While I agree that a precursor to these concepts would be a great initiator, however I also believe that a good appreciation for scaling technologies can only be developed by getting hands on and working with a high traffic website. Just reading the theory might not help that well.
How do you guys match an interviewer with an interviewee? Its a fairly interesting problem to find best possible match for a interview setting. Might extend to figuring out who is a best suited interviewer for a candidate out of whole pool of interviewers at a company.