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Re:‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student menta... by skrebbel on Sunday March 17, 2019 @03:48AM (#19412786)
My I ask what you studied and where?

I'm curious because I did a Master's (CS) at a Dutch university (Eindhoven) and my experience was the total opposite. Lots of students were involved in extracurricular activities, there was time for study and time for fun, people generally seemed mostly relaxed.

I'll concur that the program was a bit of an industry mismatch in that they don't teach software engineering but academic theoretical computer science, which has at most 10% overlap with what programmers in industry do. But I suspect that holds for most Master's programs out there (doesn't make it less ridiculous of course).

Re:‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student menta... by ascar on Sunday March 17, 2019 @04:00AM (#19412819)
> the program was a bit of an industry mismatch in that they don't teach software engineering but academic theoretical computer science, which has at most 10% overlap with what programmers in industry do

The important thing to remember is that the goal of an university is not to prepare you for what you do in industry, but to teach you fundamental knowledge about a topic that helps you adapt to new challenges (also in industry) and even more important university should teach you how to approach and understand new complex concepts by yourself.

If you want job preparation the best thing is an apprenticeship program (i.e. learning on the job) or maybe a specialiced practice focused college/trade school.

Granted, I think most day to day programmers don't need a CS degree.

Re:‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student menta... by chii on Sunday March 17, 2019 @04:32AM (#19412927)
> The important thing to remember is that the goal of an university is not to prepare you for what you do in industry, but to teach you fundamental knowledge about a topic

that's an undergraduate degree. I would imagine a masters or graduate studies to not only teach that, but more (such as actual state of the art stuff).

Re:‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student menta... by skrebbel on Sunday March 17, 2019 @05:04AM (#19413015)
FWIW, my Master's did exactly that, but it was still fundamental state of the art stuff.

Like how to prove a huge complex distributed / multithreaded system deadlock free, or how to transform no complete problems into parameterized SAT expressions that SAT solvers can solve (which was pretty state of the art at the time). Those were super fun to learn and do, but I can't say I apply much of it at my company.

In other words, I agree both with you and the commenter you're replying to.

Re:‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student menta... by Aeolun on Sunday March 17, 2019 @07:33AM (#19413465)
There is in fact two complete levels of education dedicated to that in the Netherlands.

University more or less assumes you’ll be going into academia or research.

Re:‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student menta... by omk on Sunday March 17, 2019 @03:57AM (#19412813)
This was a Data Science program by TU/e and Tilburg hosted in Den Bosch. To be very honest I saw friends at TU/e relating well with their program and even manging trips to Spain while the folks in my program very occupied with mostly procedural assignments and struggled to find time to go out for drinks. This could very well be a one off thing because my program had a huge number of drop-outs through the first and second semester.
Re:‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student menta... by mathattack on Sunday March 17, 2019 @09:34AM (#19413936)
Cross functional programs are frequently suffer because they’re treated as cash cows by the university, but no home department owns giving them enough attention. A wise friend once advised “beware interesting grad programs.” (Example: MIT has world class engineering, and a Top 10 business school. The anecdotal reviews I’ve heard from graduates of both are higher than joint engineering-business programs, even if the latter look better on paper)
Re:‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student menta... by skrebbel on Sunday March 17, 2019 @05:00AM (#19412998)
Woa that's pretty shit. I'm well aware of the fanfare with which they announced that program so it disappoints me that your experience is so bad.