I don't understand this at all. Computer science is based on theoretical foundations that were developed way before any actual computer existed. This goes back more than 100 years.

Yes, it's code. We studied and iterated on that code long before the first computer, we came up with architectures that influenced the creation of the hardware to run it

The way they teach it has probably changed since I went through, but we had software engineering as a concentration. I actually picked networking and just took the all the software engineering courses because it had less math requirement lol

But it was mostly theoretical, with hands on homework to demonstrate it in practice. Everyone had certain courses they had to take, like at least 3 semesters of programming, discrete math, data structures, and a few others along with gen eds.

You just had to get a certain amounts of credits from different levels, so you could go through and pick what you wanted to focus on. You could dive into more theoretical or practical, high level or low level, but everyone had to study the full stack enough to understand it at a basic level

But it's all castles made of sand. Even before the first computer, we've been iterating on these ideas... Studying them and building higher

The line between the science and engineering is blurry...Hell, our jobs are blurry and usually cross-discipline