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I'm too young (and Australian) to answer your question specifically, but given I've just posted on a thread about computer science degrees, I'll have a go.
I have worked with engineering/cs graduates from Australian universities before (and still), with varying commercial experience from 0 - 3 years, and it doesn't seem to correlate to competence or dedication, the real skills. I have good friends who performed very well in school (OP 1 students, that's Queensland's top 3 percentiles, if I remember correctly) who have gone on to do mechatronic engineering (and a smattering of other very specific fields of engineering I hadn't heard of until the University reps came to our highschool).
In my opinion, I think these guys have taken these subjects because that's what their scores led them to, and not for the actual interest and enjoyment necessary to drive a successful career, which is a shame (although creating robots does sound cool to a 17 year old geek  ).
I have worked in commercial software development for 3 years now since the end of my high school education, with no interest whatsoever in tertiary education. When these guys take their software subjects (close to 50% of the course material) I am bombarded with phone calls asking for assistance. This usually takes the form of "fix this for me, I don't care, I just want to pass".
If you don't care, why are you doing the course? Furthermore, it may be just me, but although "mechatronic engineer" sounds like a distinguished title, I have never seen a job asking for such a degree, nor any job remotely related to the field. I love programming and, more generally, problem solving, enough to teach myself to the point where I secured full time work straight out of high school without a degree or experience.
IMO, I think you are right about students being "sold" their degrees, but a University is a business too, right? From older people I've spoken to, colleagues, family, friends, I have heard the same thing many times: "University makes people good at knowing what they need to know to pass [and nothing more]". Which, as anyone worth their salt would know, just doesn't cut it in the real world - especially the world of software.
In the end, I'd hazard a guess that this has always been the case - what of sons and daughters who took up the family business because it's all they knew? Is that really much different to this - being "sold" into a career path? At that age (and I'm not much older now, really) I could barely decide what to eat for breakfast let alone what career I wanted.
I think you just have to take the leap of faith, but if you don't enjoy it, bail.
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Thank you for your comments.
In the original posting, I limited my comments to the US undergraduate computer science programs. I do not presume to address undergraduate computer science programs throughout the world. Furthermore, with the exception of programmers from India, I have not met programmers from other nations. I have no opinion regarding their undergraduate computer science programs.
There is no doubt that some students are drawn to their majors by their life experiences. But what I am saying is that computer science should only be an elective. There is no demand for programmers who can program computer science programs. And programmers who studied computer science have no background in the real world subjects. They could have if they had majored in a BS, BA, or BFA program.
I am self-taught as well. I speak six languages (C#, C, Ada, Pascal, FORTRAN, COBOL) all of which I taught myself. I can say that a college education in these languages would be a waste. The problem with US companies is their requirement for a college degree. That young man (18 at the time I met him) could program around most programmers that I know. He did not need to go to college to learn how to program. He needed to go to college to learn physics. Then he went on to program problems in physics.
I find it interesting that, of all the majors I have encountered during my career, I have found that Music majors are some of the best programmers.
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Wow... brilliantly stated...
You should run for president ... or at least try to rectify the crappy school system of this country
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Thank you for your comment.
I am a computer programmer. I love to program. I find programming to be one of the most intellectually challenging experiences of my life. Without programming, I would find myself adrift.
If I were nominated, I would not accept.
But seriously, when you mention a fix to the education system, I believe that the only way that will happen (for the software related subjects) is by organizing programmers. Not professors. Not leaders of industry. But programmers. The last time I mentioned a computer programmer "union" to one of my managers, I thought he would collapse. Can you imagine the power of uniting all US programmers under a banner they could accept. A journeyman/tradesman organization. Apprentices learning from mentors. Remember Dune? But time is short so I am not up to that challenge. Maybe one or two of our readers.
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Well put.
Knowing the problem area is always more important than the programming element. Languages and technology move so fast that by the time you have done a programming degree your knowledge is out of date anyway.
We took on some new programmers a while back, all with degrees, some masters degrees and MS qualified to the hilt. They were useless to a man. They could program (well, some of them) but as they never understood the problem area any code produced failed to solve the problems. They have all since left, and we remain with those of us who understood the problem area in the first place, and learn't the coding bits from these so called experts.
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Thank you for your comment.
I fear this is what happens more often than not. One exception is web pages. As I like to point out, producing web pages is assembly, not programming. Making things worse is Microsoft’s continued release of frameworks, each of which is another level of abstraction that hides the basic underlying algorithmic structure.
I would prefer to teach someone to program in some domain (finance, chemistry, and the like) than to be faced with someone who knows only the tradecraft of programming and who thinks he can program.
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but majored in Management, focused in Entrepreneurship.
That sound so Internet-Bubble era.
