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Surprising Things About School

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Re: Surprising Things About School

#101

Post by tsumnia »

d0mine wrote: post #96
artimaeis wrote: post #79

> "Nearly everyone recognizes that MOOCs are by and large a failure with ~2% completion rates, but they make us feel good because now it’s the students’ fault not they’re not learning, not the school’s" I understand the context the author is approaching this from - but it discounts the idea that MOOCs can be used the same way we use books. I've utilized about a dozen different MOOCs and I've _never_ completed a singl…

I wonder do MOOCs 2% in absolute numbers exceed the number of students in traditional universities e.g., Coursera had "over 22 millions enrollments" (2014?) http://tdlc.ucsd.edu/about/about-Learning-How-To-Learn.html 2% from several millions is more than the number of students enrolled in any UK universities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_the_Un...

Its a currently studied phenomena (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-10671-7_...)

My personal thought is its the same reason people quit gyms , fail at New Year's Resolutions, or even quit Free-to-Play games. It is difficult to create and maintain habit.

Re: Surprising Things About School

#102

Post by carlmr »

randomdata wrote: post #91
carlmr wrote: post #13

I disagree with #6. I always felt like getting a degree is such a huge waste of time, but I need to jump through this hoop to get a job for which I didn't require much more knowledge than the programming knowledge I had after high school (self-taught). But then again I went to school in Europe with cheap tuition, so time is the biggest investment here.

I find it interesting that you felt that programming had hoops to jump through. It has always seemed like a very accessible career in my experience. I started working as a programmer while I was still in high school and just kept with it. I have yet to meet an employer who has even asked about any particular credentials.

I think this is more my country (Germany) than a thing that's everywhere. I'm working with barely anybody who doesn't have a Master's degree. German employers value credentials a lot.

Re: Surprising Things About School

#103

Post by carlmr »

dpark wrote: post #92
hodl wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think its a humblebrag. I take it as someone who wants to get on and code but the system requires a hoop to be jumped through.

It really is. It's kind of "I'm so awesome that I learned nothing of value in 4 years at a university". Which is a sad waste of time if true.

That's not what I said though. I learned many interesting things, but most of them aren't directly of value to work. I don't regret having studied, I saw a lot of cool stuff. But it's a very long time investment which doesn't lead to an equal ROI in terms of work output if you ask me. It leads to a good ROI mostly in terms of employment offers and salaries, because it has signaling value.

Re: Surprising Things About School

#104

Post by tsumnia »

austenallred wrote: post #57

OP here, also happen to be a YC founder (S17 - https://lambdaschool.com ). Shocked to see this on HN. A lot of people are asking me about number 7: > 7. We had one student on the edge of homelessness, was $400 short on bills and almost had to quit because of that. I personally loaned him the money, and his income moved from $10/hr to $70k+/yr. It only took $400, but he didn’t have anywhere to get that from. Insane. W…

With respect to #15 and 16, how is LambdaSchool not the same AND what happens if your numbers do not go as projected? How will you avoid becoming these points in the future if LambdaSchool does not gain traction?

Re: Surprising Things About School

#105

Post by bsenftner »

watwut wrote: post #70
bsenftner wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note 9 is why I gave up trying to mentor developers. Relevant background: I've held a career that is a dream of high profile projects: game studio owner at age 17, beta developer for original Mac in '83; on Mandelbrot & DeVanney's original Fractal research team, 3D graphics research community during the 80's; engineer on the 3DO and then original PlayStation OS teams; 15 years as a lead game developer of major releas…

What was the "let's see if this person is serious" task?

Something very basic, such as "comment what you're working on so I can help" or "just write me a brief email outlining what you want to learn" or "you are aware learning to be a developer takes more than 2 or 3 months from zero knowledge, right?"

Re: Surprising Things About School

#106

Post by randomdata »

zanny wrote: post #98
randomdata wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Incomes have remained stagnant because of productivity capture, not because of education. Not because of education. The education is simply irrelevant and has no bearing on income. The market doesn't value that output. Nobody goes to the grocery store and pays more for produce that is certified as grown by university educated farmers. Why would they?

