An interesting interview question.....

[poltr1]

Last week, one of my interviewers asked me the question, "How has your university training prepared you for the job?" I answered, "It hasn't." I went on to explain that many of the languages and technologies in use today weren't developed 20 years ago, and the ones that were are rarely used today. Most of what I use today I either learned on the job or on my own. Also, my alma mater's CS department's primary focus was to prepare students for graduate school, not industry.


What computer science courses did I take in college? Computer Science I and II, using Pascal. (I think cigfran_cg was my teaching assistant.) Assembly language, using a VAX. Lisp. Programming languages, which covered C, Lisp, and Pascal. Computer graphics, which used DI-3000. Analysis of algorithms. Compiler design. Discrete mathematics I and II. Artificial intelligence, using Lisp, Prolog, and OPS 5. Finite state theory. And maybe a few more that I've forgotten. There were no teachers for software engineering or database design, so those courses weren't taught.

I don't think anyone uses Pascal anymore. VAXen are few and far between. C is still widely used. Who uses Lisp these days?

I should mention the politics of the department. Based on the interests of the faculty, it was heavily into math and artificial intelligence. They rarely (if ever) communicated with the electrical engineering department. After moving to Dayton, I thought about going to Wright State University for a master's degree. But I was told that I'd have to take a number of undergrad courses before I could be considered for the program, because their CS program was so much different from the one I was through.

I've since heard that the computer science department is now part of the school of engineering at my alma mater, the CS and EE departments talk to each other regularly, and the curriculum has changed. I'd imagine all the instructors I've had have either retired or passed away.

Comments

[poltr1]

I did learn COBOL and FORTRAN, but they were taught by the night school and the engineering school, respectively. The CS department wouldn't touch those languages.

I didn't really learn how to learn until I did some freelance work for a doctoral dissertation student who was trying to establish key trends in a Methods of Inquiry class (which taught students how to learn effectively). That's a class I wish I would have taken, but it wasn't available when I started.

And then of course is the old adage from Henry Kissinger, "University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." :-)