> yet you can pick up a Bachelor's without ever hearing the word "allocate"
What university has such a program? Programming language design (students write an interpreter and compiler), operating systems (students write a minimal OS including virtual memory management), systems architecture (students design a CPU and write some flavor of ASSEMBLY) and algorithms (students learn about time and memory complexity) are core, required courses in all the CS programs around here. They're required topics for a CS program to be accredited by ABET. Maybe you're confusing actual CS programs with trade school certificate programs; you don't get a bachelors in CS by writing some Java.
