The Practice is not the Performance: Why project-based learning fails
Some great point in OP&#x27;s critique. But CS isn&#x27;t music theory. Music theory is not really known well by most musicians who are excellent players. Theory is for theorists. I&#x27;m not saying that most musicians know zero theory-- they know what key they are in--but seriously, that only happens after they can play lots of concertos. Pianists tend to know more, but that&#x27;s because it&#x27;s staring them in the face every time they play. (speaking as a career musician: performer, composer, teacher of performance and theory) Yes, musicians drill lots of different things, but honestly, it depends what it&#x27;s for. If practicing improv withchord changes, one needs to know those changes inside and out, but that is truly just one way-- if one is improvising freely, one needs to practice by doing. It really is the only way. Improv is the creative aspect-- classical is the perfect reproduction aspect. I&#x27;m thinking software development is a kind of hybrid. Also-- there isn&#x27;t a pro music job on earth that anyone could learn well enough in a bootcamp for even six months with no prior experience, so the good news is-- no software engineer is regularaly competing with Horowitz yet. Sure, there are virtuosos in programming, but as a musician, you are surrounded by them and are already one yourself as an undergrad-- at least! This is good news for creativity in teaching programming. In terms of motivation of students: from what I have experienced as a programming student in several programs and as an observer-- the material studied is not inspiring. In music, we study Mozart and Thelonious Monk. Puccini and Stravinsky. Reich and Cage. In programming, we studied models and diagrams. We never looked at &quot;great code&quot;. When I asked if there was indpiring code to see, my teacher guided me to online lessons made by the school. I asked if there was. jupiter Symphony of code somewhere, desperately looking for a way to be indpired as I am with great writers and composers. My teacher treated me like I was &quot;being difficult&quot;. I dropped out of this program and learned on my own. This was one of the tippy top bootcamps in NYC. I was hoping it would be there for me in these ways-- it wasn&#x27;t. I&#x27;m left with this: I can&#x27;t imagine any musician getting hired to teach with such low level understanding of ... the world of interesting examples- even a beginning music professor can direct students to inspiring examples of greatness in the field. Teachers need to be paid well for the time it takes to develop interesting methods of teaching. Teaching is a complex hybrid science and art. Like all of these, it requires time and mastery, but most important: innovation!