Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If You’re So Damn Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

activevoice.charlesbivona.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 152 posts

Re: If You’re So Damn Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

#111

Post by run4yourlives »

dstorrs wrote: post #88
run4yourlives wrote: post #42

I'm 35. I'll try not to be too critical. Moral of the story: Being educated doesn't say anything about you being smart. Here's the rub. A college degree is a specialization. That's why you "major" in something. It was never designed to be an extension of high school. So, you should get a degree in something that you are both passionate about and also accept the limited career paths that come with that particular pass…

Personally, I have a BA in English with a minor in CS. Except for my first year out of college (performance analyst at a pension consulting firm -- I had applied to their computer department!), I've spent my entire career in computers. I've ticked most of the boxes -- coding, junior DBA work, junior sysadmin work, spec / doc writing, system architect, team lead, Director of Programming, and now Co-Founder. I am incre…

Be very careful though that you don't misinterpret what I said to mean that there is no value whatsoever in your English major. While over the course of a career you may draw on that experience - the same way, for example I draw on my military experience - more than anything else, what got you employed in this field was your CS minor, and what keeps you employed is your wealth of experience.

Being a good communicator is a bonus, but - sadly perhaps - I've never seen anyone get hired for their communications skills alone.

Re: If You’re So Damn Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

#112

Post by jseliger »

starkfist wrote: post #70
run4yourlives wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Smart people" evaluate this prior to spending 4-5 years and a shitload of money trying to obtain a "Masters in Humanities".

Does it really take this long to get a "Master's in Humanities?" It only takes 3 years to get a law degree. FWIW, my sister has what effectively has a "master's in humanities." It took her 18 months and she makes 6 figs working at some sort of think tank in DC, so I think the individual matters a lot more than the degree...

Most M.A.s in humanities disciplines take two years, although many students stretch it to three; PhDs take somewhere between five and ten. Ten is the median for English PhDs and many others these days, according to Louis Menand in The Marketplace of Ideas (http://www.amazon.com/Marketplace-Ideas-Resistance-American-...):

"People who received their PhDs in English between 1982 and 1985 had a median time to degree of ten years. A third of them took more than eleven years to finish, and the median age at the time of completion [BREAK] was thirty-five. By 1995, 53 percent of those with PhDs that had been awarded ten to fifteen years earlier had tenure; another 5 percent were in tenure-track positions. This means that about two fifths of English PhDs were effectively out of the profession as it is usually understood (146).

He goes on:

"It was plain that [by the 1980s] the supply curve had completely lost touch with the demand curve in American academic life" (147), at least as far as PhDs are concerned.

The point about careers in "humanities" are well taken.

I think the OP's sister has taken a really unusual route.

Re: If You’re So Damn Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

#113

Post by ergo98 »

amohr wrote: post #99
ergo98 wrote: post #63

While I think this story is largely fictitious, when someone argues that they're downtrodden and victimized because they sound smart -- in verbal or written form -- they're often missing the forest for the trees. Unless you're debating esoterica of a specialized domain, the smartest people manage to communicate in a simple, effective manner(1). The person accused of using too many syllables, in contrast, tends to be…

I know it's hard to believe, but there are people who legitimately enjoy finding the exact right word. This is like trashing someone for working on an open source project - they're just doing something they love the best they know how. In this case it's not strategically optimal and finding that out was a (perhaps overdue) shock.

>I know it's hard to believe, but there are people who legitimately enjoy finding the exact right word.

Absolutely. There is an appropriate time and a place for such an exercise, however, and having the cognizance of when and where is useful.

>This is like trashing someone for working on an open source project - they're just doing something they love the best they know how.

I don't think it's anything like that. The submission is about a person who had purportedly been sending out thousands of resumes with nary a bite. Their angle is not "Clearly I'm doing it wrong", but they instead resort to the tried and true "everyone but me is stupid" angle. I don't patronize that thought process because it's the hubris of failure.

