this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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[–] einsteinx2 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That’s the problem, a lot of CS professors never worked in the industry or did anything outside academia so they never learned those lessons…or the last time they did work was back in the 90s lol.

Doesn’t help that most universities don’t seem to offer “software engineering” degrees and so everyone takes “computer science” even if they don’t want to be a computer scientist.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

@einsteinx2 @magic_lobster_party

This is most definitely my experience with a lot of CS professors unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There's an alternative system where this doesn't happen: pay university professors less than a living wage.

You do that, and you'll get professors who work in the industry (they have to) and who love teaching (why else would they teach).

I studied CS in country where public university is free and the state doesn't fund it appropriately. Which obviously isn't great, but I got amazing teachers with real world experience.

My son just finished CS in a country with paid and well funded university, and some of the professors were terrible teachers (I watched some of his remote classes during covid) and completely out of touch with the industry. His course on AI was all about Prolog. Not even a mention of neural networks, even while GPT3 was all the rage.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

who love teaching (why else would they teach)

Professors love doing academic research. Teaching is a requirement for them, not a passion they pursue (at least not for most of them).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, that makes it even worse.

To be clear, I'm not advocating for not paying living wages to professors, I'm just describing the two systems I know and the results.

I don't know how to get teachers who are up to date with industry and love teaching. You get that when teaching doesn't pay, but it'd be nice if there was a better way.