As I mentioned in my previous articles, I learned a lot of bullshit during my time at university. This is by no means an isolated case, but a widespread phenomenon.
Where Our Engineering Education Went Wrong — LessWrong
Chinese universities are wasting students’ time on a massive scale. Quite a few students have already awakened to this reality and are stepping forward to point it out.
The author of today’s article, like me, is a computer science student.
And just like him, what I have learned from working far exceeds what I learned from university.
I hope our experiences can serve as a wake-up call for more university students.
Jarrett Ye
2025-11-30
Author: Cinea4678
Link: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/690074253
Source: Zhihu
Copyright belongs to the author. For commercial reprints, please contact the author for authorization. For non-commercial reprints, please indicate the source.
I haven't written a new article in over two weeks, but today, rather than talking about technology, I want to talk about the three years of my life that were wasted by university.
Let me give a brief self-introduction. I am a third-year student at Tongji University,[1] majoring in Software Engineering. My GPA ranks in the bottom 10%,[2] I have never received a scholarship during my university years, and I am currently interning at a quantitative trading firm. I am an "engineer" type of talent, not particularly skilled in "scientist" type abilities like mathematical derivation, calculation, and memorization, but I am quite adept at engineering and technology.
My parents are both mechanical engineering majors and know nothing about programming. However, my father enjoyed tinkering[3] with computers in his youth, so our home was filled with books on how to mess with Windows 98, and these books became the key that opened the door to computing for me. In the third or fourth grade, I started buying books to teach myself programming. The first compiler I ever used was the ancient relic[4] Turbo C, introduced in an old C textbook. In high school, I first encountered the Informatics Olympiad (OI),[5] and won a provincial second prize[6] after just two months. But six years ago, Yunnan province had no real competitive environment for informatics, so after my regular academic[7] grades plummeted, I caved to the pressure around me and gave up on OI, making a hasty exit.
After the Gaokao, I listed "Information" at Tongji University as my first choice. Although this broad category[8] is called "Information," only four of its majors are directly related to computer science (Computer Science, Software Engineering, Big Data, and Information Security). The rest are related to electronic information, and it even includes Optoelectronic Engineering and Surveying & Mapping—two majors that have almost nothing to do with "computer" or "information." This laid the groundwork for me to "slip"[9] in the major selection process later on.
I was successfully admitted to the Information category at Tongji University and became an undergraduate in the freshman college. I thought a wonderful university life was about to begin, but instead, I was held back for three full years by an unreasonable educational system. In my first year, I "slipped" during major selection and was placed in Surveying & Mapping. Fortunately, thanks to Tongji's lenient major-transfer policy, I managed to escape to Software Engineering. In my third year, despite winning a national first prize and several Shanghai municipal awards, I still couldn't get even the lowest-tier scholarship. The specialized courses I took in my second and third years were almost entirely spent writing "reports" and "reading notes." Even doing a couple of labs from an online course from abroad would have been ten thousand times more useful than attending these classes. It's safe to say that to have gotten where I am today, the only help the university provided was the relatively dazzling halo of its prestigious name. What truly supported me was my own inner drive, which helped me acquire my professional and technical abilities.
First, the major selection system does not assess students' actual abilities. It is based solely on GPA,[10] rampant with formalism, and the official guiding principle of "interest-driven, preference-first, academics-led, and comprehensive evaluation" is a piece of absolute bullshit.[11] According to the official narrative, the major selection system is implemented to "give students ample time to discover the major they truly want to study." While there's nothing wrong with this statement itself, it deliberately ignores a crucial problem: students may be able to discover the major they want, but the university offers no guarantee that they can actually get into it. What if a student wants to study their preferred major? Their only option is to get their GPA high enough.
I don't deny that GPA can reflect a student's learning ability and overall quality, but a student with a low GPA does not necessarily lack solid professional skills. What's more, of the courses in the first year, nearly half are ideological and political education, and another large portion are unrelated to the target major (for example, the University Physics and Circuit Theory I took in my first year have almost nothing to do with computer science). Using such criteria to judge whether a student is fit to study computer science, while appearing to be about "comprehensive quality," is in reality still just a way to screen for good test-takers.
Our university's major selection score also includes 10% for an interview and 10% for "Five Educations" score.[12] Never mind that there are no uniform grading standards for the 10-point interview, and under special circumstances, the interview is canceled altogether (for example, during the Shanghai yiqing[13] in spring 2022). This just shows how little the university values it. The "Five Educations" score is an even more cringeworthy[14] thing, the king of formalism. As the saying goes, even Stephen Hawking would have to put down his research to go grind[15] for "Five Educations" points in all sorts of meaningless activities.
