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>CS entry level classes traditionally fell into the latter category. Demand has resulted in students treating them as part of the former.

I was in a funny position with this. In university, I had taken the engineering "Intro to C" class as a first year student, but when I switched to a math major, I had to take the intro level CS classes.

Now, the first year CS classes are required for math, physics and chemistry majors at my school so you'd expect the syllabus to take that into account. The class was almost entirely built around working with the Java API and object hierarchies and writing bloated Java programs to perform simple tasks. It was a huge waste of time, and I didn't have much time to spend on a freshman level general ed requirement. I like to think my whining was one of the reasons why the math department finally made the push to offer a scientific programming course for the rest of the science departments.

I don't mean to bash my school's CS department, either. I took some higher level Systems Programming and Algorithms courses and thought they were fantastic. They just treated their intro courses like software engineering weed-out courses, when other departments required them as general ed courses.

Look at the chart for non-major interest in upper-level CS classes at Harvard: operating systems has no interest; "data science" is surging. Andrew Ng's machine learning class has more than twice the enrollment of computer architecture or software engineering (which is a particularly pathological case, since by definition, nobody else can teach Andrew Ng's class).

This is not general-interest demand. Students are hopping on the bandwagon, and picking the classes that sound like they're the shortest path to a high-paying job. About the only thing colleges can do right now is offer more of the hot classes via lecturers, and wait for the crash. Universities don't hire (lifetime) tenured faculty based on short-term enrollment surges.

"Shortest path to a high-paying job."

Big student loan needs to get paid somehow. Too many desperate programmers in the world is a bad scenario, IMO.

Better to have programmers who have learnt something about programming at college. Too many programmers without aptitude in IT shops who transferred into programming from some other non-technical job in the same company.

Another (possibly complimentary) is to make "programming for X" classes, the same way they make "statistics for X."

That way it can be a later year course and use tools and example relevant to those people. Degrees with a lot of statistics might have a "working with data" class which could teach SQL, R & such. Architects can learn Lisp for CAD. University students tend to learn writing by taking classes that require writing incidentally. Maybe programming could be similar.

"Introductory" classes are always in danger of leaving students with an expanded vocabulary but very little else for exactly the reason you describe whether they are "filler" courses or "major" courses.

I TA'd an entry-level CS 100 class, it counted as a core science credit and covered a good variety of the field of CS with the time it had. The curriculum was something along the lines of: hardware basics, binary math and logic, basic programming, algorithms, computer graphics, crypto, AI. Granted they didn't get very deep into any one topic but a few students came out of that class with the intention of switching to a CS major, and the others got more than they had anticipated from the class. Most of the students enjoyed programming in Scratch, except for those that had programmed before. Coincidentally, I was blown away by what some people managed to do with Scratch in a couple weeks.

The professor was recently written up in the NYT for her efforts to get a more solid CS curriculum into highschools, so perhaps this was an unusual course offering.

CSE 142 at UW is not this, it is geared toward CS and ENGR majors. An "entry-level" 100 class is geared towards non-majors, is quite different.

>credit-fillers that students have to take in order to graduate. This structure works out well for everyone: the university ensures that students are getting a well-rounded education (as opposed to a trade-school degree)

Do you really think the irrelevant classes are necessary at this level though? The student has had all of elementary through high school to be exposed to the broad subject range. By the time you enter university you should know what you're doing. None of my credit filler requirements have been especially enlightening or broadening; mostly just annoying. A Greek and Roman history class I took was interesting to me at least, but I don't see much value forcing another CS student to take it. If I have to take one more English class I might just drop out and start my own company.

Do you really think universities believe in the "rounded education" goal, or do they just know that making you take more classes gets them more money?

> Do you really think universities believe in the "rounded education" goal

This was the traditional role of Universities. It's only recently that they have become pressured to become trade schools and remove anything deemed 'unnecessary' or 'non-profitable.'

Of course when Universities filled that role, you didn't have choices as to what to use as, as you term it, irrelevant classes. Everyone had to have a broader education with classes drawn from many different disciplines.

Yes, yes, yes. I think good universities (i.e, most of their faculty and administration) still believe strongly in the "rounded education" goal. As you say, historically universities sought to provide a liberal education, regarding subjects that "were considered essential for a free person (a citizen) to know in order to take an active part in civic life. . . . The aim of these studies was to produce a virtuous, knowledgeable, and articulate person." [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts ]

It's mostly the students now who don't believe in a well-rounded education, who just want to prepare themselves for a job. I'm fifty years old and I've observed the trend towards higher education becoming more and more like vocational education. It began before I was born, but it surely seems to be accelerating. Frequent articles on whether college can be "economically justified" are representative of this. Formerly, there was no question of whether a liberal arts (i.e., "well rounded") education would somehow "pay off". It was something desirable for its own sake, part of becoming a better person.

