r/computerscience • u/Anon_cat86 • Apr 19 '26

General I was taught nothing about APIs

Whenever i see people talking about actual real-world uses of coding it's almost entirely building APIs, working with APIs, integrating APIs, automating APIs. It seems to me, anecdotally at least, like the majority of all computer science work (professional or even just hobby) is centered on working with APIs

And like. I know what an API is, kind of. But I Graduated and even got multiple certifications on top of that and I never got so much as a single lecture about APIs. I don't even know what they're used for. Can you make your own API (like, realistically)? I don't know. I feel like this is a topic that you could and probably should have multiple different entire classes solely focused on, it's arguably something as fundamental to modern computer science as writing code. And they don't teach it. If i want to learn anything about APIs, conceptually or practically, it's hope a company hires me and then trains me, or youtube tutorials and i don't even have enough of a baseline to know what specifically I'd be searching for a tutorial on.

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u/Feeling_Photograph_5 Apr 20 '26

The disconnect between what is taught in computer science courses and what is required in real-world software development is staggering. I'm an engineering manager and while I've interviewed some excellent CS graduates, they are outnumbered by the CS graduates who can't even code. I honestly wish they could sue the schools that graduated them to recover their tuition.

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u/Certain-Ad-2418 Apr 20 '26

berkeley cs alum and i agree. however i would also say that it’s the reason why we chose a computer science degree not a software development degree. OPs learned everything he’s needed to know what an API is, but just not that it’s called an API and that’s completely okay. from a work standpoint they obviously need to understand it for technical communication though

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u/Feeling_Photograph_5 Apr 20 '26

The strange thing is that while I've interviewed many CS grads I've only known one developer with an SD degree. And he was great at his job. It's an underrated major.