Re: If You’re So Damn Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

#114

Post by starkfist »

jseliger wrote: post #112
starkfist wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it really take this long to get a "Master's in Humanities?" It only takes 3 years to get a law degree. FWIW, my sister has what effectively has a "master's in humanities." It took her 18 months and she makes 6 figs working at some sort of think tank in DC, so I think the individual matters a lot more than the degree...

Most M.A.s in humanities disciplines take two years, although many students stretch it to three; PhDs take somewhere between five and ten. Ten is the median for English PhDs and many others these days, according to Louis Menand in The Marketplace of Ideas ( http://www.amazon.com/Marketplace-Ideas-Resistance-American-... ): "People who received their PhDs in English between 1982 and 1985 had a median time to degree of…

"I think the OP's sister has taken a really unusual route."

Maybe that's true, but for positions like the one she's in, the educational background tends towards the humanities, not towards STEM degrees.

Also, I always assumed that English PhDs take forever because people do it part-time, which is usually not an option with STEM degrees (although is often an option in CS).

Re: If You’re So Damn Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

#115

Post by chegra »

edw519 wrote: post #6

Let's see now... You took bad advice from the wrong person. You dumbed yourself down. You played the role of some other person, not yourself. You played someone else's game without expressing what you were really thinking. You settled for an inappropriate job. You're bored to death and wasting time in a dead end job for 6 months now. And you call that "Damn Smart"? [EDIT: The only smart thing you did (following up wi…

I think he was doing a bit of exploration in terms of strategy for how he would proceed with his life.

One of the questions that he was trying to answer, I would estimate, is whether it is advantageous to "dump oneself down"

Jay-z talks about it in his song moment of clarity. "I dumb down for my audience And double my dollars"

So, I don't think it's about being smart rather than trying something new and seeing first hand the result. And of course, writing about the experience so we can all learn from it[that's if it is in fact true].

Re: If You’re So Damn Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

#117

Post by [deleted] »

jbooth wrote: post #74
shadowfox wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That response didnt make much sense to me :(

Who's smarter? Money manager guy who does a good job of getting paid in a system that is universally regarded as broken and overpaying everyone involved to do a crappy job, or the professor who reinvents some area of science but only makes 90k? Depends on your definition of smart.

[deleted]

Re: If You’re So Damn Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

#118

Post by sharpn »

run4yourlives wrote: post #111
dstorrs wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I have a BA in English with a minor in CS. Except for my first year out of college (performance analyst at a pension consulting firm -- I had applied to their computer department!), I've spent my entire career in computers. I've ticked most of the boxes -- coding, junior DBA work, junior sysadmin work, spec / doc writing, system architect, team lead, Director of Programming, and now Co-Founder. I am incre…

Be very careful though that you don't misinterpret what I said to mean that there is no value whatsoever in your English major. While over the course of a career you may draw on that experience - the same way, for example I draw on my military experience - more than anything else, what got you employed in this field was your CS minor, and what keeps you employed is your wealth of experience. Being a good communicator…

You've really never seen anyone hired primarily for their communication skills?

Re: If You’re So Damn Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

#119

Post by run4yourlives »

sharpn wrote: post #118
run4yourlives wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be very careful though that you don't misinterpret what I said to mean that there is no value whatsoever in your English major. While over the course of a career you may draw on that experience - the same way, for example I draw on my military experience - more than anything else, what got you employed in this field was your CS minor, and what keeps you employed is your wealth of experience. Being a good communicator…

You've really never seen anyone hired primarily for their communication skills?

Not without any other relevant experience to speak of, no. I've seen good communicators beat out poor communicators, but there is almost always something else that makes them attractive to the employer as well.

Re: If You’re So Damn Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

#120

Post by sliverstorm »

Ardit20 wrote: post #100
sliverstorm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because #666666 is the color of The Beast.

and it is not optimal contrast with the white background, nor black for that matter.

Ah, but it is even less optimal with a background of #777777
Post reply on HN