> the program was a bit of an industry mismatch in that they don't teach software engineering but academic theoretical computer science, which has at most 10% overlap with what programmers in industry do
The important thing to remember is that the goal of an university is not to prepare you for what you do in industry, but to teach you fundamental knowledge about a topic that helps you adapt to new challenges (also in industry) and even more important university should teach you how to approach and understand new complex concepts by yourself.
If you want job preparation the best thing is an apprenticeship program (i.e. learning on the job) or maybe a specialiced practice focused college/trade school.
Granted, I think most day to day programmers don't need a CS degree.
> The important thing to remember is that the goal of an university is not to prepare you for what you do in industry, but to teach you fundamental knowledge about a topic
that's an undergraduate degree. I would imagine a masters or graduate studies to not only teach that, but more (such as actual state of the art stuff).
FWIW, my Master's did exactly that, but it was still fundamental state of the art stuff.
Like how to prove a huge complex distributed / multithreaded system deadlock free, or how to transform no complete problems into parameterized SAT expressions that SAT solvers can solve (which was pretty state of the art at the time). Those were super fun to learn and do, but I can't say I apply much of it at my company.
In other words, I agree both with you and the commenter you're replying to.
The important thing to remember is that the goal of an university is not to prepare you for what you do in industry, but to teach you fundamental knowledge about a topic that helps you adapt to new challenges (also in industry) and even more important university should teach you how to approach and understand new complex concepts by yourself.
If you want job preparation the best thing is an apprenticeship program (i.e. learning on the job) or maybe a specialiced practice focused college/trade school.
Granted, I think most day to day programmers don't need a CS degree.