How many jobs really require college? • Hacker News Board

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#31

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

kazagistar wrote: post #18

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…

Aren't apprenticeship contracts functionally slavery? You think free money will be abused, but this won't be?

Graft is a constant in human endeavors. It's like a scaling problem, you deal with it as it presents itself.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#32

Post by gremlinsinc » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:56 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.

I'm a web developer, self-taught, some college, but no degree. Teaching myself ML now, so someday I can code AI -- pretty sure I'll keep teaching myself into a career without college, until all jobs are obsolete and we live in a post-scarcity society.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#33

Post by phkahler » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:56 PM UTC

JDiculous wrote: post #24

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".

OK, lets change it to "remote work doesn't work for everyone". There are plenty of cases where it didn't work too.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#34

Post by k__ » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:57 PM UTC

JDiculous wrote: post #24

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".

I have the feeling remote works only for people who have an intrinsic motivation to be good at what they do.

I met a whole bunch of people who want to be a dev because it pays well. Most of them need constant supervision.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#35

Post by astrodev » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:58 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…

What makes you think that you would have done better in a brick-and-mortar programme?

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#36

Post by amelius » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:58 PM UTC

The author risks to make mistakes related to the Dunning-Kruger effect [1].

Quote:

> The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is. Psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive incapacity, on the part of those with low ability, to recognize their ineptitude and evaluate their competence accurately. Their research also suggests corollaries: high-ability individuals may underestimate their relative competence and may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#37

Post by IAmGraydon » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:58 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.

Not quite. Some medical jobs could be among the first to be in jeopardy, for example. I believe those will be replaced before some very simple, low wage jobs like tech support in a call center.

Why is this? Because many medical jobs consist of looking at information, making a diagnosis, and suggesting the course of action most likely to work. This is something that machines excel at. Many medical professionals never even communicate directly with the patient, leaving that to the doctor, while they assist the doctor with diagnosis behind the scenes. Take a radiologist, for example.

On the other hand, a call center employee must be able to communicate in real time with a human at conversation level. That is doable by AI, but is much more difficult, and requires something closer to AGI.

So the jobs that will be replaced first have nothing to do with education. They have to do with jobs which are reliant upon pattern recognition and information analysis. Those will go first, and some of them are very high paying and require quite a lot of education.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#38

Post by woogiewonka » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:58 PM UTC

I am 100% convinced that colleges were created for good reasons but were quickly exploited for profit. Today's version of college is designed to empty savings in the maximum way possible. I can't think of too many professions that require the general education requirements that colleges claim you need. I'd say most if not all professions can be learned through training and on the job practice. Take nursing for example. Today's nurses have to write countless nonsense papers that have nothing to do with improving their knowledge. Dental Technician can do their job without prior education yet many are swindled into a technical program. They say designers need formal education to be taught human computer interaction, color theory etc yet here providing for myself and family with less than 8 months of self-taught reading. One time I wanted to check out a Standford online course to see what designers learn there and was blown away by the uselessness of that information. Pardon the typos, I'm on mobile with whacky autocorrect.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#39

Post by overgard » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 3:59 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…

> Can you really expect high school students to perform well in online classes? The most elite companies in the valley have correctly found out that remote doesn't work... and yet we're going to do remote with our students? I took online classes when I went back to complete college at an older age... it was the worst mistake of my life

I think this really depends on the person. I learned coding on my own as a teenager off the internet, I was entirely employable at 19, so I think its totally reasonable for this setup to work... if the kid is interested in the subject. Thats really the unspoken weakness of modern education -- we feed kids into an environment that resembles a prison, stamp out their natural curiosity about what adults actually do, and then act surprised that our glorified state run day-cares have taught the children nothing.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#40

Post by oldopsguy » Sat, Apr 15, 2017, 4:00 PM UTC

The author makes a lot of great points here but I took issue with this sentence:

All jobs that currently require a degree, should instead require a knowledge test. The employer should not care how the knowledge was obtained, just that the applicant has the knowledge.

I would argue that the degree does provide some value beyond what can be easily tested in an interview setting. I'm not sure if it is the only way but the type of person who completes a degree is the type of person who is able to sit down and start a difficult task and complete it. Often these tasks are not directly related to what the student is passionate about, and sometimes not even necessary without taking into consideration the bigger picture of a multi-year program. In my experience dealing with the drudgery of the tedious day-to-day of most white-collar jobs, this college education degree provides a coarse litmus test for the type of person who will thrive in this environment. A person who will do things well and thorough for their own sake and deal with the bullshit.