Based on my personal experience, I’d say...it depends. I studied both computer science and analytics topics. You can have classes with huge overlap and often classes with almost no overlap. So eg a regression and regression for business class would be extremely similar, but neither of those would have much in common with a web development or database course. I’d agree that you can definitely lose out in over or under specializing. Depends on what value you get out of the course.

In terms of real world experience, I think for fresh graduate getting real world experience is probably a good thing. I’m a bit more seasoned, my personal experience has been that jobs get boring quickly and job hopping only delays the inevitable. Only so many ways you can build a report, data pipeline, model, software system or manage a process. One thing I like about classes is you can try out a new idea, get basic experience and build skills for future jobs without taking a huge career risk. Usually I get more interesting work when I learn new things and skill up. It also spices things up and provides me with some new perspectives/opinions. That said, I’m not sure if I’m just bored with my career or if I just enjoy learning for it’s own sake since it’s my hobby. I think a lot of this is where you are at in your career and your personal preferences. I don’t want to extrapolate my personal experience to wide. I know plenty of people that disagree with me and think schools a complete waste of time or not worth the effort :D. Those include some of my closer friends.