to please their bosses, the incentive to estimate low and push yourself to get a project done is very real.
I would say that's a function of a lot of complex items, including their prior educational experience, general intelligence, and just how closely they read the book. There exist many books I've "read" once and mostly forgotten, and precious few I've read a half-dozen or more times and know intimately.
If the former, I agree with you. If the latter, not so much.
> In fact, I'd argue that a graduate knows much more than most people think.
In my experience there are two kinds of graduates, those who spent years memorizing material to get a piece of paper, and those who learned how to learn and applied it to get their piece of paper.
When folks talk about shit graduates they have the former in mind, when folks extol the virtues of a university education they are thinking of the latter.
Unfortunately universities spit out both and it's very hard to distinguish on-the-fly.
While granted there's obviously people who don't take college seriously, many do. And unfortunately, I'm one of those people that worked very hard to get through college and didn't attend hardly any social functions. Same as high school. I would spend weekends from 8am to 6pm reading textbooks and doing assignments.
However, I often feel that doing this was somewhat of a detriment to both my ability to socialize and my ability to really solve problems organically.
Though if there were more emphasis on hard math/CS/programming/ITsec problem solving, that'd probably translate well to industry setting.
A ton.
The metallurgy of welding is complex. When performing a bespoke weld, you have to know what type of filler metal to use (it frequently is not identical to the pieces being welded...), heat pre-treatment, heat post-treatment, and range of available current for the job. All of those factors vary with the job. While the reference texts can help you, you have to at least know enough to figure out where to look. Then you need to have enough practice to to recognize when things go wrong, and how to correct it.
Much as in the current programming industry, the problem is people coming out with an education on paper, yet not actually knowing either the theory or practice the of welding.