Articles like this seem to think that the point of education is to jump to the finish line. We should all just learn the skills that employers deem necessary. We should all be pawns of corporate America, where our definition is defined by our narrow technical ability to do whatever it is they ask.
If a CS student chooses to get a philosophy minor, they would be considered "well-rounded". But somehow learning the actual tools of their trade is considered a "waste of time". Apparently because you don't need to know about big-O notation to deliver whatever some company thinks is important.
So yeah let's all just exclusively learn the skills that companies ask for, that will surely be a good world to live in.
Sometimes I find such articles not convincing. Of course good universities prepare students for building complex systems. CMU's 15-721 is a fabulous course to show students how to build a database end-to-end. MIT's 6.172 gave students a solid foundation to understand performance engineering - a key skill in building large systems. Then there's compiler courses, OS courses, networking courses, machine learning courses yada yada yada. They are all interesting. They are all essential. They all carry students for years after they graduate. And besides, they also teach theories and maths that are essential for students to pick up new in-depth knowledge of building systems.
MIT and CMU are some of the top computer science schools worldwide, not everyone will be able to get into them.
Also, University of Maryland (the school that the author is talking about here) is a really decent school with great faculty. So, its strange that this was the author's experience with some of the graduates.
Shouldnt the students have pursued side projects outside of school to learn more about how to apply their knowledge in real life practical example.
Yeah, Maryland must offer courses on system building, just like dozens of excellent US universities. I suspect that skills of system design come with experience, and not every student can master the basics in schools. Indeed, not every student can master the basics of algorithm analysis. If we ask questions about algorithm analysis of the same difficulty level as the design questions, some students would fail miserably.
If a CS student chooses to get a philosophy minor, they would be considered "well-rounded". But somehow learning the actual tools of their trade is considered a "waste of time". Apparently because you don't need to know about big-O notation to deliver whatever some company thinks is important.
So yeah let's all just exclusively learn the skills that companies ask for, that will surely be a good world to live in.