Computer Science courses must maintain a strong focus on theory. An entire CS course can be conducted using Knuth's TAOCP, paper and pens only. The reason being that Computer Science is a highly specialised extension of Applied Mathematics into computing environments. These courses produce researchers. Programming, software development and project management are out-of-scope.
Software Engineering courses are meant to cover the real world application of the Computer Science discipline, Project Management discipline and a broad variety of other topics relating to business and management. These courses produce software developers and software project managers that mostly sit in modern interpretations of the cubicle farm developing the 150th interpretation of a business productivity app.
Experience levels
3-5 years at University is not enough time to gain expertise in the wide range of areas that make someone a brilliant hacker. The best hackers graduating from University tend to have 10 or more solid years of diverse and highly creative experience through hobby involvement (open source development), school experiences and perhaps relevant paid work.
Work experience tends to lack the diversity and creativity required to develop and maintain impressive hacking skills. Changing jobs every 2 years or maintaining a strong open source/hobby interest can counteract this problem.
Suggestions for higher education courses
1. Treat Computer Science in the purest form -- an extended Applied Mathematics course.
2. Encourage students to complete a Computer Science and Software Engineering course together. This approach ensures that students graduate with a decent understanding of essential theory: graphs, sets, complexity, algebra, etc and have a job prospect at the end.
3. Replace toy problems and short assignments in Software Engineering courses with longer real world experiences. Open source projects, student-owned start-ups and short stints of relevant paid work experience are a much better environment for applying theory and practising software project management principles.
4. Make it clear to students that learning should be a life-long goal. Diversity of experiences across completely different fields (example: marine biology, tourism and software development) is of particular importance.
Computer Science courses must maintain a strong focus on theory. An entire CS course can be conducted using Knuth's TAOCP, paper and pens only. The reason being that Computer Science is a highly specialised extension of Applied Mathematics into computing environments. These courses produce researchers. Programming, software development and project management are out-of-scope.
Software Engineering courses are meant to cover the real world application of the Computer Science discipline, Project Management discipline and a broad variety of other topics relating to business and management. These courses produce software developers and software project managers that mostly sit in modern interpretations of the cubicle farm developing the 150th interpretation of a business productivity app.
Experience levels
3-5 years at University is not enough time to gain expertise in the wide range of areas that make someone a brilliant hacker. The best hackers graduating from University tend to have 10 or more solid years of diverse and highly creative experience through hobby involvement (open source development), school experiences and perhaps relevant paid work.
Work experience tends to lack the diversity and creativity required to develop and maintain impressive hacking skills. Changing jobs every 2 years or maintaining a strong open source/hobby interest can counteract this problem.
Suggestions for higher education courses
1. Treat Computer Science in the purest form -- an extended Applied Mathematics course.
2. Encourage students to complete a Computer Science and Software Engineering course together. This approach ensures that students graduate with a decent understanding of essential theory: graphs, sets, complexity, algebra, etc and have a job prospect at the end.
3. Replace toy problems and short assignments in Software Engineering courses with longer real world experiences. Open source projects, student-owned start-ups and short stints of relevant paid work experience are a much better environment for applying theory and practising software project management principles.
4. Make it clear to students that learning should be a life-long goal. Diversity of experiences across completely different fields (example: marine biology, tourism and software development) is of particular importance.