# MIT Missing Semester

10 Hacker News commenters recommended MIT Missing Semester and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it for practical skills like shell, git, debugging and profiling that CS programs skip, though some find the code quality section weak.

## Why people recommend it

- Fills a gap in CS curriculum (2 comments): "I always thought this practical side of development was missing in a CS or engineering curriculum." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46276710)) "It's nice that someone at MIT is recognizing this and putting together this material." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46277110))
- Shell, git and debugging skills (2 comments): "the fundamentals in here (shell, git, debugging, profiling) are more relevant with AI, not less" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47138865)) "The original shell scripting lecture changed how I think about automation." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47160589))
- Important course for developers (2 comments): "In some way this could be the most important course." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47136114)) "That's why this course is so important" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47117710))
- Worth watching the lectures (2 comments): "Awesome course and I encourage everyone to check out the previous iteration" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46275577)) "This time would be much better spent watching these 9h of lectures." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47136142))

## What people warn about

- Seen as irrelevant in AI era (1 comments): "irrelevant in the age of ai" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47138738))
- Falls short of real needs (2 comments): "MIT came up with "The Missing Semester of Your CS Education" to compensate, but it's nothing compared to what's actually needed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46846430)) "Delete the AI bullshit and go back to teaching programmers how to learn and understand what they are building." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47139908))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Math Academy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/math-academy.md): 35 recommend
- [Nand2Tetris](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nand2tetris.md): 31 recommend
- [Neural Networks: Zero to Hero by Andrej Karpathy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/neural-networks-zero-to-hero.md): 29 recommend
- [CS193p SwiftUI course by Paul Hegarty](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cs193p-swiftui-course.md): 13 recommend
- [CS336: Language Modeling from Scratch](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cs336-language-modeling-from-scratch.md): 12 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://missing.csail.mit.edu/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "MIT Missing Semester", https://hackerapproved.com/p/missing-semester-of-your-cs-education/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).