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Things They Don't Teach You in School

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Re: Things They Don't Teach You in School

#21

Post by unabst »

onion2k wrote: post #20
unabst wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communication skills are important, but you need to know when to shut the fuck up. That's what's universally important and entirely true. Instructions are never perfect. It's whether you can get the job done anyway, once you know what is being asked of you, which is mostly a one time initiation. Ever see someone repeatedly asking and questioning what is being asked of them? That's someone who is going to struggle for…

Work is no excuse to talk. I understand that there are people who prefer to work in silence, concentrating on nothing but the task at hand, but the suggestion that everyone should be like that is idiotic. There is a wide variety of people in the workplace; we aren't all the same. The idea that office hours should be limited to work and nothing else betrays who we are: living, sociable human beings.

Right. You continue to exemplify my point.

Talkers truly underestimate the bandwidth it takes to engage someone properly, and if you're not engaging someone properly, your presence is just insulting.

If you're in an open office without walls or cubicles, and people kept talking to you, you wouldn't get anything done. Their excuse? That they're living, sociable, human beings. Well, tell that to your boss.

Think of a busy kitchen. People don't talk beyond the signals required to advance workflow. Of course, everyone can chat when they're not busy. But that's also when the business isn't making any money. Restaurants close to take you off the clock.

Think of all the jobs that require focus, like programming and writing. Think of all the jobs that are so much easier with focus, like almost every job.

Of course, if you like to talk, just get a job that requires it. Waiters get to talk while they wait for customers, and get to talk with customers. Journalists, teachers, lawyers, consultants, entertainers.

And my suggestion was to know when to shut up, not that everyone must work in silence. There is a time for communication, and for your presentation skills to shine. It just isn't "whenever I feel sociable because that's who I am, yo". But that's school! Get it?

And all this, they DO NOT TEACH IN SCHOOL.

Re: Things They Don't Teach You in School

#22

Post by 746F7475 »

> Who here is a feminist? (Two, three hands go up, timidly.)

> Wait, let me ask another way around: who here thinks that all people, regardless of gender, have the same rights and should be treated equally? (All hands go up.)

> Congratulations, you are all feminists.

It's too bad that current feminism/SJW movement has so corrupted the feminism "brand" that I do not feel comfortable identifying as one and probably who more hands don't get raised. The definition given doesn't match what currently feminism is about.

Re: Things They Don't Teach You in School

#23

Post by stevetrewick »

unabst wrote: post #8

So I guess this was a comedy piece? Some more serious issues I've noticed: #1. They don't teach you that teachers are paid to put up with you. Employers aren't paid to put up with you. They're paid to fire people who waste their time and interfere with the work that needs to get done. #2. They don't teach you how to not waste people's time. Some of the group activities that force mingling are the worst. Most real wor…

>Most real work does not require communication

This made me roll my eyes. This may apply to whatever you are currently engaged in, I couldn't possibly say, but it is not at all typical. Take a look at [0] which lists occupation types from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Go have a look at the underlying data tables. Now, you can either choose to classify the majority of those as 'not real work' or you can concede that projecting outwards from where you are might not be a good way to reason about the world.

[0] http://www.careerinfonet.org/oview3.asp?id=&level=Overall&no...

Re: Things They Don't Teach You in School

#24

Post by RobertKerans »

unabst wrote: post #21
onion2k wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work is no excuse to talk. I understand that there are people who prefer to work in silence, concentrating on nothing but the task at hand, but the suggestion that everyone should be like that is idiotic. There is a wide variety of people in the workplace; we aren't all the same. The idea that office hours should be limited to work and nothing else betrays who we are: living, sociable human beings.

Right. You continue to exemplify my point. Talkers truly underestimate the bandwidth it takes to engage someone properly, and if you're not engaging someone properly, your presence is just insulting. If you're in an open office without walls or cubicles, and people kept talking to you, you wouldn't get anything done. Their excuse? That they're living, sociable, human beings. Well, tell that to your boss. Think of a b…

Right, sure, knowing when to shut the fuck up is very important. But learning to be good at communication, and learning social skills is brutally important in life. Learning when to speak and when not to speak and how to speak to other people is so important: how are people supposed to learn this if you teach them to just shut up and take orders? If you learn good social skills, you do better in life, and you don't learn social skills by not interacting socially. Also, school is a point in life where there is literally no downside to constantly asking questions, all the time. You even say, teachers are paid to put up with you: well, in that case, make them work!

Re: Things They Don't Teach You in School

#25

Post by x1798DE »

WalterBright wrote: post #12
unabst wrote: post #8

So I guess this was a comedy piece? Some more serious issues I've noticed: #1. They don't teach you that teachers are paid to put up with you. Employers aren't paid to put up with you. They're paid to fire people who waste their time and interfere with the work that needs to get done. #2. They don't teach you how to not waste people's time. Some of the group activities that force mingling are the worst. Most real wor…

> They don't teach you the degree has little value. It's true you can get a degree, even an engineering degree, without learning much of any value. But if you go to college to actually get an education, the degree is simply a side effect. If you avoid the hard classes, do as little as possible, etc., and get a degree but don't be surprised to find out that degree is worthless.

I think you have this exactly backward. Learning during college is a side effect. You are paying for the degree mostly as a costly signal. If you want to learn but don't care about a degree, there are much better and cheaper ways than going to college.

