> That is an often re-iterated conspiracy theory. In practice nothing could be further from the truth. Professors have nothing to gain from weeding out students. They have to gain by ensuring a certain standard. By the way it is also better for a student to encounter the difficult parts of their subject as early as possible, so that they can decide whether they have chosen their subject wisely. On the other hand, not failing students on fundamentals means complicating advanced subjects even further --- for everybody.

So much to unpack there. Some rhetorical hyperbole, other false dichotomy and we are both arguing from anecdote.

Weeder courses exist and as you even admit, they aren't solely meant to educate. That is the point. Anything that is designed to test students resolve as well as not waste professors time is not designed to educate, it is designed to reduce the size and shape of the student population. I applaud that CS departments are adding more and more courses for non-majors. But lets look at the syllabus for a 10 week quarter for the first UW CS course, Foundations of Computing [1] which also expects the students to layout their homework (proofs) in LaTex. Jesus. This is mostly a hazing ritual. In my 3 minute sampling of Reddit, most CS students rank 311 as the hardest course in the major and it is the first. [2]

> At some point in life students have to accept that neither their time in university nor their time in the industry will consist only of externally motivating tiny bites of tasks that are awesome.

I never said anything of the sort, you putting words in my mouth.

[1] https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse311/21sp/

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/udub/comments/cdb5kp/cse_311_cse_33...