How many jobs really require college? • Hacker News Board

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#21

Post by komali2 » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:50 PM UTC

Grustaf wrote: post #9

Very few. I think it's much more a matter of job culture and a bit of red queen (useless arms race) competition that has brought on this situation. Probably with a sprinkling of politicians wanting to be able to say that "in my country 50% of high school students go on to university" when they hob nob at international conferences. In almost all white collar jobs the apprenticeship model would work just fine, but that…

>the most elite companies in the valley have discovered correctly that remote work doesn't work

That's extraordinarily presumptive. Is IBM and a handful of others gods of all things HR? Why? There's conflicting data on both sides of the table, IBM just went with one choice over another. Recently, by the way, so we don't even know it's going to work. Furthermore, there's a strong argument that the move was an easy way to achieve layoffs, which kind of nullifies the "IBM is big and smart and so they switched because remote work doesn't work" argument.

Finally, I'm not even sure some of these companies you're describing as elite (I'm assuming you mean "companies in the bay area we've all heard of that don't do remote work") are universally regarded as elite. And how do you account for the actual bay area giants that do allow for it, such as Google?

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#22

Post by coldtea » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:50 PM UTC

Apreche wrote: post #2

If your job doesn't require college, then pretty soon it won't require a human either. The more brain required the longer you have until a robot or computer can do it better.

You'd be surprised. Some of the last jobs to go will be ones that require human judgement and motor skills but not much in the way of education.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#23

Post by ethanwillis » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:51 PM UTC

pen2l wrote: post #7

I think the author of this post is making the same mistake that a lot of other people (particularly smart folks) make whenever they are thinking about the ills of modern education system and what can be done to improve it. Like Peter Thiel and others, I don't think they understand how and why students are failing in classrooms today. Take for example the author's suggestions on how school systems can be improved: Cre…

Disclaimer: I haven't read the article yet.

However, I wanted to say that my kid sister is in 9th grade and is doing online high school.. It's been a bit more stressful but she's been learning a lot more because she has to actually go through all of the lessons herself each day rather than zoning out in class. All of her grades have improved at least 1 letter grade versus a traditional classroom (and from what I've seen it's not because the work is any easier, it's actually harder and there's a lot more of it).

So, I think that free online high school could definitely work. But also definitely not for everyone

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#24

Post by JDiculous » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:51 PM UTC

pen2l wrote: post #7

I think the author of this post is making the same mistake that a lot of other people (particularly smart folks) make whenever they are thinking about the ills of modern education system and what can be done to improve it. Like Peter Thiel and others, I don't think they understand how and why students are failing in classrooms today. Take for example the author's suggestions on how school systems can be improved: Cre…

> The most elite companies in the valley have correctly found out that remote doesn't work

There are enough companies out there with remote employees and even remotely distributed teams to disprove the assertion that "remote doesn't work".

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#25

Post by jakubp » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:52 PM UTC

nugget wrote: post #4

Apreche wrote: post #2

If your job doesn't require college, then pretty soon it won't require a human either. The more brain required the longer you have until a robot or computer can do it better.

Lots of automation-resistant jobs require "cleverness" which is different than intelligence, and isn't much taught in school anyway.

Can you give a few examples of such jobs, and what consitutes "cleverness" in them? Really curious.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#26

Post by komali2 » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:52 PM UTC

iamacynic wrote: post #10

Apreche wrote: post #2

If your job doesn't require college, then pretty soon it won't require a human either. The more brain required the longer you have until a robot or computer can do it better.

this is a bimodal distribution. my plumber/electrician/mechanic and my investment banker/lawyer aren't going to be replaced by robots any time soon.

Why wouldn't your investment banker be replaced? Most trades are by bots anyway.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#27

Post by NotSammyHagar » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:52 PM UTC

besogno wrote: post #14

The solution is to be long in anti-fragile assets such as bitcoins and gold. If approximately everybody else is getting it wrong about degrees, the economy and the value of its fragile assets, especially paper money, will shrink systematically, while my assets will keep gaining value. In that sense, it is better to encourage most other people to get it wrong. Hence, they should get MORE useless degrees and saddle the…

Come on, bitcoin and gold are very fragile. Look at their huge variation in value over short time frames. A new crypocurrency could arrive to take bitcoins place, also, or govt regulation could make it hard to use in the us or china. There might be an argument for diversifying your investments in these things, but these aren't the certain safe places to put your money for long term.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#28

Post by Gormisdomai » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:52 PM UTC

One of the best things you can support, whether you agree with Bill Gates, or with OP, is investment in making primary education as good as is absolutely possible. The result is:

1) people are smarter and more mature even if they don't go to college 2) people who do go to college are already ready to do great work

If, like OP, you seriously want people to effectively graduate at age 13 you need to put a lot of work into primary education first. I admit, if like Gates, you just want more competent graduates, then it is probably going to be more nuanced.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#29

Post by joefourier » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:53 PM UTC

pen2l wrote: post #7

I think the author of this post is making the same mistake that a lot of other people (particularly smart folks) make whenever they are thinking about the ills of modern education system and what can be done to improve it. Like Peter Thiel and others, I don't think they understand how and why students are failing in classrooms today. Take for example the author's suggestions on how school systems can be improved: Cre…

Perhaps the reason many students require the imposition of an authority is because the educational system does not encourage the development of self-learning skills? From the first year of elementary school onward, students are explicitly told what to learn and when to learn it; even homework assignments are generally just the completion of predetermined exercises. It should come as no surprise that many will then fail with self-directed learning, as they have not practiced the required skills before.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#30

Post by jobu » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:53 PM UTC

College has become little more than an aptitude test for many jobs. If you're willing to grind through the years of studying and financial hardship to get a degree, then you'll probably be able to handle the job.