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B.S. in Zoology with Chemistry Minor.
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Had to work hard to forget all the math and physics I learned at University 
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Have you succeeded yet? 
--
Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
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I have a Bachelor's of Science degree in Computer Engineering (Wright State University[^], class of 1984). My academic training was a mix of software and hardware classes. Graduates in the program had a somewhat broader spectrum of career choices than the traditional computer science or electrical engineering major.
The truth was, at the time, neither the computer science program nor the electrical engineering program particularly wanted us. We weren't interested in the compiler design classes, nor did we care about learning the mysteries of transistor amplifiers. We were all excited over this odd new thing: the microprocessor[^].
My career has been primarily spent developing software, including a lot of data acquisition and process control applications. My computer engineering degree has helped me know how to deal realistically with hardware, which never follows the 'perfect' model that computer science majors think it does. It's also helped me interact with hardware engineers, who often have some odd notions on just what might be easy (or not) to do in software.
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I can think of a fair few people I know that would put themselves into either
I write software and I have a computer science degree
I write software and I do not have a computer science degree
but in reality they woud be firmly in
I do not write software and I have a computer science degree
I do not write software and I do not have a computer science degree
in their programming jobs.. lol
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Yeah, they call themselves managers right?
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Me too... 1 from six, not half bad.
Anyway, I'm not in programming, but information security.
AE
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When I started programming, there wasn’t such a thing as a computer science degree. Computers were built by Electrical Engineers and programmed by Industrial Engineers. They were programmed either with patch boards or flipping switches. Once you got a subroutine written and tested you burned it into ROM and memorized the start address. 2Kilo bytes of static memory and 16K of ROM, paradise. Now even “scientists” can program, not that they understand the scientific method or have ever run an experiment. I suspect very few of them even get taught the second law of thermodynamics. With all the graphics and such they ought to call it a “computer art” degree. They don’t even plan their effort anymore. Pathetic, they expect their testing to find their errors. It won’t be long till it becomes a minimum wage job.
Although, with the information wars starting up, the trend might reset. But probably not within the US, too many conservatives pushing for it to be cheapened into an “art”.
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My two favorite hobbies.
I have a degree in Mining Engineering, but after 5 years and 7 jobs, I was looking for something a little more predictable.
Chris Meech
I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar]
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
posting about Crystal Reports here is like discussing gay marriage on a catholic church’s website.[Nishant Sivakumar]
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Chris Meech wrote: Drilling and Blasting
That's just reorganising a different kind of "bit", isn't it?
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Chris Meech wrote: I was looking for something a little more predictable.
Oh yeah? How'd that turn out for ya? 
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LOL. Let's just say that the boom and bust cycles of the mining industry have a much higher amplitude than the boom and bust cycles of the financial services industry.
Chris Meech
I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar]
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
posting about Crystal Reports here is like discussing gay marriage on a catholic church’s website.[Nishant Sivakumar]
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In fact, I got 2 diplomas.
The first one I got in 2006 would let me code. In Montreal, we call it a "Technique" and last 3 years after our high school.
The 2nd one is a 4-year university course in Software Engineering which is mostly project management, requirements elicitation, quality management, etc.
In Quebec, not everybody can call itself a Software Engineer (which I am not yet because I don't pay to have it). So, I simply have a diploma in engineering without behind an engineer.
Finished all this in august. I'm still fresh out of school.
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Here in Ontario too. You don't call yourself an engineer unless you're certified as an engineer. We call all software guys "software developer" not "software engineer". That doesn't prevent us from doing software engineering jobs.
Best,
Jun
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I have been coding professionally in various languages for almost 12 years, and I do not have one single tertiary qualification (OK, I have a Microsoft Exam that my company requested me to do earlier this year, to make up points for our Gold Partnership). I have seen far too many people with all the degrees in the world come in with ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE how the "real world" works, they suck, they hate it, and eventually they resign.
In my experience, I'd rather have spent 4 years in the real world, getting real world experience, than have spent 4 years on "education". Experience trumps Education every single time, without exception!
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Experience + Education = WIN
They're both entirely different things and both are important. I've seen too much old crooks basing everything on experience and doing everything to avoid changes that would make them completely irreverent even if it made sense.
Mix both and you get total win.
School is far from the holy grail however. I've seen people getting the diploma and they really didn't know anything. Seriously. It's kind of a double-edge sword... With spikes on the hilts.
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I used to work in construction and just shook my head sadly when
the architects (fresh out of school) came to the job and started
to "explain" to us how things should be done... we just listened
then went on building it the way it would actually hold up.
Vast difference between book learning and how things really work.
My point: to be truly effect - both should be obtained, because
there are somethings that will get better with theory and some things
that will get better with experience.
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