As an undergrad I found myself thinking similarly. Looking back, I definitely think I rushed some things and agree with most people in this thread. The stuff you described won't and shouldn't be taught in schools. You're there to engage in thoughtful discourse that will help you come up with better solutions to the worlds problems. Node, RoR, etc. are just tools to make those ideas come to life. You can be a code monkey, but that doesn't make you a good software engineer. Find the right balance and I think you'll find the quality of your hacks will improve as well.