I was talking with Ben (the CTO at Zane) about what some of the core skills that set apart good programmers from bad ones.  Probably the most important thing is a solid understanding of how to store and retrieve information from a database.

I understand databases pretty well.  I'm no expert, but I almost never run into a situation where I can't easily implement a database-driven solution to a problem.  My initial reaction was, "thank god I learned about databases at Wash U."

Then I though about it.  I don't think I ever once dealt with a database in school.  I never learned how they worked.  I never used them to store data.  I never ran a query.  Not once.  How in the world could I have gotten a CS degree from a great school without once coming across one of the most fundamental aspects of programming?

Ok, so to be fair, a computer science education is supposed to be more about theory and less about learning what you'll use in the real world.  But I still had to learn Java, C, C++, VHDL, and the list goes on.  If I only needed to learn theory, then I should have only needed to learn on programming language.  Hell, I shouldn't have even needed to learn one if the point was to study theory.  And if there is even a hint of practical experience being taught, databases should be as high on the list as learning any programming languages.

Also, there was one database class which I was planning on taking as part of my Masters program.  I'm sure I would have learned more than enough in that class.  But that class wasn't required and most of the people I know didn't take it.

I'm not trying to blame Wash U for this.  I think my coursework was very similar to the status quo.  But still, shouldn't every CS major be required to at least understand the basics?