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Strange as it sounds, lots of incoming freshman have never had to figure out anything before. Their "education" has consisted of nothing but regurgitating standardized lessons for standardized tests.

These students need some time to learn how to think. That doesn't mean they can't, just that they don't know how yet.

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That is incredibly sad. Surely if you care about CS, or medicine or law for that matter, you would find out as much as possible before-hand?

Figuring stuff out should be the number one priority of education. I think it should be a policy. Even if that wouldn't change much by itself, beauracracies being what they are, a few more people would take it to heart.

I'm not speaking of academics so much as tinkering, for which computers are the ultimate toy.

When thinking about the geek or IT fields, I expect that people should like figuring stuff out, the typical nerd/engineer mindset. That's not everybody in CS programs I know, but my inner geek wants it to be.

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