Thank you for the interesting perspective. I think I understand the underlying root of your frustration. It is misaligned expectations I find it quite telling that, at one point, you describe yourself as ‘an “engineer” type of talent, not particularly skilled in “scientist” type,’ and, implicitly, you believe that this is a perspective not catered to by university education. I find this interesting because, to me, the point of an education in an academic subject, such as computer science, mathematics or philosophy is to teach you think and not necessarily to do. There is two parts to this: universities should develop both your knowledge and depth of understanding in a subject, but also give you the space to explore your own intellectual interests through discussions with your peers. The point is to make you a more complete and better rounded person, not a more productive worker.
Becoming a skilled programmer and learning economically valuable skills is, in some sense, only accidentally aligned with this. It is an unfortunate accident of history that the academic subject of computer science has become a degree taken primarily by people aspiring to learn the trade skill Programming. To put this in a mildly different context, if you go to university to study English, you will take classes in Shakespeare and Burroughs, you will only incidentally improve as blog-writer, though that may be the end goal. But no English student would think to complain in this case.
Thank you for the interesting perspective. I think I understand the underlying root of your frustration. It is misaligned expectations I find it quite telling that, at one point, you describe yourself as ‘an “engineer” type of talent, not particularly skilled in “scientist” type,’ and, implicitly, you believe that this is a perspective not catered to by university education. I find this interesting because, to me, the point of an education in an academic subject, such as computer science, mathematics or philosophy is to teach you think and not necessarily to do. There is two parts to this: universities should develop both your knowledge and depth of understanding in a subject, but also give you the space to explore your own intellectual interests through discussions with your peers. The point is to make you a more complete and better rounded person, not a more productive worker.
Becoming a skilled programmer and learning economically valuable skills is, in some sense, only accidentally aligned with this. It is an unfortunate accident of history that the academic subject of computer science has become a degree taken primarily by people aspiring to learn the trade skill Programming. To put this in a mildly different context, if you go to university to study English, you will take classes in Shakespeare and Burroughs, you will only incidentally improve as blog-writer, though that may be the end goal. But no English student would think to complain in this case.