&gt; Is this really a problem specifically with Howard, or more a problem with CS curriculum in general? I ask this leaving the likes of CMU, Stanford, MIT, out of the equation - I&#x27;m thinking more about the &quot;non-elite&quot; CS programs, of which there are many, many more.<p>You shouldn&#x27;t leave the elite programs out of the equation.  I&#x27;ve helped to interview a good handful of people who went to elite institutions and had done difficult, important work, but couldn&#x27;t answer our interview questions correctly.  We don&#x27;t even use <i>hard</i> interview questions, just three that expect you to know some tricks-of-the-trade for systems programming and basic processor architecture.