> The tech industry was rapidly evolving and yet college curriculum was frozen in time. My high school CS teacher had been more innovative in offering a project-based education than my MIT professors were.
Project-based learning isn't new. What makes it valuable is that it works -- in particular, at developing skills useful for work and life more than lecture-based and other mainstream university pedagogy for most fields.
This! Research has shown it's more effective for 50 years or so, but few educational environments have adopted it (except for Montessori schools, some charter schools, and new age private schools like the one we went to). It's ironic that most of this research originates in universities, and then somehow it doesn't make it across campus...
Our high school teachers (Jeremy and I went to school together) were pretty progressive and innovative in the ways they taught, and the types of projects they had us undertake - but yes, project-based on it's own isn't a new innovation.