[lordCarbonFiber]

This is a topic I've spent some time researching and talking with professional educators about. The general consensus is we have to accept that the skills needed for the majority of professional work (the CRUD apps, the web dev, the infrastructure, etc) is almost completely disparate from any of the topics under the umbrella "computer science" (which is really more of a subset of mathematics). The sooner we treat the skill of programming more like writing (as in you need to be able to write to do all manner of jobs, but very few people go to school for it) the sooner we'll produce students of all disciplines that will excel in the jobs that are most numerous.

Jobs that actually need a strong foundation in CS theory are very rare, and will continue to be and the fantasy that you need a computer scientist to manage your CRUD app is resulting in many people incredibly over qualified for their positions and, in my opinion, one of the major reasons there's so much mental illness in the technology space.

[sh87]

I am in favor of incremental education. (Agile if you will) Right now education is in waterfall mode. College -> Work.

Both focus on different goals and clearly they are not aligned and they shouldn't be either. I would be in favor of just getting the fundamentals to enter the workforce, get my feet wet, get a sense of how my interests match up with the market and then pursue focussed education in areas of interest.

This will require a lot of support from the academic institutions as well as progressive employers. This provides more arenas for longer and more meaningful relationships that are flexible, less rigid and can move faster to meet market needs.