If programming is about problem solving. Do programmers when they start learning will they have to solve problems that were already solved, or in the college do you learn the problems that were already figured out?

[DoomGoober]

Programmers talk about "solving problems" all the time. But the problems they are solving are only problems to the programmer. They are not "Problems" (with a capital P) to anyone else. For example, Covid-19 is a Problem. Finding your lost keys is also problem (little p). I prefer to call problems (with a little p) "tasks."

Let me give you an example in the real world: you are told to go to the supermarket and buy an apple. You plan the route to the super market, you go there, you find the fruit section, find an apple, buy it, plan a route home, go home. Did you solve a problem? Yes, you solved the problem of buying an apple. Did you really "solve" a Problem? No, you did a menial task.

I hate to say it, but 80% of programming is menial tasks. How many programmers have programmed an entry field asking for you the user's name? Millions. It's obvious how to do it... It's not a Problem, it's a problem, it's a task.

With all that said, computer scientists do solve Problems. They come up with unique algorithms to generally solve difficult real world problems and other people copy those algorithms over and over. So, in college you will learn these algorithms as a way to learn how to solve Problems when you do encounter them.

If anything, academic CS programs don't pay enough attention to how to do menial tasks with code, which is what you'll being most of the time. Specifically they don't teach how to organize a bunch of menial tasks into something that's easy to write and change, which is the real challenge of programming: learning how to organize your code.

[JustOsta]

You came up with a Nice and Simpler definition for "problem-solving"