101–110 of 154 posts
Full article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870351550457614...
Guys, lets all use the Google redirect when we provide massive value to large for profit companies. this query will save lots of time www.google.com/url?url= HN sends thousands of high value users to these corporations each day, and linking to the full version saves us time and brings goodwill to an obtuse online publisher. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&v...
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Steve Yegge says every programmer should be a fast, accurate, touch-typist: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirtiest-little-secret.html I couldn't find his minimum-speed prescription, just now, but he does say 70 words a minute is easily obtainable for anyone with two hands.
Yeah, I disagree with this post a lot. Unless you're typing out Java factories by hand with no IDE support, any speed approaching touch-typing is going to do you fine. 70 words per minute is not necessary.
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You can change degrees fairly easily but, depending on the requirements for your new degree, you may have to fulfill a number of additional requirements. For example, if you are going to a large public university and are in their engineering program studying for an electrical engineering degree, you can switch over to computer science with very little difficulty. However, if you are in the liberal arts college studyi…
If switching from EE to CS is very easy, one or both are being taught wrong.
e.g. "The Berkeley EECS major, offered through the College of Engineering (COE), combines fundamentals of computer science and electrical engineering in one major."
As an Indian student who tried to get through the "system", I can relate to this. I was really into computers and programming in high school, so I decided to go into the engineering stream in the "+2" years (basically, 11th and 12th grades, as opposed to the biology stream, which supposedly preps you for medical school). I remember the parental and peer pressure particularly well: my dad was pretty much opposed to it…
Being an Indian and a former student myself, I can't relate enough to OP's article or to your comment. I took up biology in +2, because my mom insisted it would "lead to more options later" even though I wanted to take up Computer Science (Yes my +2 college had that as an option). But I didn't get to. And I regret that decision even now. I ended up studying something I didn't like in Engineering and didn't get good g…
I don't think there's that much of a difference in the curriculum itself, especially if you're majoring in CS and not SE. Most of the trouble, from what I've seen both in myself and other Indian students who've just come to do their masters here, is because of our attitude towards authority (yes, I'm being stereotypical here, but bear with me.)
For most of my high school education, I'd been accustomed to incompetent - and often sadistic - teachers and so I had a healthy hatred towards them. This carried on even in college, till I realized professors here were genuinely interested in helping students out, and they wouldn't mind me asking them questions, or guidance. I used to remain completely aloof even at my part-time job on campus, which turned out to be a bad idea. Anyway, I wouldn't have mentioned this if I hadn't seen the exact same behavior in many of the people who came here for grad school, so yeah.. treat them as your peers and you'll be fine.
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My impression (and I might be very wrong) is that both Indian and Chinese education is concentrated on memorization rather than understanding. That's why so few people from both countries can solve problems (at least in my work experience). I've interviewed a lot of people in the last 2 years, and I never look at the education level. I only care about your ability to solve problems. We've had people with masters in C…
The ACM ICPC suggests that Asian universities do quite well at programming: http://cm.baylor.edu/ICPCFinalResults2010 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACM_International_Collegiate_Pr...
ACM competitions are in no way indicative of the overall picture. I went to a few of these competitions myself and got my ass kicked by some younger Asian kids. ACM finals represent the top of the top fastest thinking developers you can find. When you have a billion people, you will produce some brilliant ones regardless of how broken the education system is. Plus I bet that
1) Almost none of the finalists went to average schools.
2) All of the finalists practiced solving ACM Archive Problemset day and night (unlike the rest of the students), and probably skipped a lot of the regular classes.
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You can change degrees fairly easily but, depending on the requirements for your new degree, you may have to fulfill a number of additional requirements. For example, if you are going to a large public university and are in their engineering program studying for an electrical engineering degree, you can switch over to computer science with very little difficulty. However, if you are in the liberal arts college studyi…
Another data point here: my first year of studying electrical engineering was almost exactly the same as the freshman year of someone studying any engineering field, and it's common for people to switch majors after one or two semesters. If it's a switch from one branch of engineering to another, it's pretty much effortless. I hear that things are similar in other majors: if you're switching from one major to another…
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This isn't upvoted enough. While the general sentiment of the article is true enough (I suffered an academic path not too different from magic_haze - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2412098 - above), the specific example of the call-centre in question cannot be used as a valid premise. They want " new recruits who can answer questions by phone and email. ", and also in all likelihood want to pay a pittance for th…
Kind of. If the call center started paying dramatically more, it would solve its hiring problems overnight. In fact, customer service quality would go through the roof as IIT grads and extremely smart folk joined. Then Google, IBM, et al in India would be starving for talent. On a micro scale you are correct - the hiring problems are a function of how much they are willing to pay. But that's not really the crux of th…
I think that programming is just at a difficulty level where employers really either have to spend the money, or realize that their business model really isn't viable if it depends on a large supply of competent $36K programmers.
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If switching from EE to CS is very easy, one or both are being taught wrong.
It is my understanding that at top schools like MIT at Berkeley, EE and CS are actually combined into a single undergraduate degree. e.g. "The Berkeley EECS major, offered through the College of Engineering (COE), combines fundamentals of computer science and electrical engineering in one major."
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Can teachers be bribed in US to pass students ? (Just curious)
I teach college in the US. I have never been offered a bribe. In fact, I've never heard of anyone even attempting to offer a bribe. However, I did wimp out once when a student begged me to increase their grade from a D to a C because they needed a minimum GPA to play football. My thought at the time was, "This guy is a prick, but he has absolutely no future in the life of the mind, and college football is probably hi…