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How many jobs really require college?

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Re: How many jobs really require college?

#221

Post by scotty79 »

andrewvc wrote: post #218
scotty79 wrote: post #213

From my experience college is not so much about actual knowledge acquired but mostly about learning to learn and think. I could have studied civil engineering instead of CS and be exactly as good software developer as I am, maybe even better. Is college absolutely necessary to perform some jobs? Probably not. But I think I'd benefit if my hairdresser or tailor (I don't actually use services of any of those) attended…

That's totally confirmation bias. Smart people are more likely to go to college. Almost everyone becomes wiser between the ages of 18 to 22. Why are you so sure that college is causative here? I don't doubt that college is where many people grow up more intellectually, but I have yet to see proof that it is the cause of that growth.

> I don't doubt that college is where many people grow up more intellectually, but I have yet to see proof that it is the cause of that growth.

I can agree that it's not the sole cause. But I really have trouble believing that being exercised and lectured about the stuff you knew nothing about every working day and being strongly challenged at least semiannually has no effect on people.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#222

Post by dogma1138 »

matwood wrote: post #83
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 you're really pointing out is that people are different. Some need more structure than others. For whatever reason, I'm a pretty motivated person. Remote work is great for me because any time I can save is more time I have to do the list of things I want to get done that day. My wife OTOH, requires structure. She's smart and works hard, but if she was left to work at home she would procrastinate until the 11th h…

Remote doesn't work very well when team effort is required compounded by processes that do not work well when there isn't a shared work space.

For PSOs for example remote works perfectly well since in many cases it's mainly individual work and even when a project requires a team the workstreams are individual and often independent.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#223

Post by rnd33 »

Zak wrote: post #77

College degrees largely serve the social function titles of nobility once did. Having one shows that you have a shared set of experiences and a personal investment in a certain set of values and social norms. Requiring one for many jobs is much more about ensuring applicants belong to the class the employer prefers than any specific education the job requires.

True, but regardless of whether you think that is a good or bad thing it's part of the value of a college degree, and should be included in your calculation when you decide if college is worth it.

I've seen the insecurity of some of my colleges without degrees, almost like they think college is a mystical place where deep and unique knowledge is shared. That insecurity can really cripple your career.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#224

Post by randomdata »

brianwawok wrote: post #50
kazagistar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So I don't know about all fields, but I know about programming. Do you know how much value a high school type person has in writing computer programs for an actual software company? Something fairly negative. Say -$10 an hour or -$50 an hour, based on how much experienced person time they take up and how much damage they do. If you run a small profitable business, even if you could get high schoolers to work for free…

> Do you know how much value a high school type person has in writing computer programs for an actual software company? Something fairly negative.

I highly doubt it is negative. My first development job came when I was still I high school, and I worked on (even sole) projects that were put into useful production for a number of years. While I don't know what kind of revenue my work helped generate, I cannot imagine they made negative amounts of money. It did what was needed, and would have been pretty easy to throw out.

Or maybe you at least need to qualify that statement? I suppose it could see it being true if the student (or anyone of any age, for that matter) has never touched a computer before. I came with programming experience even before starting that job. It is not like programming is particularly difficult to learn.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#226

Post by camgunz »

akuma73 wrote: post #165
camgunz wrote: post #158

Advocates of this general position, whether it's Peter Thiel and "hey don't go to college I'll just pay you" or this author's "hey your job isn't that complicated, you can figure it out in less time for less money", all miss the point of college. The best purpose of college is to make you a reasonable citizen in a democracy. Most Americans voting in elections can't even name the Vice President, let alone articulate w…

I had a different college experience. A degree in computer engineering required very little coursework outside of engineering. Due to human nature, I ended up hanging out with primarily other engineering students. All of the non-academic socializing, in retrospect, was very limited to a narrow college bubble. It was only after I graduated and lived in the real world for a few years that I felt more 'well rounded'. Th…

Yeah I don't have a strong preference about when they're taught. I think college is probably best because the 17-23 age is probably the earliest that most people are equipped to start learning stuff like this, but then again if you can vote when you're 18 maybe it should start a lot earlier.