Second, the scheduling of foundational courses is chaotic, delayed, and illogical. To accommodate the major selection system, many courses are not taught in the proper sequence. For example, the Circuit Theory course I just mentioned. This course is very valuable for students in electronic information, but it is completely meaningless and unhelpful for computer science students (and it's even more cringeworthy because this course drags down your GPA for major selection). Another example is Discrete Mathematics, a course that should be taught in the second semester of the first year but is now scheduled for the first semester of the second year because of the major selection system, delaying the teaching progress. What's even more terrifying is that students will be taking Discrete Mathematics at the same time as subsequent courses like Data Structures. This is like building the first and second floors of a house simultaneously—such an unimaginable thing is actually happening in the real world.
What's even more absurd is that the cohort after me learns C++ in the second semester of their first year, and then in the first semester of their second year, they have to take a course where the final project is "to use Cocos to create a game similar to Teamfight Tactics."[16] And that course teaches neither game development nor Cocos, but rather programming paradigms. Never mind the questionable relevance between the homework and the project. While self-learning ability is indeed necessary for computer science students, you don't even teach them how to self-learn and just demand they build a rocket from the get-go[17]. What's the point of this other than to torture students?
Furthermore, the content of my university courses was outdated and inappropriate. Students waste time grinding out reports[18] and writing reading notes, while the quality of the project itself is the least valued aspect. The PowerPoints have been passed down for ten years, the textbooks are old editions, and the professors have been detached from the industry[19] for over a decade. These problems are common to almost all universities in the country. Many people on Zhihu have complained[20] about this better than I can, so I won't elaborate further. The professor for my Data Structures course even said when discussing the final exam, "The questions are set at the graduate school entrance exam[21] standard, maybe even harder." But the problem is, not all students take this course to prepare for the graduate entrance exam. If I wanted to prepare for that, why would I bother taking your class and doing your homework? There are tons of online courses for "408"[22] available online;[23] I have far better options.
Regarding projects, let me take two courses I took in my second year as examples: Computer Organization Lab and Operating Systems Course Design. The former required submitting a "handwritten report," with the stated reason being to prevent copy-pasting. At the same time, however, the professor provided model reports from previous students and hinted that we only needed to write the conclusion in our own words, while the rest could be fully "referenced." It turns out the professor didn't want electronic reports not to prevent plagiarism, but to prevent students from finishing the assignment too easily. As for Operating Systems Course Design, the course offered four project options:
Unsurprisingly, the entire grade chose xv6 because it only required submitting a report, and being able to successfully run one lab during the defense was enough to meet the requirements. To make their reports stand out from the other "xv6-ers," students had to compete on page count and content, wishing they could write a whole thesis on every single command involved, discussing its past, present, and precautions. During my defense, the teaching assistant told me that out of more than 220 students in the entire grade, I was the only one who chose to implement my own operating system. One can't help but sigh that one of the "three great romances of a programmer"[24] has become an option no one is interested in. However, this experience ultimately became my stepping stone into the quantitative trading firm. Readers can judge for themselves which of the two choices is better.
Finally, there is absolutely no room for "engineer" type talent in the various systems for awards and honors. Awarding scholarships based on GitHub stars and contributions might be too progressive for Chinese universities, but to still be unable to get even the lowest-tier scholarship after winning a national-level award is truly hard to accept. I admit my award is not a heavyweight one like XCPC,[25] but it is, after all, a competition whose results can be recognized for graduate school recommendations. This incident made me doubt myself for a while, and it was only with the help of my friends that I came to recognize my own value again.
Whether universities should cultivate "engineers" or "scientists" is not a question I can answer, but I believe universities should not stifle the space for "engineers" to grow, and they certainly shouldn't completely ignore the existence of "engineers" in their evaluation systems. After all, my major is called "Software Engineering." Isn't it only natural[26] to recognize the value of engineers?
Fortunately, after starting my internship, I finally found my value, which is why I enjoy working. At work, I can leverage my outstanding abilities and unique insights, and I can continuously learn cutting-edge technologies and knowledge. At school, I have to worry about things that hijack students under the guise of "well-rounded development," like "labor education hours," "Five Educations points," "innovation credits," "high-quality general education courses," "volunteer activities," and "social activities." But at the company, all I need to do is work hard and do my job well. This can't help but make me feel that my first three years were truly wasted.
There are also some of my personal experiences that were a significant reason why my three university years were wasted. Within the university, many people are enthusiastic about doing "innovation projects." I also spent over a year doing a "Shanghai Innovation Project" with them. Looking back on that time, having weekly group meetings and wasting so much time on work that was completely useless for my future employment, I just feel that I was so stupid and ridiculous back then.
