Which university? I can tell you that's not true of my university (Northwestern) and most of the peer institutions.
To a certain extent I agree with Joel Spolsky's old article on Java schools[1]. The one gripe I would have to make is that I believe that there are many useful tasks which are hard more than for the sake of being hard. My compiler's course was quite difficult but at the same time very informative. One thing we didn't do is write a parser. When I asked my professor (now advisor) why not, he responded that writing a parser is more of a character-building exercise. I tend to agree. While very tricky, I find that in the context of university classes so much time is spent writing a parser that more interesting topics in compilers are completely omitted. There's always benefit in deeper understanding, but one must try to identify the richest areas for learning.
To a certain extent I agree with Joel Spolsky's old article on Java schools[1]. The one gripe I would have to make is that I believe that there are many useful tasks which are hard more than for the sake of being hard. My compiler's course was quite difficult but at the same time very informative. One thing we didn't do is write a parser. When I asked my professor (now advisor) why not, he responded that writing a parser is more of a character-building exercise. I tend to agree. While very tricky, I find that in the context of university classes so much time is spent writing a parser that more interesting topics in compilers are completely omitted. There's always benefit in deeper understanding, but one must try to identify the richest areas for learning.
[1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchool...