Technical instruction almost always starts with teaching a specific discipline, such as programming language, lab work, or field studies. These are good for giving students an initial confidence and curiosity about the subject. However, in order for students to truly excel in their chosen field of study, they must perform critical analysis as early as possible.

This is obvious in such areas as the humanities, where the study of past works of literature and theater enable students to evaluate contemporary works, and produce their own original pieces. It is less apparent, though, in fields such as Computer Science (CS).

The initial focus in a field such as CS is usually to start students with a concrete skill such as learning Python or C++. This gives students confidence to create very rudimentary computer programs. However, it also limits students to only understanding CS within the confines of the projects they’ve completed. It also restricts students to only thinking within the bounds of that material which has so far been presented.

Stanford encourages its professors of the Sciences to:

“explore the ethical considerations of research questions and experimental design”. This allows students to look outside of their narrow focus of study to the wider world they hope to become a part of outside of academia. By doing this, professors do students a great service.

Other methods of critical analysis in Computer Science and Engineering could be analyzing multiple implementations of the same problem, accounting for performance, scalability, and collaboration. One of the first lessons students learn outside the classroom is that their code/experiments must live on in perpetuity even after they leave the company. Critical analysis allows them to take this possibility into account even before they arrive. This makes students much more viable candidates in the field, and becomes a great boon to employers.

Resources:

https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1432