This article was written out of a burst of frustration and is mainly based on my personal experiences. Perhaps it can represent the situation in the Software Engineering department at Tongji University and at some other universities. However, my school is not entirely without merit. Its lenient major-transfer policy allowed me to escape a major I wasn't interested in. Its logistical support doesn't have much for me to criticize. Its cafeterias haven't left me with bad memories either. More importantly, whenever I swipe my card to enter the campus during cherry blossom season and see the school full of tourists, I still feel proud to be a member of Tongji.
I hope all my friends who have read this far can find their own paths and move confidently towards their goals.
Tongji University (同济大学, Tóngjì Dàxué): A prestigious "Project 985" university in Shanghai, especially renowned for engineering.
GPA ranking 90% (GPA排名90%): This means the author's GPA is in the 90th percentile, i.e., the bottom 10% of the class.
Tinkering (折腾, zhēteng): A colloquial verb meaning "to tinker with," "to fiddle with," or "to mess around with," often with a positive connotation of playful experimentation.
Ancient relic (上古 / 文物, shànggǔ / wénwù): "Ancient" / "cultural relic." Used humorously to describe Turbo C as extremely outdated.
Informatics Olympiad (OI竞赛 / 信奥, OI jìngsài / xìn'ào): OI is the standard abbreviation for the competitive programming Olympiad in Informatics.
Provincial second prize (省二, shěng èr): Short for "省级二等奖" (shěngjí èrděngjiǎng), a provincial-level second-class award.
Regular academic (文化课, wénhuàkè): "Culture classes." Refers to the standard academic curriculum, as distinct from specialized training like sports or, in this case, competitive programming.
Broad category (大类, dàlèi): A system where universities admit freshmen into a general field of study. Students then compete based on first-year grades to get into their preferred specific major.
"Slip" (滑档, huádàng): A common term meaning to fail to get into one's desired school or major and "slip" down to a lower-preference choice.
GPA-ism (唯绩点论, wéi jìdiǎn lùn): A pejorative term for a system that judges students solely based on their GPA.
Absolute bullshit (一纸屁话, yī zhǐ pìhuà): Literally "a piece of paper of fart-talk." A very blunt and coarse expression for "worthless nonsense on paper."
"Five Educations" (五育, wǔ yù): The official national policy for developing students' Moral, Intellectual, Physical, Aesthetic, and Labor education. The author sees its implementation as a box-ticking exercise.
yiqing (艺晴, yì qíng): A likely euphemism or coded way of writing "疫情" (yìqíng), meaning "epidemic," used to avoid censorship when discussing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cringeworthy (难蚌, nán bèng): A popular internet meme short for "蚌埠住了" (Bèngbù zhùle), a pun on "绷不住了" (bēng bu zhùle), meaning "can't hold it in anymore." Used for something so awkward or ridiculous that one can't help but react.
Grind (刷, shuā): "To brush." Slang for accumulating points or completing requirements in a repetitive, mechanical way.
Teamfight Tactics (金铲铲之战, Jīn Chǎnchǎn zhī Zhàn): Literally "Battle of the Golden Spatulas." The official Chinese name for the popular auto-battler game.
"Build a rocket from the get-go" (一上来就要学生造火箭): A common metaphor for setting an impossibly difficult task for a beginner without providing the necessary foundational knowledge.
Grinding out reports (卷报告, juǎn bàogào): The verb "卷" (juǎn, to roll/involve) is used here to mean engaging in intense, often meaningless, competition or busywork.
Detached from the industry (脱离生产, tuōlí shēngchǎn): Literally "detached from production." A phrase for being out of touch with real-world industry practices.
Complain (吐槽, tùcáo): A very popular slang term borrowed from the Japanese tsukkomi, meaning to roast, to complain about, or to point out the absurdity of something.
Graduate school entrance exam (考研, kǎoyán): The national postgraduate entrance examination.
408: The code for the notoriously difficult national unified computer science subject test for the postgraduate entrance exam.
"Grab a huge handful online" (网上一抓一大把, wǎngshàng yī zhuā yī dà bǎ): An idiom meaning something is extremely common and easy to find.
"Three great romances of a programmer" (程序员三大浪漫, chéngxùyuán sān dà làngmàn): A saying in the Chinese programming community referring to writing one's own compiler, operating system, and database—seen as fundamental and deeply rewarding projects.
XCPC: A common acronym for the ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Contest) and its regional variants in China, the most prestigious programming contest for university students.
Only natural (天经地义, tiānjīng dìyì): An idiom meaning "perfectly justified," "unalterable principles," or "as it should be."