[pjscott]

> Big-O, grammar, automata, etc. are the fodder of academic papers, not the Real World.

I have personally needed all of those things in the Real World.

I suspect that if more people remembered the stuff they learned in college, it would get a lot more use. "I'm never going to use this in the real world!" can be a terribly self-fulfilling prophecy.

[basseq]

I knew someone would come in and say that! (And I enjoyed my classes on automata.)

You're right, though. Which goes back to my question around what should be part of a formal education? I bet HN could come up with 10 years worth of courses that are "essential", plus another 10 that are "nice to haves".

[pjscott]

The easy heuristic here is approval voting: award one point to a subject each time someone mentions it as a "nice to have", and 2 or 3 points to each "essential", then tally up the votes to get a ranking. Truncate it at four years' worth of classes, and you have a curriculum!