Comment Re:Computer Science vrs Software Engineering (Score 2, Insightful) 546
Computer Science is teaching EXACTLY what Computer Science is supposed to. Theory. It's an academic pursuit, not an applied skills program.
If you want to learn how to build usable software, that is a different skillset.
Precisely. Getting a computer science degree in order to become a programmer is like getting a mechanical engineering degree before becoming a mechanic. Yeah, it's kind of vaguely field related and will help give you some background about why things are done a certain way, but it's not at all necessary to the occupation and for many people is a big waste of time. Conversely, a typical programmer can't do CS work (just as a typical mechanic can't do most mech E work) without significant training in that arena.
There should be a professional "Software Engineering" (or call it something else if the Engineers get upset about the term) program for those that want to actually build code.
My school had these, http://www.sei.cmu.edu/ vs http://www.cs.cmu.edu/ The SEI only offered masters and higher level degrees, though, which seems backward if anything.