I was in a programming class when ChatGPT/CoPilot first came out. I hadn’t started using it yet for classes because I was under the impression that “my work should be my own”. I was the only one in the class who would get 80+ average on quizzes, everyone else got nearly perfect scores. Oh well.
Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?
151–160 of 221 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe I’m an oddball, but I’d rather hire a new grad with sound fundamentals, but learned on an older tech stack, then somebody with all the buzzwords but no fundamentals. And I’ve always found summer internships to be good way to find out. Even better if the candidate is willing to work part-time through their senior year.
Yes it is just you. Every application for a job gets hundreds of applications. A company is not going to hire someone with no experience or knowledge over someone who does.
> A company is not going to hire someone with no experience or knowledge over someone who does.
“Solid fundamentals” are literally knowledge.
That said, you’re probably right. At least in data, hundreds of mediocre-to-awful hiring managers have convinced themselves that their stack is special and there’s no way someone without experience in Snowflake (or whatever) could possibly figure it out based on experience in other stacks.
On the plus side, it’s meant that anyone who’s not intentionally shooting themselves in the foot can find a ton of high end talent because they recognize that know a specific language is valueless compared to understanding how to code in the first place.
Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?
#153"The professors use AI themselves and expect their students to use it, but do not have a gauge for what kinds of problems make for an appropriately difficult assignment in the modern era." I'm a prof, recently retired but still teaching part-time. This is exactly the problem. AI is here, people use it, so it would be stupid (plus impossible) not to let students use it. However, you want your students to still learn s…
To me the solution seems simple, but I have no idea how to implement it in a classroom/uni environment.
Students should be building software hands on, yes they should use AI, but there shouldn't be an end state beyond like "6 hours of work" or however long is reasonable in their schedule. The instructor should push them to build more features, or add constraints that obsolete most of their work.
Eventually there will be spots in the code that only the student and professor understands, in some limited instances the professor can explain what some generated code does.
Alternatively students can use generated code, but they have to provide a correctness proof and most of the class is based on studying proofs. Depends if it's a more CS/SE or Software Industry focused group of students and their math background
Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a false view. Most developers have always just been “dark matter developers” who only saw it as a way to put food on their tables. https://www.hanselman.com/blog/dark-matter-developers-the-un... Almost every single developer I’ve met since 1996 talked about other hobbies they had outside of computers and didn’t think about coding outside if work.
> Most developers have always just been “dark matter developers” who only saw it as a way to put food on their tables. Is that what the article you share says? I read: "Where are the dark matter developers? Probably getting work done." It calls "dark matter developers" the ones that are not vocal on the internet. Doesn't say anything about how nerdy they are... > Almost every single developer I’ve met since 1996 talk…
I started coding as a hobby in 1986 in assembly on an Apple //e. In the 6th grade as a short fat kid with a computer. By the time I got to ninth grade, I got over the “fat” part and had other “nerdy” after school activities. But they involved other people.
By the time I got to college, I was the typical college student - except I didn’t drink or smoke weed - I hung out with friends, dated, etc.
My hobbies when I got out of college included hanging out with friends and coworkers of both sexes because we all had money (not by today’s standards) and were all single and I was a part time fitness instructor and runner with friends - we did monthly charity races and trained for them together.
I did that until I was 35 and got remarried and spent most of my free time still exercising and with my wife and step sons.
They are both grown as of 2020 and after Covid, my wife and I got rid of everything we owned that wouldn’t fit in four suitcases and city hopped around the United States for a year [1]. We still travel a lot and this year we will be out of the country for a total of two months and away from our home for a third of the year traveling.
I have not done a side project or written a single line of code that I haven’t gotten paid for or to get a degree since 1992.
Right now, my free time is enjoying being in another country outside of the toxicity of the US, learning Spanish and exercise and of course finding random things to do with my wife and hanging out with friends.
[1] our “home” is a condo unit in condotel we own. When we aren’t there, we pack up everything we own and it is rented out as a hotel room and we get half the income that covers our mortgage and expenses.
Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?
