Comment by gamesbrainiac | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gamesbrainiac | Hacker News Reader

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I have to be honest with you, I find your experience to be contrary to mine. I went to university to get a degree in Computer Science, but I dropped out because the course work was full of stuff that did not have anything to do with computer science. Furthermore, you will find that in many countries, a Computer Science degree is the same as a Software Engineering degree.

I have met many computer science majors who are incapable of writing software to save their lives, let alone design complex systems.

I also think that if you get hands on experience first, you learn to appreciate the science later on and therefore learn it with more gusto.

I have a CS degree and my university also provided a SE degree. The first years, we all studied together. Only in the final year did we study courses that deviated (some were still shared). The final year was about focusing on either the science or the engineering disciples. I felt like it worked really well. The SE's left with a really good knowledge of computational science, while also learning how to engineer solutions. The CS students got some experience in engineering, without it being the main focus.

I think that is a really nice way of doing it. I honestly, don't know what you would do as a capstone project for Computer Science though; perhaps design a compiler or a language?

You're right. At the end of the day it's just that special mix of experience (professional and academic), natural talent, interest, and professionalism.

I have the sake experience of you. I started working when I was 19 and started at 21(at night) a computer science. I left the course at the 4th year because I felt that I wasn't learning anything.

I did the same thing. I started working at 14, so way before I went to university. By the 4th year, since they had no real computer scientists, they just flooded it with super hard math courses.

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