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

Overconfident Students, Dubious Employers

insidehighered.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 130 posts

Re: Overconfident Students, Dubious Employers

#21

Post by dozzie »

rootlocus wrote: post #17
dozzie wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're up to a surprise. It's not really that difficult to learn six languages to a level of using them professionally. I've seen it happen. And you overestimate the differences between the runtimes and frameworks. Most of them work in a very similar way to one another.

> You're up to a surprise. That implies I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, which is discourteous. > I've seen it happen. Perhaps we don't use the same definition for "professionally". I meant being "senior" in that field. Of course anyone can learn 6 languages to a certain degree. My original post was supposed to be "I doubt you are senior with 6 languages". > And you overestimate the differences between the…

>> You're up to a surprise.

> That implies I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, which is discourteous.

You yourself first gave and now named that impression.

> I have no idea what your definition of "professionally" is then.

You gave no definition of yours, so don't complain that I don't fit it.

> Just because all VMs have a GC and a JIT doesn't mean they work very similar to one another. Not to mention unmanaged languages.

Then name a dozen of behaviours that each language or runtime has implemented differently from virtually any other, so you need to learn them one by one.

Re: Overconfident Students, Dubious Employers

#22

Post by denzil_correa »

austincheney wrote: post #10

At the current job is the first time I have worked with young college graduates. It is interesting to see that some of the developers are humble and are completely ready for the corporate world while others are the opposite. It really comes down to personality and whether a person's personality has allowed them to practice more and work harder to learn a skill. These people tend to be much better prepared without the…

Dunning-Kruger Effect : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

Re: Overconfident Students, Dubious Employers

#23

Post by Rexxar »

"Proficient" doesn't mean the same thing for the two categories. For example, it probably means:

-> for student : "I will manage to have a job a do it"

-> for employer : "do the job as good as other employees"

So comparison is meaningless.

Re: Overconfident Students, Dubious Employers

#24

Post by gaius »

rootlocus wrote: post #6
araes wrote: post #4

Implied in finishing university is the expectation that you have been taught what you need to make it in the work place. Its part of the social contract. Its what I paid you for right? Naturally, they answer with high confidence in their readiness. People who have worked a long time are in part answering for themselves. They look back at how much they've learned, changed, and developed. How much they had to learn on…

> But, I know 6 other languages, I can learn one more... I doubt you professionally know 6 languages. There's a lot more to learn about the runtime, frameworks and tools of a language than there is syntax.

There's a lot more to learn about the runtime, frameworks and tools of a language than there is syntax

That is true but on the other hand, vast swathes of commercial work boils down to, use a language ultimately derived from ALGOL to process data structures that were in textbooks in the '70s.

All the libraries are ultimately written by people, and people who themselves have used other languages, so variations are pretty minor. The function you need to connect to a DB might be different but I bet the parameters you pass to it are in the order of username then password, in any language. Even Ruby, whose community delights in obscure, meaningless names, has patterns in common with everyone else...

Re: Overconfident Students, Dubious Employers

#25

Post by kartan »

nostrademons wrote: post #3

I'm always a little skeptical of these sorts of surveys because it's hard to tease out what people believe about themselves because it's true vs. what people believe about themselves because it's useful . I remember that when I was a new grad, there was a very large part of myself that held a realistic appraisal of my abilities and was therefore scared shitless about my ability to make it in the working world. I was…

> Confidence only works if you keep up the illusion so thoroughly that it ceases to be an illusion.

This was the same for me as new manager. I was less confident that I let interviewers see. But in the end I got that confidence for real. "Fake it till you make it"

Re: Overconfident Students, Dubious Employers

#26

Post by austincheney »

aianus wrote: post #16
austincheney wrote: post #10

At the current job is the first time I have worked with young college graduates. It is interesting to see that some of the developers are humble and are completely ready for the corporate world while others are the opposite. It really comes down to personality and whether a person's personality has allowed them to practice more and work harder to learn a skill. These people tend to be much better prepared without the…

There are many, many companies outside of SV where a decent fresh grad (maybe with some co-op experience in SV) will be better than the "senior" developers at those companies. Not that the fresh grads are awesome in any absolute sense, but there are so many awful developers out there who made it to "senior" level at their clueless company just because they stuck around for more than a year or two (really, because the…

I wouldn't use the incompetence of others as a safe validation for one's own incompetence starting out.

