Michael taught real skills in his programming classes. He focused on building the logic not the syntex which proved to be the right method and very beneficial. I have mastered more than ten programming languages since I graduated from SMU. I now only heavily use four or five of them. I used to be very upset to see some programming language went away or become less popular after I spent lots of time to practising it and finally became an expert of it. My mom joked with me it was too late for me to change career. But since I have built very strong logic skills at SMU I can learn any new language in very short time period. So, I am not afraid to learn. I hope SMU continue focusing on recruiting talented teachers and developing programs that help students build real skills that will benefit them in their career. Anything that is irrelavant to their professional career should be electives and not given the same weight on GPA.