Comment This just shows the truth: Grading is mostly bogus (Score 1) 307
Grading is mostly bogus. You have a maximum of 30 numbers on a sheet of paper at the age of 19 that's supposed to determine wether you are suitable for this or that specialist job. Utter bullshit in specialist cases such as CS.
Think of specialist cases as the same with musicians. If you haven't plaved the piano since the age of 12 at least - good luck finding a conservatory that will take you. Same with ballett: You have to be good and dancing and have the right body measures and start in your single digit ages. Grades be damned, if you don't have that, you won't become a professional ballett dancer.
To go into CS simply based on a grade average, with no affinity to abstract thinking, a solid math foundation and solid teenage experience with computers and some fundamental programming skills is like joining a dance-company at the age of 19, overweight and never having moved your body around other than to get from a to b the easiest way possible, with no sports or anything similar. Silly, wouldn't that be? Excactly.
Same should apply for CS. People who have bad grades but are genius programmers - I'd bet there are quite a few of those - should have mentors asking them to join college, no matter what their report card says. Likewise, people who just won't cut it and bog the industry down with crappy experience should be asked to leave.
Here in Germany CS has no NC, because it's so hard. Which means whenever I join a CS track I have to waste 3 semesters of the college filtering out the idiots in mandatory "Programming for idiots who took CS because they like playing Wow all day 101" courses. It's a huge PITA and is the largest downside I see in taking a path to an academic degreee. I so whish I could take Math and leave programing for n00bs out and skip a semester or two.