[jinzo]

15+ years ago I was doing a CS undergrad (or Bachelors? not sure how it translates) at the local uni in a small EU Country and this approach was the standard across all subjects as part of 'lab work'. There were people there to do that, not the prof himself, but approach was exactly the same. And after a few months they had a really good picture on what level everyone is ect.

On the other hand, I had a neighbour ask me if he can make his 1 month apprenticeship when he finished his 3rd year of CS High School (eg ~18 years old, 3 of 4 years of 'CS trade school') 6 months ago or so. I was totally gobsmacked by his lack of basic understanding of how computers work, I am confident that he did not confidentially know the difference between a file and a folder. But he was very confident in the AI slop he produced. I had a grand plan of giving him tasks that would show him the pitfalls of AI -> no need for that, he blindly copied whatever AI gave him (he did not figure out Claude Code exsists), even when the results were very visibly bad - even from afar. I tried explaining stuff to him to no avail. I know this is a sample size of 1, but damn, I did not expect it to be that bad.

[titanomachy]

“Undergrad” or “bachelor’s degree” are both correct and commonly used in US/Canada.