I think the misconception here is that studying computer science prepares you for a career as a software engineer. It helps but there are a lot of blind spots in the curriculum that boil down to the notion that academics don't really tend to have engineering backgrounds. The fix isn’t stuffing the curriculum with pet topics, because the list of useful ones is practically endless. And it would get outdated soon anyway.
I actually did a phd in the topic of software engineering and I had to learn a lot of stuff after I started practicing what I preached. I realized that this was the case while I was working on my thesis and it was a big reason for me to get some hands on experience.
Basically, academics tend to have a lot of somewhat naive notions about software engineering that usually manifest in them waffling about things like waterfall style development or emphasizing things like formal methods, which in 30 years of practice, I've rarely encountered in the wild.
That doesn't mean teaching that is a waste of time. But it does mean that there's more to software engineering than is taught in universities. You can't really learn most of that from someone that hasn't been exposed to real life software engineering. Most academics never leave university so they are not necessarily that up to speed with modern practices.
Teaching in most engineering disciplines boils down to a lot of theory followed by apprenticeships. The theory doesn't evolve nearly as fast as practice and tools. That's why it's fine using somewhat outdated or academic languages and tools in university. I don't think that's unique to computer science either.
Studying computer science gives you a theoretical basis and the ability to learn. Which is nice and relevant. But I actually know a lot of software engineers that studied completely different topics (theoretical physics, philosophy, mathematics, geology, etc.) that do fine without it. A few years of working can compensate for that. Having an academic background prepares people to wrap their heads around complex new stuff. Getting a degree basically means "you have a working brain". The most important skill you learn in university is using your brain.
I don't care what language people use in university. But I'd prefer people to have been exposed to more things than just 1 language and knowing that there are multiple ways to do the same thing. I did logic, functional, and imperative programming in my first year. OO was kind of hot and newish but that was a second year topic. I later studied aspect oriented programming as well (there are several flavors of that) and a few offshoots of object oriented (prototype based, role based). Many javascript programmers may have never heard of the language Self. But that's one of the the languages that inspired Brandan Eich; it's a prototype based OO language (no classes, just prototype objects). That's the difference between a good engineer and one with a decent computer science background. You don't need to know that to use Javascript. But it helps.
I actually did a phd in the topic of software engineering and I had to learn a lot of stuff after I started practicing what I preached. I realized that this was the case while I was working on my thesis and it was a big reason for me to get some hands on experience.
Basically, academics tend to have a lot of somewhat naive notions about software engineering that usually manifest in them waffling about things like waterfall style development or emphasizing things like formal methods, which in 30 years of practice, I've rarely encountered in the wild.
That doesn't mean teaching that is a waste of time. But it does mean that there's more to software engineering than is taught in universities. You can't really learn most of that from someone that hasn't been exposed to real life software engineering. Most academics never leave university so they are not necessarily that up to speed with modern practices.
Teaching in most engineering disciplines boils down to a lot of theory followed by apprenticeships. The theory doesn't evolve nearly as fast as practice and tools. That's why it's fine using somewhat outdated or academic languages and tools in university. I don't think that's unique to computer science either.
Studying computer science gives you a theoretical basis and the ability to learn. Which is nice and relevant. But I actually know a lot of software engineers that studied completely different topics (theoretical physics, philosophy, mathematics, geology, etc.) that do fine without it. A few years of working can compensate for that. Having an academic background prepares people to wrap their heads around complex new stuff. Getting a degree basically means "you have a working brain". The most important skill you learn in university is using your brain.
I don't care what language people use in university. But I'd prefer people to have been exposed to more things than just 1 language and knowing that there are multiple ways to do the same thing. I did logic, functional, and imperative programming in my first year. OO was kind of hot and newish but that was a second year topic. I later studied aspect oriented programming as well (there are several flavors of that) and a few offshoots of object oriented (prototype based, role based). Many javascript programmers may have never heard of the language Self. But that's one of the the languages that inspired Brandan Eich; it's a prototype based OO language (no classes, just prototype objects). That's the difference between a good engineer and one with a decent computer science background. You don't need to know that to use Javascript. But it helps.