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How many jobs really require college?

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Re: How many jobs really require college?

#291

Post by scotty79 »

andrewvc wrote: post #232
scotty79 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Additionally 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 focu…

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

If I never went to college I'd just play more computer games and probably get a job few years earlier. Jobs are easy so I don't expect them to develop and challenge me anywhere near as much as college did.

> Bill gates dropped out of college to be hyper focused on their mission.

As I said, shame that not everybody has the time or money do go through college. Bill didn't have time.

> Some people need it, some people flat out don't.

You don't exactly need much in life. Not starving and not dying in the cold on the streets is pretty much enough. The thing is that everything is better when people are doing some things they don't really need to do.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#292

Post by maccard »

user5994461 wrote: post #243
maccard wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I never talked about urgent work. I dunno why you are talking about that. You're conflating different topics.

If something isn't urgent, then schedule it.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#293

Post by scotty79 »

nitwit005 wrote: post #233
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…

This kind of thing always sounds like an excuse to me. If learning to think was a thing, surely the content of the course should matter? After all, this argument implies that it's not included in what was taught before university. And why wasn't it taught in high school if it was so important?

> And why wasn't it taught in high school if it was so important?

Sometimes it is taught earlier but that just requires a great teacher and only so few of great teachers want to deal with adolescent youth for disgraceful payment.

College is a good time to start teaching people to think and to learn because it's the first time when most of the young people begin to understand that learning is just for their benefit and nobody else actually cares if they learn anything.

> If learning to think was a thing, surely the content of the course should matter?

It does matter to some degree. Learning to prove mathematical theorems teaches you to think better than analyzing poetry.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#294

Post by maccard »

user5994461 wrote: post #242
maccard wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> prove me that you can have a conversation with someone who is 8+ hours away and sleeping when you are awake? What's the context of the conversation? That's really important. Of course you can't have a conversation with someone who is sleeping. Equally you can't expect a well thought out response from your colleague when you are sitting over their shoulder asking them questions, wheeeas you will get that if you give…

So basically, everything problem comes down to "I have to do the task myself". That sounds dysfunctional to me. What's the point in having co-workers, teams, company if I am on my own for everything? What's gonna happen when I get hit by a bus? What's gonna happen when another guy get hit by a bus and noone knew anything he was doing?

> So basically, everything problem comes down to "I have to do the task myself"

No. Every problem comes down to "there's a problem that needs to be solved".

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#295

Post by tonyedgecombe »

merrywhether wrote: post #138
oldopsguy wrote: post #40

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 t…

Just as a hypothesis: is it possible that the sheer number of people we're putting through increasingly bureaucratic college curricula (do this busywork, now go sit in this room listening to a topic you don't care about for a while, etc) is creating a feedback system that encourages the creation of tedious drudge work since that's what we've "trained" people to be good at? Though I'm not sure which is the chicken and…

Not only have we trained people to be good at it but we have filtered and sorted them based on that.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#296

Post by tonyedgecombe »

branchless wrote: post #57
randomdata wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly, you'll probably not have the financial resources to walk away from the job.

I may be putting words in your mouth but I think you are saying that non-graduates who are not soaked in debt have more choices, and if so I'd agree. Employers want in order of preference: * h1-b - work late or life as you know it ends * big mortgage with family - work late or I ruin your family's life * big university debt - work late or I ruin your life Debt is a tool of control.

My first employer actively encouraged its employees to get into debt (cars, housing, etc). Sadly it took me some time to connect the dots and realise what they were doing.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#297

Post by Const-me »

malthaus wrote: post #113
Const-me wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once worked for a company that aimed to replace investment bankers with their robots. Basically an AI that reads news and other data sources, and gives stock trading advices.

investment banker != trader or investment manager an investment banker typically advises on M&A transactions which is a very human business where your career path is strongly correlated with your social skills and status rather than technical knowledge.

Thanks, good to know

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#298

Post by overgard »

tptacek wrote: post #182
overgard wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, the whole "you care more about this than I do" defense. Glad were back in third grade. I feel so young. Seriously your point is essentially elitism right? You can see that cant you? The only people worth hearing are the ones with the "right" views. Weirdly as an adult, I can recognize that the author has some interesting views on education while also having some (alleged) viewpoints about women I dont share.

I don't think name-calling is making your argument any more persuasive.

I probably got a bit more aggressive than I meant to, but there was no name calling.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#299

Post by randomdata »

amptorn wrote: post #220
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…

> At age 13, give everyone a $100k education voucher. Good lord, how about just give that money to schools ?

Some of the most valuable education one can receive isn't offered at school. If the $100k can be spent freely on education, that becomes quite powerful.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#300

Post by figushki »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #250
figushki wrote: post #167

This sort of article comes up on Hackerrank a lot. Zero research, a spreadsheet, and a prescription to change eduction from the ground up. The author advocates curiosity as a motivator for education, yet he doesn't appear to know anything about professional architecture (certification is complicated and not always tied to education) and doesn't seem to care enough to research it before bloviating. I read his article…

The author also has a huge blind spot for treating the world like it's a computer program where you can just increment everybody's account by $100,000 in education coupons and there will be no taxation effects, bubbles, scams, or opportunity costs. No understanding of economic incentives, no humility about the difficulty of social engineering, no respect for freedom. "Let's require all businesses to hire 14% apprenti…

I'd like to propose a Star Trek test. A lot of people get extremely worked up when sci-fi cooks up something entirely unrealistic, and Hollywood has all manner of advisors on call just to keep fans from jumping down their throats.

People in computer programming professions should extend the same courtesy to the social sciences we expect from Hollywood. There's no reason for Hollywood to care that they're making stuff up, but they have enough shame to care that their imaginary worlds pass the sniff test. Our pronouncements on education, politics, and economics should require us to do the same.

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