#155I am not in a CS program myself, but I guest lecture for CS students at CMU about 2x/year, and I'm in a regular happy hour that includes CS professors from other high-tier CS schools. Two points of anecdata from that experience: - The students believe that the path to a role in big tech has evaporated. They do not see Google, Meta, Amazon, etc, recruiting on campus. Jane Street and Two Sigma are sucking up all the ta…
Interesting that the algorithmic finance firms are still recruiting. Perhaps they still need a pipeline of rigorous thinkers, or are unwilling to cede significant influence over P+L to llms.
In the future it will be considered one of the most unusual cultural/social decisions ever, that large financial services firms are as they are in the Western world.
I have never seen a group of people so frantically doing nothing of any value.
Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because they haven’t overcome their addiction to food and shelter and they need to make money to support their addictions?
universities aren't job centers either. They don't supply you with food and shelter, you pay them money and they give you the education you want. Which can mean making a lot of money if you happen to pick something private businesses value but it can also mean reading Ulysses or The Old Testament or number theory all day. Higher education is entirely up to you, it's not a company pre-training. If you want that there…
And I told both of my step sons I wouldn’t pay for a degree that wouldn’t lead to a job and I had them research the expected income and types of jobs they could get based on the degree they were pursuing
Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes it is just you. Every application for a job gets hundreds of applications. A company is not going to hire someone with no experience or knowledge over someone who does.
> A company is not going to hire someone with no experience or knowledge over someone who does. “Solid fundamentals” are literally knowledge. That said, you’re probably right. At least in data, hundreds of mediocre-to-awful hiring managers have convinced themselves that their stack is special and there’s no way someone without experience in Snowflake (or whatever) could possibly figure it out based on experience in o…
And yet juniors can’t find a job to save their lives now…
And someone without experience in Snowflake I guarantee you will try to treat it like the OLTP database they are familiar with and have horrible results. If you don’t think need that specific experience, you are kind of proving the hiring managers point.
I don’t have experience with Snowflake myself. But I know enough about OLAP columnar databases (Redshift) to know how the schemas should be designed (ie it’s in the name)
Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not just that. As a 31 year old developer even I feel like acquiring new skills is now harder than ever. Having Claude come up with good solutions to problems feels fast, but I don't learn anything by doing so. Like it took me weeks to understand what good and what bad CMake code looks like. This made me the Cmake guy at work. The learning curve delayed the port from qmake to CMake quite a bit, but I learned a new sk…
Claude has a teacher mode where it will ask you questions. I’m picking up game dev in my spare time. I’m not letting Claude write any of the code. We talk through the next task, I take a run at it, then when I’m stuck I got back and talk through where the problems are. It’s slower than just letting Claude do it, obviously. Plus you do need to be a bit disciplined - Claude will gladly do it for you when you start gett…
I find Gemini 'guided learning' to be very good as a Leetcode teacher. I finally been able to understand dynamic programming and have become better.
Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?
#159I am not in a CS program myself, but I guest lecture for CS students at CMU about 2x/year, and I'm in a regular happy hour that includes CS professors from other high-tier CS schools. Two points of anecdata from that experience: - The students believe that the path to a role in big tech has evaporated. They do not see Google, Meta, Amazon, etc, recruiting on campus. Jane Street and Two Sigma are sucking up all the ta…
> Jane Street and Two Sigma are sucking up all the talent. This is the most made up thing I've ever seen on hn. Those firms hire probably 10 new grads a year (maybe combined!). Unless you're saying the collective talent graduating "high-tier CS programs" numbers in the 10s, this is literally impossible.
yeah and 2s has not been doing too hot for a few years now. Jane street I buy - they tend to recruit a lot of CMU students. But definitely less than < 15 of the new grads they hire each year are from CMU. They maybe hire on the order of 50-100 new grad SWEs a year.
Re: Ask HN: What is it like being in a CS major program these days?
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the Democrats were smart (they are not) they could landslide next election (and 5 more) by running a simple campaign, “Americans First,” the core of which would be to slap 1000% tax of any job which is outsources. Your company wants to hire someone from X, for every dollar paid in salary you have to pay $100 to the IRS.
So are you saying that no multinational company ca have employees overseas? This is really a poorly thought out proposal.
there are tens of thousands of national companies - hence the term “out”sourcing.
the “multinational” issue can be solved as well (if anyone cared to solve it)