i hate my university's computer science culture
Disclaimer: nothing against my school, I actually find most of the staff helpful, and for specific professors/faculty, I am eternally grateful for what they've done for me. This is probably geared more towards how my school's required curriculum is structured and also the ignorance of some CS students.
I'm super-bored at work right now and am reflecting on college. I talked about this within my circles at school, but I really hate the University of Tennessee's (UTK) CS culture. Some things I want to cover before I start — I'll say what I like about UTK: abundance of research opportunities, cool staff (for the most part), learning opportunities for low-level programming.
Okay now I'm ranting.
required physics courses
I hate how I was forced to take physics (Engineering Fundamentals) for 2 semesters and had class every day for a whole year. This school has to genuinely want their CS students to fail. This class was not hard to pass but it was the BIGGEST waste of time. I am actually getting angry writing about this — these were honestly the most frustrating and pointless courses I've ever taken. I absolutely despise having lectures/homework everyday for a subject I was never going to use in the future.
ignorant students
Some of these students have the biggest superiority complexes I've ever seen in my life. So many of them think they are better than you for various reasons, whether that be difference in grades, or how much you know about topics you never cared about. These students also are so uneducated about AI. We are in a world where hundreds of companies are raising millions for their AI startups and college students still think AI is only as good as copy-pasting GPT-2 slop. I hate how behind the school is — there is no healthy competitive nature, just people thinking they're better with nothing to back it.
internship culture
My school has close to ZERO care for top 1% student outcomes. This also has to do with student culture — very few care about breaking into tech hubs like SF/NYC. It seems like everyone is oblivious in regards to getting a prestigious job, like there aren't thousands of resources telling you how to do it. This also has to do with motivation. I know so many people who have such low expectations of themselves. I HATE THIS SO MUCH. As a person, how can you not constantly want to do better? How do you not wake up everyday and want to be better than you were yesterday? How are you okay with not optimizing your future for yourself and loved ones?
Now you may be asking, why do I care so much? I don't know, it just bothers me when there's so much helplessness. I see so many excuses — "I'm not smart enough", "I don't know how to do that", "I'll lock in next year".
People act like knowledge is supposed to be bestowed upon you through divine intervention. Just fucking start instead of waiting like a chud.