>It's only recently that they have become pressured to become trade schools and remove anything deemed 'unnecessary' or 'non-profitable.'

They've come under this pressure because of the changed realities of the contemporary job market, combined with the rising cost of higher education.

College is largely an economic decision for the vast majority of people who attend. Unfortunately, some only realize this soon after graduating, unemployable with a mountain of debt.

So, this notion of churning out "well-rounded" students is an anachronism. Companies care about the hard skillset for which they are hiring. Period. In fact, they increasingly want people who are specialized beyond even a degree, let alone caring about what, say, a dev hire knows about biology.

In short, a trade school approach is exactly what we need, as it most accurately reflects the realities of the new job market.

"In short, a trade school approach is exactly what we need, as it most accurately reflects the realities of the new job market."

Not sure who that "we" you're referring to is. Certainly the trade-school mentality helps the economy grow. Helping populate our country with thoughtful, well-informed citizens leading desirable lives, not so much.

>Certainly the trade-school mentality helps the economy grow.

It helps people to eat.

>Helping populate our country with thoughtful, well-informed citizens leading desirable lives, not so much.

Is a college education at an average cost of $19K/year ($33K for private colleges) and rising the only way to become a "thoughtful, well-informed citizen"? Is it even an efficient way to achieve that goal?

And it's difficult to have any kind of life, let alone a desirable one, when one cannot feed himself or provide for his basic needs.

Higher education itself sends an ambiguous message. "Give us $100K+ and we'll prepare you to participate in the economy and we'll make you a well-rounded citizen". So, which is it? Because these two goals are increasingly at odds. And, how many takers do you think they'd have at $100K for the "well-rounded" bit alone? How many for the "learn an employable skill" bit?

Right. So let's unbundle them and give people a choice.

Look, I'm the first to agree that the manner by which our current economy assigns value and subsequently allocates rewards is terribly skewed. If it wasn't, then college would be free for everyone and we wouldn't be having this discussion. But, unless and until the glorious day comes when we are provided with basic incomes and/or we are financially rewarded for being "thoughtful and well-informed", we need to stop doing our kids (and their parents) a disservice and prepare them for the real world that they'll actually be facing on graduation day+1. This, instead of breaking their backs with debt, only to have them unable to sustain themselves.

"Let's unbundle them and give people a choice."

They're already unbundled, and people already have a choice -- for the trade school thing you want, there are trade schools, 2 year colleges, etc, that require no (or far fewer) of those useless classes for creating an informed citizenry; and a burgeoning explosion of online offerings that are quite good, especially for the price. And there's nothing stopping you from getting into a small liberal arts school and majoring in feminist theory, if you don't want to be tainted by practical skills of any kind. And you can find any position along that gradient, for any dollar figure.

I'd say the issue isn't lack of choice; the issue is that people want contradictory things, and that the 'ambiguous message' is less a message universities are sending than a misunderstanding of what universities are really providing, which is the signaling power of their credential. The practical, no-fat skills acquisition you describe is there for the taking, if that's really what you want. If you're willing to spend the money you can have the best of both worlds at the cost of more time, which is the same as everything else in life.

I don't feel that bad for people who buy a Honda Civic and wish it were a Tesla, or vice-versa. There are certainly plenty of options to get either one, and plenty of information to know which one you're getting. But if you want the Tesla, but only want to pay for the Honda? Too bad.

I had a feeling someone would key on that "unbundle" phrase!

Two year schools and a few online courses aren't yet respected with regard to training in certain fields. In such fields (including software dev, for the most part), employers are generally looking for a bachelor's and, frequently, one in a related field. So, it's not just the university name, but the actual degree.

>the issue is that people want contradictory things

Not really. College is increasingly almost purely an economic choice, and that's the change that people looking from the outside fail to recognize. There was once a time when a person could obtain a bachelor's degree--in virtually any field--and be employable. Any additional personal growth or well-roundedness gained during their stint was a bonus that came at little-to-no cost. They'd get a job with their Women's Studies degree and thus recoup their investment. Not so much now. The wrong degree hurts and can sideline a prospect indefinitely. Likewise, even with the right degree, paying money for ancillary courses that prolong one's tenure hurts. There is, of course, the opportunity cost of an additional 1.5 years or so studying ancillary topics vs. being employed, as well as the actual cost of spending additonal time at ever more expensive universities. Meantime, employers increasingly just don't care.

So, if there is any contradiction, it's between universities and employers. Universities continue to require significant amounts of irrelevant coursework to obtain the coveted bachelor's degree, over which they have a "cornered market". Meanwhile, employers just want the core skills for which they are hiring. Stuck in the middle are the students, who ultimately need to take their place in the economy, irrespective of whatever other personal growth they may desire.

