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Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

businessinsider.com

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Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#171

Commented on something related in another thread, but it was either Bierce or Shaw who said something along the lines of, "all professions are a conspiracy against the layman." This is distinct from trades and arts, where there is a simple scale of competence. The reason most jobs demand a university degree today is because of the professionalization of management and HR means that the people making hiring decisions…

This is excellently stated and is exactly the macro-dynamic across much of mega-business in corporate America.

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#172

A college degree is not some terminal credential to make you into a coding cubicle robot the rest of your life. It goes more towards helping you be a more well-rounded person, for the short time in your life while you are more than just profit to the machine. US execs aren't helping anybody out when they push this anti-college garbage.

> US execs aren't helping anybody out when they push this anti-college garbage.

Exactly - how many employees has Apple hired who don'5 have college degrees and are working on something essential?

I do believe that the US corporates do this to convince graduates that their college education isn't that valuable so that they would be more willing to work for less.

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#173
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> funnel into QA That is, the lowest paying and least respected "tech" jobs in the company.

I agree that QA typically don't get the prestige of development. But at my job we happen to have some QA people that are worth their weight in gold. And that is generally understood and respected by the dev teams here.

Ask them what they get paid vs. the developers.

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#174

I have a college degree and I value it a lot. I learned a lot there, not just theory but overall a mindset how to learn, analyse things. You cannot say that a college degree is priceless of course at the same time you cannot say that those without it cannot do anything. It just depends on what a person wants, for me learning was actually fun.

I don't know where you went to college, but I learned nothing about how to learn. How exactly did you do this? College for me was 4 years of remembering exactly what was taught and then taking tests on it.

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#175
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not the same thing but maybe a compromise due to the scale involved: you can work your way up from the Apple Store into corporate without a college degree. “Geniuses” funnel into QA mostly while “Creatives” funnel into marketing and design. We did hire many, many interns too when I was there but they were from college programs.

> funnel into QA That is, the lowest paying and least respected "tech" jobs in the company.

1) QA at Apple can work their way into regular Engineering roles too.

2) The delta in salaries isn't much since Apple doesn't pay their engineers much compared to other companies in the valley in the first place.

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a former senior software engineer at Apple and I do not have a degree.

I'm a senior software develop & architect with two degrees. Does that make me over qualified for Apple software jobs?

It does not make you overqualified but you would still have to pass the technical interview ;)

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#179

That's pretty much the meme material :) https://i.redd.it/3j2yogn12cwz.png

Off topic, but why are you the rare user I cannot downvote? Everyone else has a double triangle next to the username.

Edit: actually there are many in just this thread. Bizarre.

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