Strongly agree. I studied at a collegiate university, and most of my enduring friendships are people outside of my course. Further, it contributed to having a broader understanding of the world, and being a CS student but having a meaningful discussion about, say, calcium channels with the medical students or microeconomics with the economists gives a valuable skill of being able to quickly build a working model of something outside of your experience/field.
> People have wildly varying learning styles and you should not impose a specific format on them. I have issues processing auditory information, and I can learn 2-4x faster just reading the textbook than I can from a verbal discussion or lecture.
I think it depends a lot about their exact nature. Personally I found lectures to be of limited value, and general discussions would be all but useless, but focused supervisions with 1-3 students and an academic to be invaluable. Preparing the work ahead of time allows you to learn how you like, but a verbal interrogation regarding it means you must be confident and know it well enough to think on your feet (it's also good viva voce practice). A good supervisor will also dig deeper than any one text typically would (if necessary), and give tailored explanations if something is tripping you up. They'll also push you forward and not let you coast if you covered the minimum mandatory material, and come up with new ways of applying the knowledge or fuse it with material from other classes/years. I think it'd be difficult to replicate that with any form of self-study.
I strongly agree with this claim, but I think it's the kind of thing that only works when it comes about naturally, or at least when the motivation to set up this dynamic comes from within. I disagree with your suggestions to bring this about.
> requiring students to live in dorms with students taking the same classes.
I think this could be nice for some people if it were opt-in (especially those who struggle socially), but overall being exposed to people from other disciplines is a feature of college, not a bug. Most of the people in your classes will already be from the same discipline, so it is important to be exposed to people who study other things in your social life, imo.
> mandatory weekly study sessions for every class
I really dislike this. People have wildly varying learning styles and you should not impose a specific format on them. I have issues processing auditory information, and I can learn 2-4x faster just reading the textbook than I can from a verbal discussion or lecture. If you force me to attend these, you are making me spend my time suboptimally. Also, while such a session can be highly productive for a small group of bright, motivated students, the whole thing slows to a crawl when it is inevitably forced to cater to the lowest common denominator.
> industry partnerships to get students internships with real world experience during the summer.
I think this could be a good thing, as long as the company isn't obligated to offer every student an internship. In that case the lowest common denominator issue applies.