Sounds great.

My CS degree got me a string of software engineering jobs. Which is fine I suppose, but what I was after was CS.

Also fair but a bit heartbreaking for me. Is this the product of mass academization? The motto of stanford is "The wind of freedom blows", not "mass produce uncritical engineers". A freedom to learn, to develop freely, to learn obscure math and think about the philosophical limits of computer science.

I study in Tübingen, Germany and I love it that the top machine learning faculty here is located at a holistic, full university. There's constant reflection of the work and the professors engage in a lot of dialog. Multidisciplinary seminars thinking about fairness and discrimination and a "broader" look found in the basic lectures. It is really an enrichment of your university education and develops you as a person. Better than my last university.

In the end, one is studying computer science and the science should stand for something, it's not a training of web-dev.

people can choose how the tone of their education. some people may want brass tacks engineering and to focus on getting a job.. some people may want a philosophical approach... its a good thing that there are lots of diverse mindsets out there.

While this is true for the individual I was still thinking a bit in the stanford-context. It is a world-leading, exceptional university where academic ideals should be lived and passed on.

I'm glad you ended up somewhere you can respect.

I won't say I'm stuck with the local university, not exactly, but let's just say that switching costs are high. And I'm mad as hell about the way the place has been gutted of any academic integrity and turned into a job training program.

If the employers want particular skills, they should train people in those skills, not offload it onto the universities.