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How many jobs really require college?

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Re: How many jobs really require college?

#281

Post by hueving »

flattire wrote: post #137
matwood wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah, the parent comment basically just described the optimal learning environment for their personality type, and then intentionally or unintentionally ignored the fact that another person's optimal environment may be different from theirs. I've always been naturally inclined to teach things to myself, at my own pace, so online education enabled me to thrive while I would have struggled with conventional schooling s…

Optimal for the majority of people is what I believe the parent was arguing. The vast majority of people are not self motivated and forward thinking enough to learn calculus all by themselves.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#282

Post by jacinda »

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).

It sounds like it might be a tooling issue. I probably couldn't do this with someone over the phone, but I do this kind of thing all the time with remote colleagues using a screen share.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#283

Post by aphextron »

Neliquat wrote: post #278
aphextron wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That insecurity can really cripple your career. I struggled with it daily as a self taught developer working at a large company. I eventually dropped out of the workforce and went back to school because of it. I feel pretty awkward now as a 30 something in class with freshman, but the satisfaction and confidence of having that piece of paper seems worth it to me.

Just realizing the paper is not the change might be a cheaper solution to what amounts to a psychologocal issue.

Well, "just the paper" isn't really all of it. Since I've started going back to school and learning the fundamental maths and science that I missed out on, I've come to understand how ignorant I am to practically everything. If I had just kept going the path I was on as a web developer, I feel like I would have ended up with a career as a specialized technician, which is something I really don't want. Learning just calculus and basic physics is really blowing my mind and opening me up to completely new ways of thinking.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#284

Post by YCode »

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.

> 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.

I'm not sure this is the case. A lot of employers probably just require a degree because they get so many applicants and it serves as a lazy filter.

On a practical level it also shows that a given applicant has the tenacity to power through a long term plan and come out successful.

Supposedly a degree is also signal of critical thinking, but this has not been my experience with people at all.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#285

Post by quanticle »

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…

You can't teach people, you can't train people, you can't show anything over a phone or a chat.

I'm going to challenge that. If you need direct, synchronous, face-to-face communication in order to teach or train, I have to question the quality of your documentation. I would also question whether the people with whom you are engaging in direct face-to-face communication are being trained adequately. For many people, verbal communication isn't the most effective way of teaching. They would rather have a written document that they can refer to, over and over again, as they learn whatever it is they need to do.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#286

Post by arcticbull »

hueving wrote: post #281
flattire wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the parent comment basically just described the optimal learning environment for their personality type, and then intentionally or unintentionally ignored the fact that another person's optimal environment may be different from theirs. I've always been naturally inclined to teach things to myself, at my own pace, so online education enabled me to thrive while I would have struggled with conventional schooling s…

Optimal for the majority of people is what I believe the parent was arguing. The vast majority of people are not self motivated and forward thinking enough to learn calculus all by themselves.

Fundamentals like Calculus are difficult because they're almost never presented in the context of a problem a person wants to solve. I had a difficult time feeling motivated until I picked up something I wanted to achieve, saw course material as tools to get there, then all of a sudden it was a very different matter. Math isn't fun by itself IMO, but using it to solve problems I actually want to solve is a lot of fun (even the fundamentals).

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#288

Post by icebraining »

kmicklas wrote: post #203
iamdave wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you're the one who made the claim, and I've already stated I am just now reading the article, yes-in fact I am. And let me offer some context for you here for a second: I am a black man. And there are elements of the black community that deserves some critique from within the black community, but is labelled prima facie as "racist" by individuals engaging in what I've learned to call "performative wokeness" w…

> If you're going to "push back", there should be a reasonable expectation of resistance from people who want an honest, earnest and intelligent debate. Otherwise, IMO you're just putting on performances. I'd like to think it's more like venting than performance, but fair criticism, and thanks for the thoughtful response. Intelligent debate just doesn't sound like fun when so much of the HN crowd is like the guy from…

Intelligent debate can't happen if people don't actually, you know, debate.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#289

Post by pzone »

noonespecial wrote: post #51
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…

>You're giving too much credit to students, they don't know what is best for them. This $100k will be exploited in some way by profit-seeking companies before you have a second to glance back at the money. Like the near limitless non-dischargeable loans those same students are able to take right now? At least after it was taken by those same bad actors that are taking it right now, they wouldn't have to spend the res…

1) Those loans are offered mainly to 18-22 year olds, not 13 year olds

2) Subsidized loans are far less prone to moral hazard than handing out large vouchers to everyone.

3) Yes there are already bad actors exploiting students with federal benefits. We don't want to make it any worse.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#290

Post by malandrew »

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…

We really need to start asking ourselves why this dichotomy exists where some people can succeed without structure and some require it. Near as I can tell a lot of the reason many people require structure is because most primary education is geared towards making students subservient and dependent upon structure. We need to rethink primary education so more people grow up not requiring structure to learn. Near as I can tell, systems such as Montessori do a decent job achieving this educational goal, but I'm sure it's not the only approach out there that can achieve this.
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