Google is claiming that it’s doing this program to help make the students more hireable, but all it’s actually doing is having Google engineers monitor students doing their normal school work, and picking out the top performers to interview for potential Google work.

It’s not like these students can walk away from it with something new to put on their resumes. What are they going to say, “Spent 12 weeks taking CS 3 while a bunch of Googlers watched. Got an interview, but wasn’t offered a job”? It’s literally a waste of time for the students, unless they really want to work at Google. And, even if they do want to work at Google, this is still an embarrassing way to go about getting their attention.

This program would make way more sense if it was meant for freshmen (or even rising freshmen) who weren’t 100% sure they wanted to major in CS, because it would give them an opportunity to interact with tech professionals while they take a few basic classes. But this program is for juniors and seniors — people who have already committed to a CS degree, and should be doing actual work in the field during their summers.