Re: Things They Don't Teach You in School

#26

Post by rubbsdecvik »

746F7475 wrote: post #22

> Who here is a feminist? (Two, three hands go up, timidly.) > Wait, let me ask another way around: who here thinks that all people, regardless of gender, have the same rights and should be treated equally? (All hands go up.) > Congratulations, you are all feminists. It's too bad that current feminism/SJW movement has so corrupted the feminism "brand" that I do not feel comfortable identifying as one and probably who…

> It's too bad that current feminism/SJW movement has so corrupted the feminism "brand"

I've started to think of the SJ movement as analogous to the GNU/GPL movement. From a high level, it's easy to see it as extreme and difficult to identify with, but if you give it some time and thought, you start to see the merits of the argument.

Note, one does not always have to agree to think there are merits. Once I saw SJ advocates in this light, it also became much easier to see that much like the software license debates, there are a spectrum of beliefs; Not all GNU advocates are alike, just like not all SJWs are alike.

> The definition given doesn't match what currently feminism is about.

I have not seen evidence that this has changed. I have, however, seen opinions that I don't agree with, but ultimately stem from that working premise.

Re: Things They Don't Teach You in School

#27

Post by WalterBright »

x1798DE wrote: post #25
WalterBright wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don't teach you the degree has little value. It's true you can get a degree, even an engineering degree, without learning much of any value. But if you go to college to actually get an education, the degree is simply a side effect. If you avoid the hard classes, do as little as possible, etc., and get a degree but don't be surprised to find out that degree is worthless.

I think you have this exactly backward. Learning during college is a side effect. You are paying for the degree mostly as a costly signal. If you want to learn but don't care about a degree, there are much better and cheaper ways than going to college.

> You are paying for the degree mostly as a costly signal.

That's not why I went to college. I went to learn engineering, and I did, and I enjoyed it.

> much better and cheaper ways

In a word, baloney. I got a great deal out of college, far more than I would have with self-study. I know that people claim you can learn math on your own, but I've never encountered one who did. Not in 40 years of working with engineers.

Re: Things They Don't Teach You in School

#28

Post by x1798DE »

WalterBright wrote: post #27
x1798DE wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have this exactly backward. Learning during college is a side effect. You are paying for the degree mostly as a costly signal. If you want to learn but don't care about a degree, there are much better and cheaper ways than going to college.

> You are paying for the degree mostly as a costly signal. That's not why I went to college. I went to learn engineering, and I did, and I enjoyed it. > much better and cheaper ways In a word, baloney. I got a great deal out of college, far more than I would have with self-study. I know that people claim you can learn math on your own, but I've never encountered one who did. Not in 40 years of working with engineers.

> In a word, baloney. I got a great deal out of college, far more than I would have with self-study.

I'm not just saying this off the cuff, there's pretty strong evidence that the thing you are paying for is the signal. Consider anecdotal evidence in terms of what people consider valuable - in many colleges you can walk in to any class without presenting any identification and just start learning, for free. If you asked the Professor if you can sit in on the class even though you are not enrolled in the school, I'm fairly certain a huge majority of them would say yes (I've done it myself for multiple classes at a law school).

> I know that people claim you can learn math on your own, but I've never encountered one who did. Not in 40 years of working with engineers.

There's a huge selection effect there, in that you can learn these things easily (especially now) on your own by using it, but people can learn these things are also generally the people for whom college is easy, so you would expect them all to have learned it in college anyway. See the Wikipedia article on Signalling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_%28economics%29#Job...).

The point is, learning is generally a beneficial side effect of our education system.

Re: Things They Don't Teach You in School

#29

Post by WalterBright »

x1798DE wrote: post #28
WalterBright wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are paying for the degree mostly as a costly signal. That's not why I went to college. I went to learn engineering, and I did, and I enjoyed it. > much better and cheaper ways In a word, baloney. I got a great deal out of college, far more than I would have with self-study. I know that people claim you can learn math on your own, but I've never encountered one who did. Not in 40 years of working with engineers.

> In a word, baloney. I got a great deal out of college, far more than I would have with self-study. I'm not just saying this off the cuff, there's pretty strong evidence that the thing you are paying for is the signal. Consider anecdotal evidence in terms of what people consider valuable - in many colleges you can walk in to any class without presenting any identification and just start learning, for free. If you as…

Sitting in a class is only a small part of the learning that goes on. Most of my learning came from doing the homework, and getting help from my peers, TAs and the professor. None of that was available if I wasn't a paying student. Nobody was going to grade my homework, figure out where I went wrong, and coach me. Nobody was going to guide me in what was important and what wasn't.

> you can learn these things easily

Such people are unicorns. I've never encountered one.

> the thing you are paying for is the signal.

Not what I paid for. I've never worn my class ring, for example. I doubt I could even find my diploma, let alone adorn my office with it. I'm no a unicorn, either, I know a lot of engineers like me, who simply love engineering and thoroughly enjoyed the classes they took, especially the hard ones.

If they were only in it for the degree, they would have done as little as possible. There are students like that. But there are plenty of others.

Re: Things They Don't Teach You in School

#30

Post by 8note »

Radim wrote: post #7
8note wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That looks pretty interesting; I might apply. One question about the non-optional meetings: when are they? If I am in PST, will I have to skip sleep or work to attend?

Lev, our main community liaison, lives in London. We've had students from all over the world though: from Brazil to Europe to India to Japan. So I wouldn't worry about this too much. If the will and the motivation is there, we'll find a time that makes everyone happy.

Alrighty. In that case, I will send in an app. Word2Vec looks both interesting and challenging.
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