I think there's too much siloing between, say, STEM majors and Liberal Arts majors. You get Philosophy majors who are pretty good with concepts like confirmation bias (just for example), but super bad when it comes to things like "why is the sky blue" and "just what is the Internet, anyway". Conversely you get engineers who are pretty good programmers or EEs, but really don't understand things like "Affirmative Action isn't racist" or "taxation isn't government theft or class warfare".

I... mostly think high school is useless? I guess it's more accurate to say I think middle school (6-8th grade) should be more like high school, and high school should be a lot more practical, applied learning. If you're interested in cars, do that. If you're interested in chemistry, do that. Do them both at the same time, and do some music too, whatever.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#227

Post by literallycancer »

user5994461 wrote: post #215
chronic331 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any other proof than your single anectdotal evidence? No?

How about you provide proof that it works instead? Prove me that you can have a conversation with someone who's 8+ hours away and sleeping when you are awake. Prove me that you can teach someone over the phone to use a python profiler, knowing he's never used a profiler before. (That's one of the thing I had to do last week).

I hope you don't mean a literal phone? And I talk everyday to people who wake up as much as 6 hours sooner than I do (same timezone, but my sleep schedule is a bit off).

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#228

Post by stonemetal »

yourapostasy wrote: post #156
wsxcde wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being biased by presentism. In an age where robots are cheap and ubiquitous, we won't still hire cleaning ladies (interesting assumption they're still ladies) just because they'll be able to clean under the rug. Instead, home furniture will change so that it becomes easier to clean for robots.

Custodial work like a live-in housekeeper performs covers a very large range of skills I've yet to see successfully automated in a single package. Sorting/pre-treating/running laundry (including identifying dry clean items to set aside), folding and putting up clothes (including setting aside and matching missing items like socks, accessories, etc. ), loading/unloading/put up dishes (including all the kitchen gadgets…

>I've yet to see successfully automated in a single package

Why would it need to be a single package? Is there a point to making the roomba do laundry?

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#229

Post by maccard »

user5994461 wrote: post #199
JDiculous wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

Remote doesn't work. I know, I work remote with people in 4 continents across 6 timezones. It simply doesn't work. You can't teach people, you can't train people, you can't show anything over a phone or a chat. On top of that, as soon as you have different timezones with little to no overlap. You cannot synchronise or work with your colleagues at all. Remote work and remote teams should be limited to people who are a…

> Remote doesn't work

For you. I work in an office where some team members are remote. If something is urgent, you have to consider what's urgent about it. Is it you feel unable to proceed without discussing a topic face to face? If so, you are the problem , not remote work. I'd argue that 99.9% of things people claim are urgent, aren't urgent and could wait 8-10 hours.

Remote work is diffeeent to office work. If you treat asynchronous programming the same as synchronous programming, you're gonna have a bad time. If you design your work and your environment around remote work, it can and does work.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#230

Post by andrewvc »

scotty79 wrote: post #221
andrewvc wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's totally confirmation bias. Smart people are more likely to go to college. Almost everyone becomes wiser between the ages of 18 to 22. Why are you so sure that college is causative here? I don't doubt that college is where many people grow up more intellectually, but I have yet to see proof that it is the cause of that growth.

> I don't doubt that college is where many people grow up more intellectually, but I have yet to see proof that it is the cause of that growth. I can agree that it's not the sole cause. But I really have trouble believing that being exercised and lectured about the stuff you knew nothing about every working day and being strongly challenged at least semiannually has no effect on people.

Well it's not as if people who don't go to college sit about twiddling their thumbs.

There's an argument to be made that people who don't spend those years having their life structured and defined by a university learn other important lessons.

There's particular irony to making the point that college is where you learn to think on HN. Many founders, like Bill Gates, dropped out of college to be hyper focused on their mission.

Rather than thinking of college as a blanket solution for everybody I wish people viewed it as a tool. Some people need it, some people flat out don't.

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