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How many jobs really require college?

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Re: How many jobs really require college?

#261

Post by dsfyu404ed »

woodruffw wrote: post #112
overgard wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would counter that the reason we consider ad-hominem bad is because it enables lazy thinkers to avoid the topic at hand and redirect it to something thats a lot easier to criticize. Thats the path of sophistry.

Maybe it does, but that's perhaps not the point. The point, at least in this case, is that the author is counting on being treated as a serious thinker at the table of ideas. He is relying on our good faith to promote ideas that are fundamentally incompatible with the existence of exactly the kind of dialogue he's being given on this site. Do not think, should he win, that he will afford you the same charity. Critici…

so what? Henry ford didn't like the Jews but he sure wasn't an idiot when it came to management.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#262

Post by camgunz »

literallycancer wrote: post #247
camgunz wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 go…

>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". You can't teach opinions. What you can teach is how to talk to people with a differing opinion. Let's take this statement: "Affirmative Action isn't racist" The disagreement probably wouldn't be about affirmative action a…

> You can't teach opinions.

I mean, you can. Basically every parent does this.

> The disagreement probably wouldn't be about affirmative action at all, but rather about the definition of racism and whether both parties define it the same way.

Yeah classes about race in the US define the difference between isolated cases of discrimination and institutional discrimination against a racial minority. They go over the history of racial discrimination in colleges and universities and other public institutions as a method to disenfranchise and disempower minorities. They illustrate that college admissions or job positions aren't zero-sum quantities, and that the state goes to great lengths to increase the capacity of universities and add jobs every day so that there are enough for everyone. Finally, they point out that failing to enact policies to level the playing field entrenches privilege: without something to break the cycle of institutionalized racism (and other institutional discrimination), minority groups remain trapped in a cycle of lower opportunity and higher risk.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#263

Post by aidenn0 »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #256
Spooky23 wrote: post #65

Most do. Most high school graduates can barely string a sentence together in writing, and are more likely to have similar limitations in reading.

"You need to be able to read and write to do this job" is not the same as "You need college to do this job."

But the pool of college graduates who can read and write is much larger than the pool of high school graduates who can read and write.

Considering that requiring interviewees to pass a literacy test may open you up to lawsuits, and that there is a large pool of college grads with no jobs and lots of debt, it's easier to just hire only college grads.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#264

Post by sotojuan »

user5994461 wrote: post #248
dsacco wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conversation about remote work is often very emotionally charged and filled with false dichotomies. I can concede that remote work doesn't work for everyone. I'll even concede that remote work is probably not ideal for most software engineers and the companies that employ them, even in "high tech." But I'm going to draw the line there. The team I work with is entirely distributed, between the east and west coasts…

It's all about time zones. US east to US west is 3 hours. It's fine. When there are people in Europe, Asia, Russia, Australia, it gets a lot harder. The criticism is more about working across time difference than just remote. P.S. Mentoring is always required, unless you only hire the most experienced people you can find. Communication is always required, unless you work on trivial problems. Out of curiosity, what do…

Then saying "remote doesn't work" is unhelpful. How about "remote doesn't work when it's across different continents"?

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#265

Post by yourapostasy »

stonemetal wrote: post #228
yourapostasy wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I want an ever-decreasing number of limited-purpose appliances and devices in my life. Personally, I want to see software and even limited AI (not to speak of general AI) fulfill a personal ideal of mine to deliver increasingly general-purpose devices, using intelligence (whether embedded by design or learned) to drive general-purpose arrangements of atoms.

Initially, we will be forced by circumstance and market to adopt single-purpose robots like the Roomba if we want to avail ourselves of their benefits. But there are so many different tasks that I do not foresee a future of mass adoption of such single-purpose devices; the economics do not support such an outcome unless you imagine a near-future where most of the planet's population is compensated around the current US median household income per year.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#266

Post by bthallplz »

aphextron wrote: post #254

Any "job" does not require a college degree. A "job" is something that anyone can be trained to do. If you think that the purpose of college is to train you for a "job" then you're doing it wrong. The point of college is teach you the underlying fundamentals of how things like language and science work, so that you can extend those rules and use them to create new things and new ideas. You go to college to learn how…

Thank you for sharing this way of thinking about college. I feel like your statement "You go to college to learn how to create value, not get a job" really set things into perspective for me. I'm now really looking forward to taking on the coming week at school (midterm included).

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#267

Post by scythe »

College may improve the bargaining position of laborers vis-a-vis employers. Compare eight apprenticeships which provide the ability to work one job each vs a college which provides the ability to work all eight jobs. If students filter into one of the apprenticeships they're locked in; if they go to college then employers must compete for labor across sectors.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#268

Post by krallja »

Number of births in US per year: 4.24 million

Proposed stipend: $100,000

Budget for proposal: $424B/yr, assuming no overhead (lol)

That's 2.5% of GDP, minimum, which is almost as much as the total non-defense discretionary budget is today.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#269

Post by felipemnoa »

Clubber wrote: post #258
user5994461 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you supposed to onboard people onto a project? with training and teaching. What do you professionals do? They work with other professionals and progress with each other. What do you do with the world class experts you have? Make them work with other world class experts to make the impossible possible. Again, lots of collaboration and interactions needed! For anything non trivial or not explained by a stack ov…

You give them a task, point them to the source code that the task involves and let them figure it out. They can ask questions here and there, but they won't learn unless they are ass deep in the code trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I mean the world was educated through text for over a millennia. It works.

>>I mean the world was educated through text for over a millennia. It works

I would replace text with mentors

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#270

Post by losteric »

ryanSrich wrote: post #164
k__ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This continues to be a discussion point around remote work. This is displaced. You're talking about poor hiring standards. It has literally nothing to do with remote work.

What does any of this have to do with hiring standards? Companies like Google can hire for passion, but most just want competent employees that can consistently fulfill their responsibilities in a happy team while providing positive ROI to the company.

Most people aren't inherently motivated by their jobs, and I'd say this applies even more in office settings. Work is work, "work / life balance" exists because work is the obligation that pays for life. If this is indicative of how America as a whole feels, then this has everything to do with remote work.

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