[jasondemeuse]

> I wonder how many universities make their engineers or developers actually build something for an outside or even internal customer.

Don't most?

At my alma mater, students in either Telecommunications or Comp Sci majors were required to do a capstone project their final semester for an outside client/customer. They made a big deal about the demo day for it and it was always a cool event. Considering my school was a large public school that isn't known specifically for its computer science/IT, it seems strange that more schools don't do this. It seems like most CS friends from other schools had the same experience as well.

It's really too bad if some people don't get a chance to do this. There are countless things during that project that were good learning experiences, but they would have been awful if it had happened when I actually had a real job. I can definitely say that project determined a lot of my future plans.

[protomyth]

"Don't most?"

It doesn't seem like it, and I would bet it has something to do with local population size and budget.

[thomasvarney723]

What are your plans that were determined by that project and how do they differ from your prior plans?