This is a fun and interesting approach to learning an editor, or git. I tried the git tutorial and was impressed. I like how it takes longer and longer for the correct answer to fade in, giving you a chance to enter it from memory as it continues on, like digital flashcards.
I'm going to have to disagree. While it would be nice to leave a university as a renaissance man, this simply cannot be done with the pressures of modern job markets. Having huge breath of knowledge and no depth might make you interesting to talk to at cocktail parties, it won't help you land or keep a technical position (since we are talking about a technical degree). Not once was I ever questioned on Shakespeare at a technical interview. I agree that the average person SHOULD know these things, but I believe that is the job of high schools, not college.
College in my opinion should be used to increase your depth of knowledge about one specific area of study. If it were meant to make you well rounded then why have any majors? One of my biggest gripes about college was having to take classes (aka pay for classes) that had no impact on my major (Literature, Tennis, etc...). I can only analyse the epic of Gilgamesh so many times before no additional value is added. While knowing the story arguably makes me a more interesting person, it does not make me a better developer.
Agreed, same here. Undergraduate in computer engineering, when to work in software development right away. Went back to school and got MSCS. One of the best choices I ever made. I can honestly say it made me a better developer and computer scientist. Although I did notice a good number of students who had never programmed a day in their lives taking the MS program with me. A lot of Biology majors...
How many credible MS programs will even allow this? They don't teach you how to program during a MS degree. They give you a project and you are expected to know how to program in c++/java, scheme, or whatever random language the professor feels like using.
Most of the Bio students were doing degrees in Bioinformatics, which is an offshoot of data mining, which is run by CS department. Most were good with SQL, but that's about it. It worked out for me since I always had a place in group work. I wrote the software, they did the biology. So to be more clear, there were no Bio students in my OS class, just the data mining classes.