Edit: It's also possible (likely?) that employers will eventually look to other sources (beyond a bachelor's) at some point. This might include 2-year schools that you mentioned and other innovative (yet to be popularized) models. However, what I am describing above is the current reality.

But, if and when this happens, you can bet your last money that universities will "adapt" fast enough to make your head spin, as they will recognize it as the existential threat to them that it is. Offerings of 2.5 year bachelor's degrees may then become commonplace.

"There was once a time when a person could obtain a bachelor's degree--in virtually any field--and be employable."

As you make a nod to later, there was also once a time when a student could work their way through a university or college degree (and that includes not piling up significant debt). This was once true of MIT, let alone public schools.

That is now only a nostalgic memory, and with a rate of inflation that comfortably outstrips the CPI, the primacy of economic concerns cannot be avoided.

Exactly. The pressures are dual. On one hand, the costs of a degree are skyrocketing to the point where the value is really being scrutinized by that measure alone.

On the other hand, the increasing disparity between what colleges provide and what employers desire is being factored into that value equation.

So, at a time when universities need to be showing more value for their ballooning price tags, they are actually providing less (in purely economic terms).

The student can still do that at a community college. You just have to take advantage of federal and state aid and the debt won't be that bad.

Having sat through some courses designed to instill "thoughtfulness", and seen people leave being just as stupid as they were before, I don't think it can be taught, at least not in a class. You have to want to challenge your own thinking, and if you already do then you probably don't need a class.

Worse yet if they stay stupid but gain enough vocabulary to make their stupidity sound wise. Regardless, vocabulary is the best that can be expected from these courses.

I think this is laziness on the part of employers. Nobody wants to offer training in a new job so they pressure for cookie-cutter grads that they can slot into junior roles.

Also a mark of generally severe weakness in front line managers of programmers. Training and mentoring are ideals that only work if those responsible for them are capable, vs. e.g. the standard issue failed programmer who's also generally not very good at management.

For those able to learn on the job pretty much by themselves, well, the above type isn't able to judge much about the real work they do, let alone their not visibly accomplishing much for weeks while they come up to speed.

How is that lazy? Why would a company train you to program?

You'd probably be surprised by the number of non-engineering disciplines that can leverage moderate programming skill these days.

A very easy example is biology. Many biologists may need to develop models or crunch data, and programming comes in handy. An even easier example is physics- one of the original uses for computers, along with finance.

It goes beyond that too. I can't think of a good example at the moment, but any time you see somebody using a hundred different Excel spreadsheets, that's someone who might be able to benefit from some basic programming skill.

Domain specific expertise combined with non-zero programming skills is a potent combination. But it's easier said than done for many, since the ability to solve problems with computers is a particular skill many just can't grasp (difficult both for programmers and non-programmers alike). Depending on your frame of reference this is either unfortunate or a godsend.

It's unfair to highly skilled people, because it would bore the hell out of them. That's how you weed out the top 1% and breed a normalized group of students. I truly understand why some of the super-skilled people I know didn't even consider going to any higher school, but still beat the shit out of the PhD's that I know, when it comes to a) knowledge b) theoretical and practical skill c) solid maths + formal verification. It doesn't mean that universities suck, but they polarize skills towards industrial demand and forget about the diversity of culture that arrived, they are about to eliminate for the greater good of the industrial market, which manifests in the number of graduates. But oh beware, that too many graduate, as if that would mean that the university is cheap and will loose it's prestige. Professors tend to hate it, when too many pass their exams and often times help to let some % of the students fail on purpose, to keep up their "prestige". If every single professor explained thinks like on Reddit's ELI10 and used interactive media to underline the structure behind a problem, then almost everybody would pass. So, does a high number graduations automatically mean that the university only teaches low-skill courses, resulting in low-quality students? I'd say no, if they teached students more efficiently.

Georgia Tech considers "computational thinking" to be an important component of a liberal arts education, so much so that it used to require all majors to take the same intro CS class that CS majors took. It was a legit intro CS course taught using SICP with Scheme.

As far as I can tell, all majors still must take an intro CS course, but the school now offers a wider variety of intro CS courses, because many people studying things like international affairs and even many engineers didn't want/need or couldn't handle the rigor/difficulty. So it seems at least some universities have indeed shifted to meet the need (and a long time ago at that).

Well, you can definitely tailor even introductory computational thinking to different disciplines without necessarily dumbing it down. For example, literary majors would probably rather learn in Perl, and "hard science" majors might benefit from spending their time in Fortran or Matlab, etc. Spend more time on data analysis for biologists, perhaps...

Of course it won't be a course ABOUT data analysis or physics simulations, but if you make the projects more germane to the students, they will get more out of it.

An example of a university that is doing what you suggest is Princeton: see Brian Kernighan's course "computers in our world" and the accompanying book D is for Digital. http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/