A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life • Hacker News Board

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#101

Post by rayiner » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 3:22 PM UTC

ghostpepper wrote: post #97

rayiner wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guilds are awful for immigrants and racial minorities, who are often the new entrants excluded by the guilds. Many “Jewish law firms” exist to this day because Jews were excluded from existing WASP law firms.

I’m trying to think of why it would be worse. Is it because skills become less transferable, thus making it harder for an apprentice to move from one master to another? Perhaps that is by design - companies are wary of investing time and money training junior employees because they can just leave before the investment pays for itself? Not sure what the answer is here; just playing devil’s advocate.

It’s because it gives guilds the power to control the pipeline of skilled labor and exclude new entrants to limit supply. Guilds are generally run by their members, and the existing members are much more likely to be white and native born than potential new entrants. Their management structure also makes it more likely that prejudices will be acted upon.

When public unions became a thing in the 1960s and 1970s, they systematically excluded Black people, for example.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#102

Post by blaser-waffle » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 3:22 PM UTC

mjollnir wrote: post #86

stillbourne wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should bring back the guild system. Start a job as an apprentice, mentor with a journeyman, progress your way up, mentor apprentices while learning from others higher up, gain sufficient knowledge to build your masterpiece, graduate as a master in your field, mentor journeymen. Move on.

I'm not sure it went anywhere, because this is a pretty accurate description of the PhD system.

Ph.D's get paid a pittance relative to what they do... and for like 3-5 years.

Apprenticeships for things like plumbers and electricians pay a decent wage interspersed with education.

On the long term a Ph.D may do better than a Master Electrician, but in the short term it's a way better deal. My friend out of HS who started working for Nissan and then Infinity was making 60k+ before he was 21. He's capped at around that much -- like 60-70k -- but most of our high-school friend circle wasn't making that kind of money until our late 20s (and at least one became a teacher, and still doesn't get that much in terms of pure cash comp).

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#103

Post by xwdv » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 3:22 PM UTC

hpkuarg wrote: post #83

ckdarby wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are my opinions being in the industry through various roles as a dev, technical lead, and dev manager. I think there is too much weight put on CS theory but it is valuable if you already have it through a degree. Outside of FAANG and similar unicorn growth kind of companies nearly nobody else needs a new X or a different design of Y. I'd even go as far to say most of the time we don't even need to understand the…

Yeah, 99% of companies that need software developers can (and should) get away with boring CRUD solutions using boring persistence like an RDBMS. You could probably go a little fancier on your choice of language, using a nice functional language like F# versus something like Java.

99% of those companies building boring CRUD solutions don't even need developers. They could just piece something together off the shelf and be done with it. There's tons of products out there.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#104

Post by analog31 » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

itsoktocry wrote: post #8

082349872349872 wrote: post #3

A short (and hence inaccurate) overview of the apprenticeship system for the trades in my country: Apprentices start working one day a week and going to school four. They end up working four days a week and going to school one. Apprentices can switch to a more academic track, at a technical school or university, if they get the desire. When they finish with their apprenticeship, not only do they already have horizont…

> Apprentices start working one day a week and going to school four. They end up working four days a week and going to school one. It's brilliant. And is there any profession that can't be done this way?

Any skilled trade that's highly dependent on outdoor work and physical labor, in the absence of free health care, economic safety net, and strong labor laws.

I've dealt with a lot of trades people, and the ones who are my age (mid 50s) tend to be hobbling and broken. On the other hand I could see it work for things like the "lesser" health care trades such as dental hygienist.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#105

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

game_the0ry wrote: post #69

No one really goes to college and grad school to learn. Higher ed is commoditized as a: * insurance policy, where students use it to avoid limiting themselves to low-status and low-paying careers * lottery ticket, the gateway to a "prestige" career track [1] * status signaling mechanism, where young people flex their educational elitism [2] And higher ed is arguably bad at what its supposed be good at - a delivery me…

Apparently, I'm among the select few who learned things during my college years and actually apply it professionally. Go me.

The fact that most software developer jobs of the present day don't really make use of a college education says more about the profession of software development than the value of getting a degree. Software development is becoming a commoditized, blue collar job that anybody off the street can do and that will have long term impact on the market value of ordinary developers.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#106

Post by bradly » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

hectorr1 wrote: post #4

Most successful people have X. Government: “Let’s give everyone X!” Over time the value of X is diluted, loses its status signaling, and overall quality degrades. Successful people move to Y.

We give everyone in the U.S. high school education and we don't make the claims you make above. Why would higher education be different?

The purpose of free higher ed for all is not to guarantee everyone a good life–it is to try and give everyone an equal chance at a good life. If higher ed is highly correlated to escaping poverty and upward economic mobility, then college costs raising at a rate 11 times faster than average income is a form of classism.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#107

Post by non-entity » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 3:26 PM UTC

qzx_pierri wrote: post #96

It is if you major in STEM (and you apply yourself and get internships, etc) - Majoring in "Eastern Gender Studies" will likely waste 4 years of your life.

Even only a subset of STEM is "useful" from what I've seen. Particularly in the science part there's just so few jobs and such high education requirements.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#108

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 3:27 PM UTC

omginternets wrote: post #30

I barely skimmed the article, but I don't find this surprising for a few reasons (some of which have been mentioned elsewhere in the comments): - "University degree" is a heterogeneous thing. While there is such thing as non-economic value, the strictly economic value of a college education tends to cluster around a small subset of degrees. - Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who g…

[deleted]

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#109

Post by gruez » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 3:27 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #67

hectorr1 wrote: post #4

Most successful people have X. Government: “Let’s give everyone X!” Over time the value of X is diluted, loses its status signaling, and overall quality degrades. Successful people move to Y.

Government: “Let’s give everyone X!” Next government: “Let’s charge everyone for X!” Next government: “Let’s overcharge everyone for X to the point where the price equals or exceeds the value!”

It's sadder than that, because the latter two implies there were some evil mustache twirling decision makers in government who want to cause grief by raising tuition. Instead, it's a combination of good intentions gone awry: the government flooding the marketplace with money by offering student loans to nearly everyone, regardless of probability of payback; and the universities happily soaking that money up by spending increasing amounts of money on "student experience" and athletic programs, in a bid to attract students.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#110

Post by qzx_pierri » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 3:28 PM UTC

organicfigs wrote: post #99

qzx_pierri wrote: post #96

It is if you major in STEM (and you apply yourself and get internships, etc) - Majoring in "Eastern Gender Studies" will likely waste 4 years of your life.

As someone with a STEM degree who enjoyed taking online classes at a CC during their 20s in Art History, I wouldn't call it a waste of time; it's brought me more joy, balance, and a feeling of well-roundedness than I had contributing to os projects.

What about a stable salary?

In all seriousness, I agree with you. However, I think some degrees are borderline "hobby-tier" - They're cool, but not very useful outside of personal enjoyment.