Podcast 290: This computer science degree is brought to you by Big Tech
An upgrade to a popular CSS framework and a discussion of what happens when big corporations support college courses and supply curriculum.
Ben Popper
Director of Content
Wealthy individuals and corporations have been giving gifts and getting libraries named after themselves for decades. But there is a new trend emerging – big tech companies are contributing everything from supplies to curriculum.
You can read more about the operating systems and business principles schools are adopting from their corporate sponsors here.
You can read about the latest version of Tailwind and what it has to offer here.
We’ll be back with more lifeboats after the Thanksgiving holiday.
Tags: amazon, College, siemens, university
6 Comments
Hi SO team,
Regarding your link on: “You can read more about the operating systems and business principles schools are adopting from their corporate sponsors here.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-college-degree-is-brought-to-you-by-amazon-11604941263
Not everyone has an account on the WSJ.
As a constructive feedback, it would be nice to put side ‘open-source’ links which do not require subscription. If you are making money by redirecting to WSJ that is fine I totally get it.
Thanks for sharing,
David
when i got admission to study computer science, my first year were just talking talking, I was later introduced to the Google Developer Group in my school, I had to balance going to the GDG Hub and attending classes, truth be told i rarely attend classes after my second year.
“truth be told i rarely attend classes after my second year”
Why bother going to college then if you rarely attend classes? Seems like a major waste of money.
Because companies care more about the degree and where you got it from than the actual curriculum. This podcast gives the impression that is changing but the reality is universities and colleges are unexceptionally slow in updating course offerings and content to match market demands. This seems an effort to resolve that. And in all likelihood would make a graduate more employable but nothing is going to change the glacial pace most of these institutions move at.
A CS degree is mostly about mathematics, since the entire field is based on that. Organic is the vocational part: nice as a relaxing side effort, but not the main thing. 25 years later I still apply all the fundamentals I learnt, but none of the dozen languages I learnt back then are still in major use. However, the math behind those languages is still the same, so learning a new language is a week of effort.
CS should teach principles and math, not programming, except as introduction and to verify that you understand and van apply the math behind it.
*organic -> programming. Silly spellchecker.