The UniMelb CS Curriculum

Dear School of Computing and Information Systems,

We're current and former postgraduate students of the UniMelb CS programs. The curriculum is in worse shape than most students or staff seem to realise. After comparing notes with peers from other universities, and going through technical interviews ourselves, the gaps are obvious, and they hurt the value of a UniMelb CS degree.

Missing fundamental courses

UniMelb has dropped core CS courses that are still standard everywhere else. The discontinued ones include:

• Programming Language Implementation (COMP90045) - Compilers and interpreters
• Program Analysis and Transformation (COMP90053) - Static analysis and optimization
• Constraint Programming (COMP90046) - Constraint satisfaction and reasoning
• Programming the Machine (COMP20006) - Low-level systems programming

The result: UniMelb now offers zero dedicated postgraduate courses in compilers, operating systems design, database implementation, or advanced systems programming. The only systems course, Computer Systems (COMP30023), is not available to MIT or MCS students. Those are the very programs aimed at career-changers, who need this foundation most.

Databases get the same shallow treatment. INFO20003 teaches students how to use databases. Nothing covers database implementation, storage engines, query optimisation, or concurrency control. That's what separates a computer scientist from someone who just runs SQL.

This isn't a minor curriculum tweak. It's an abandonment of core CS education. Students are graduating without understanding how programming languages work, how operating systems manage resources, how databases are implemented, or how to make code run fast.

The undergraduate program: breadth over depth

The undergraduate program has the same problem. The Computing and Software Systems major only requires 12 mandatory subjects. Here's the full list:

This curriculum produces web developers, not computer scientists. The capstone (COMP30022) is website development, a task most coding bootcamp grads can do after a few months. Where are the compiler, OS, database engine, or systems programming projects that anchor a real CS degree?

The MIT and MCS postgraduate programs are broken

The MIT and MCS programs try to serve two audiences in the same classrooms: career-changers with no CS background, and CS graduates looking for advanced study. The compromise satisfies neither, and the courses end up watered down for everyone.

What this does to graduates

These aren't hypothetical complaints. Graduates regularly hit the same problems in interviews and on the job:

• Employers tell us UniMelb grads lack systems knowledge their peers from other universities have.
• People are failing technical interviews on operating systems, compilers, database internals, and low-level programming questions they were never taught.
• Graduates have to self-teach the core CS topics that should have been part of their degree.
• PhD applicants are at a disadvantage when applying to top programs because of missing foundational coursework.
• Master's grads with wildly different skill levels are competing for the same jobs, which devalues the degree for everyone.

The courses that remain have weakened too

It's not just what's missing. The subjects still on offer have themselves got weaker. Two examples:

Internet Technologies (COMP90007) is sold as a comprehensive networking course. The reality, according to students who've taken it:

• No programming tasks or workshops, in a course that's nominally part of a CS degree.
• Assessments limited to running things like the ping command.
• No coverage of modern protocols, network security, or distributed systems architecture.
• Content most other universities would treat as introductory.

Distributed Systems (COMP90015) has the same problem:

• The syllabus hasn't meaningfully changed in over a decade.
• The bulk of it is basic Java socket programming.
• No cloud computing, no microservices, no consensus algorithms. The things that define modern distributed systems are not in this course.
• Students who've taken it call it "Java Sockets 101", not a graduate distributed systems course.

UniMelb CS vs UNSW, ANU, and overseas peers

When you put UniMelb next to peer programs overseas, the gap shows immediately. Students who've gone on exchange come back saying the same thing: the academic rigour and breadth are on a different level.

At top international universities, a single-semester course can have you building a real operating system, implementing a production-quality compiler, or sending bug fixes to GCC and Clang. UniMelb students struggle to find a course that introduces these topics, let alone makes you build one.

A lot of students we know now treat exchange as the part of their degree where they actually learn computer science. That's a damning thing to say about the local program. It also creates a two-tier system, since only students with the money and visa eligibility to study abroad get adequate CS training.

What we're asking for

The University of Melbourne has a responsibility to teach computer science properly, in a way that prepares students for both industry and research. Concretely, we're asking for:

{
  "name": "Your Full Name",
  "program": "e.g., MCS 2024, PhD CS",
  "status": "Current Student / Graduate",
  "comment": "Your experience (optional)",
  "date": "2026-04-29"
}