General consumers are not the customers of education, employers are. And you can bet your bottom dollar that when HR is hiring at Purdue they take the ag science BS grads over the high school grads. Not necessarily because they know what they are doing, but because they have that option - there is no practical reason to not hire a college graduate for almost any job nowadays because there are so many of them looking…

> you can bet your bottom dollar that when HR is hiring at Purdue they take the ag science BS grads over the high school grads.

And I bet that is true. The person who graduated with a BS in agriculture science is able to complete the BS in agriculture science for the same reason that they will do well in the work place. The fact that the person was selected by the school to enrol in a ag science program means that the person is already determined to be better suited to the workplace the someone of the average population. They were already the best hire before they even enrolled to study agriculture science.

I mean, if you handed a agriculture science BS to a homeless person with a drug addiction, I bet the high school graduate is going to start looking far more appealing in comparison. However, someone who is homeless with a drug addiction problem is going to be immediately escorted off college campus even if he tried to get a degree. The degree isn't the appealing part to employers. It's the type of person who is able to attain a degree.

> there is no practical reason to not hire a college graduate for almost any job nowadays because there are so many of them looking for work at any rate beyond part time minimum wage.

I am not sure what you mean. Only about 30% of the workforce have a college degree. Employers don't have the choice to hire college graduates, even if they wanted to. Although that you say that a large portion of that 30% are struggling to find work is fascinating and, as income is a result of supply and demand, supports that incomes are not rising with attainment.

> Even if their degree is wholly inappropriate for your job, and even if your job has no reason to expect a college degree, just the fact they have one means two things - A. they can put up with rote bullshit while having the choice not to for years, and B. they are almost always indebted and thus are going to be more loyal to the paycheck.

Which is all well and good, but the fact remains that the income bonus isn't showing up in the data. These people are making the same amount as they would have had they not gone to college. They are making more than the drug addicted homeless person, yes, but that is not because of school. They would still be making more than the drug addicted homeless person even without school. And the Bill Gates of the world would still be making more money than you even if school wasn't a thing. Income diversity across the population has been around as long as we have been able to measure income and it was never a result of who went to school and who didn't.

Re: Surprising Things About School

#107

Post by bsenftner »

austenallred wrote: post #63
bsenftner wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note 9 is why I gave up trying to mentor developers. Relevant background: I've held a career that is a dream of high profile projects: game studio owner at age 17, beta developer for original Mac in '83; on Mandelbrot & DeVanney's original Fractal research team, 3D graphics research community during the 80's; engineer on the 3DO and then original PlayStation OS teams; 15 years as a lead game developer of major releas…

You should chat with us. Filtering for interest is important, but is very possible. We have 300+ very motivated students enrolled right now from thousands of interested applicants.

Lambda School - I'll contact your organization... which contact should I use? I can only find prospective student contacts.

Re: Surprising Things About School

#108

Post by austenallred »

bsenftner wrote: post #107
austenallred wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should chat with us. Filtering for interest is important, but is very possible. We have 300+ very motivated students enrolled right now from thousands of interested applicants.

Lambda School - I'll contact your organization... which contact should I use? I can only find prospective student contacts.

careers@lambdaschool.com

Re: Surprising Things About School

#109

Post by fwdpropaganda »

carlmr wrote: post #103
dpark wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is. It's kind of "I'm so awesome that I learned nothing of value in 4 years at a university". Which is a sad waste of time if true.

That's not what I said though. I learned many interesting things, but most of them aren't directly of value to work. I don't regret having studied, I saw a lot of cool stuff. But it's a very long time investment which doesn't lead to an equal ROI in terms of work output if you ask me. It leads to a good ROI mostly in terms of employment offers and salaries, because it has signaling value.

> I learned many interesting things, but most of them aren't directly of value to work.

What did you study, and what do you do for work?

Re: Surprising Things About School

#110

Post by tonyedgecombe »

artimaeis wrote: post #79

> "Nearly everyone recognizes that MOOCs are by and large a failure with ~2% completion rates, but they make us feel good because now it’s the students’ fault not they’re not learning, not the school’s" I understand the context the author is approaching this from - but it discounts the idea that MOOCs can be used the same way we use books. I've utilized about a dozen different MOOCs and I've _never_ completed a singl…

I'm not surprised the drop out rate is so high, it's a reflection of the low cost of entry. I'm not sure it means anything.
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