That is taking a horrid situation, lowering the baseline to compensate, and then filling to the lowered baseline. The result will be worse than the incompetence you already have. The positive resolution is to fire (or move) the incompetent people and change the culture of the team.

Re: Overconfident Students, Dubious Employers

#27

Post by mooreds »

rootlocus wrote: post #6
araes wrote: post #4

Implied in finishing university is the expectation that you have been taught what you need to make it in the work place. Its part of the social contract. Its what I paid you for right? Naturally, they answer with high confidence in their readiness. People who have worked a long time are in part answering for themselves. They look back at how much they've learned, changed, and developed. How much they had to learn on…

> But, I know 6 other languages, I can learn one more... I doubt you professionally know 6 languages. There's a lot more to learn about the runtime, frameworks and tools of a language than there is syntax.

I would feel comfortable delivering production code in:

Php, Java, ruby, python, javascript, SQL, perl, pl/sql, and bash.

And have been paid to write them all over my career.

Not saying I wouldn't need a day or two to brush up on some of them (perl was pretty early in my career), but 6 languages isn't that large a number once you've been around for a decade or two, especially if you consult.

Re: Overconfident Students, Dubious Employers

#28

Post by rootlocus »

dozzie wrote: post #21
rootlocus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're up to a surprise. That implies I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, which is discourteous. > I've seen it happen. Perhaps we don't use the same definition for "professionally". I meant being "senior" in that field. Of course anyone can learn 6 languages to a certain degree. My original post was supposed to be "I doubt you are senior with 6 languages". > And you overestimate the differences between the…

>> You're up to a surprise. > That implies I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, which is discourteous. You yourself first gave and now named that impression. > I have no idea what your definition of "professionally" is then. You gave no definition of yours, so don't complain that I don't fit it. > Just because all VMs have a GC and a JIT doesn't mean they work very similar to one another. Not to mention unmana…

> You gave no definition of yours, so don't complain that I don't fit it.

However, instead of clarifying or asking for clarification, you chose to mildly insult me and use whatever definition you wanted to make your argument.

It would've been pretty silly of me to use a weak definition since that would've weakened my own argument. Also, for what it's worth, according to the hn guidelines:

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Professionally could've meant "in a way that relates to a profession or career." or "in a way that shows skill and experience".

I would argue toying with a language at home and filling the gaps using stackoverflow is not professional.

> Then name a dozen of behaviours that each language or runtime has implemented differently from virtually any other, so you need to learn them one by one.

No. If you don't think there are any or don't know of any, I'm not continuing this "debate".

Re: Overconfident Students, Dubious Employers

#29

Post by austincheney »

watwut wrote: post #14
austincheney wrote: post #10

At the current job is the first time I have worked with young college graduates. It is interesting to see that some of the developers are humble and are completely ready for the corporate world while others are the opposite. It really comes down to personality and whether a person's personality has allowed them to practice more and work harder to learn a skill. These people tend to be much better prepared without the…

Sad prediction: overly confident will have better careers and will be seen as geniuses by people who don't work directly with them. They will have more responsibility sooner and even as they will make mistakes inittially (and some entirely), they will he excused and seen as leaders more then their humble peers. Incentives.

Marissa Mayer - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marissa_Mayer

By all accounts she seemed to be a great product manager, but product management isn't organizational leadership.

Likewise there is Hugh Jones - https://www.sabre.com/insights/releases/hugh-jones-to-head-t...

Hugh Jones was known for tenacious leadership in large volume business operations, but experience in retail and product was limited or absent.

Re: Overconfident Students, Dubious Employers

#30

Post by __s »

austincheney wrote: post #11
borntyping wrote: post #8

This means almost nothing without a baseline to compare it to. I'd suggest it's very likely that you'd get similar results if you surveyed any other age group - that individuals give higher estimates of their ability than someone else would is hardly surprising.

I disagree. There are unique personality traits that qualify the millennial stereotypes which are not present in older age groups. Young people will always believe they are ready for the world if all their elders tell them such no matter that this messaging is baseless and inaccurate. The problem is a level of personal fragility and lack of contrary frame of reference. Fortunately there is a minority population in th…

Kids these days, amirite? https://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical-complain...
Post reply on HN