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Comment by duncanawoods | Hacker News Reader

One problem is that it does not have the standing of a pure subject like math, engineering or CS.

Its more vocational, isn't offered by top-tier universities (in the UK) and therefore has lower status e.g. its like taking Media Studies at an ex-poly vs. reading English at Oxford.

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It was very much seen that way back in the day at Birmingham University. We wrote an x11 window manager with audio and graphics processor apps for our first term in 2nd year. I saw academia start to go down the pan at college with the introduction of "ICT". To me, this was nothing but subsidised Microsoft training.

this was nothing but subsidised Microsoft training.

"Subsidized Microsoft training" is what most people actually want and need to get the sort of job they aspire to. People with this "Subsidized Microsoft training" are also what many companies are looking to hire. So why is it such a bad thing to offer people this option?

It's not a problem, unless you go to higher education looking for CS and end up with that instead.

Because we need people to program computers not use word.

There is a problem here, but to be clear, the solution is not to convert CS into vocational training. The problem with the way software engineering was introduced into US universities is that it was usually dumbed-down to broaden its appeal. I do not know if it is still like that.

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