That’s the distinction I’m trying to draw. I think that CS is unusual in that it has characteristics of academia and a trade. So is math, because AFAIK the undergraduate course content is directly applicable to many fields. Of course, some people who hate CS and will never use it are still forced to take classes in it. For them, it’s almost all credentialism and a bit of familiarity; no genuine scaffolding or practical learning.
By contrast, many other disciplines are inherently “survey courses” to some extent, even if not labeled as such. You’ll only use a tiny subset of the content as you specialize, and you’ll forget the rest. Others are just not very useful for an actual job: nurses taking o-chem for example.
That’s the distinction I’m trying to draw. I think that CS is unusual in that it has characteristics of academia and a trade. So is math, because AFAIK the undergraduate course content is directly applicable to many fields. Of course, some people who hate CS and will never use it are still forced to take classes in it. For them, it’s almost all credentialism and a bit of familiarity; no genuine scaffolding or practical learning.
By contrast, many other disciplines are inherently “survey courses” to some extent, even if not labeled as such. You’ll only use a tiny subset of the content as you specialize, and you’ll forget the rest. Others are just not very useful for an actual job: nurses taking o-chem for example.