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Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments

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Re: Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments

#91

Post by stevegalla »

Beldin wrote: post #38
kungito wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't the books be able to teach about "how" as well? I'm from a mediocre country where I went to the best CS college and 99% of the things I learned there was from powerpoint presentations, pdf scripts or books full of math exercises. I still got into FAMANG as my first full time job and so did many other people from there. I just never saw the value in our professors. They mostly repeated stuff from text books,…

As an assistant prof in CS: - books can partially teach you the "how" and also partially the "why". - at university, you are being taught how to teach yourself, not necessarily how to perform practical things. Age of the exercise is therefore less relevant. - ideally, teaching a room full of 50 students is easy better than an online class with 50, which easily should beat a video. Not all classes are like this which…

What is really meant by “being taught how to teach yourself” or “learning to learn”?

Why does this have to be done in a university setting? Is this explicitly conveyed or is this an outcome of going through classes and it’s what it takes to succeed?

Personally, when I was studying at a pretty strong university in terms of global rankings, I didn’t really “learn to learn” from the classes. The most helpful to me was Cal Newport’s blog (from his grad student days), Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange soft questions, hn discussions about learning and studying, and office hours when I explicitly asked Profs how they study, learn, and solve problems.

When I took what I learned from those sources and stopped going to class to instead work through the textbook/course material at my own pace, my grades improved significantly. If I am able to get an “A” without going to class, does that mean the Prof / university successfully taught me the material or whatever lesson(s) were to be learned?

Sorry for the rant, but I feel the default shouldn’t be to go through higher education to learn to learn. (I’m not saying you are saying that.) So, how can these lessons be made available more widely available?

Re: Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments

#92

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

readingnews wrote: post #18

As a professor in a computer science department at a state run university (that has one of the oldest CS departments in the nation), I actually am far more afraid of the book publishers than "big tech". They are going down the road of "who needs uni, just use our text, our online learning aids, our online _courses_"... With each new ad from the textbook publishing company, I see a push to have learners just use their…

Those publishers are so predatory and user-hostile, I wonder if they will actually be able to restrain themselves long enough to establish a market. As it is, very few people are stupid enough to buy a "textbook" that comes with auto-self-destruct DRM that renders it unusable at the end of the semester.

Of course many college kids are just kids fresh out of highschool with no financial skills or haggling skills so I guess I take back what I said about there not being enough dumb-dumbs to fuel a market for DRM "textbooks". People do still take out loans to finance their English major, after all.

Re: Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments

#93

Post by samspenc »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #85
stateprof wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add another anecdote: I'm also a CS professor at a well-known state university. We are free to choose whatever books we want for classes. To the best of my knowledge, these choices are not even reviewed. We are also free to use no textbook and just hand out lecture notes or whatever.

This lack of restriction does lead to the professor using a book they wrote themselves. So to take their class, you need to buy their book as well. I understand why they do that, but it just feels wrong. Obviously there’s some textbooks written by teachers that are quite amazing ( The Art of Electronics for example), but not all are like that.

Just to add, there is a flip side to this. As a grad student who did research and TA work, I've actually discussed this with fellow grad students and professors in the past and it comes down to the following...

A professor would rather spend their time teaching students and finding the best existing book (less expensive if possible, but better quality is more important) so they can use it for teaching.

I'm sure there are professors who have been thinking of writing their own textbook and getting students to buy them ... the downside is apparently writing technical books and textbooks earns less than minimum wage, and that's if you are lucky because of the way revenue split works with textbooks. So they have to charge exorbitant rates on the textbooks to make even a little bit of money. So most professors don't bother and instead use an existing good quality textbook. Not to say there aren't others who would try to write and sell their own.

Re: Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments

#94

Post by alisonkisk »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #65
oblio wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, good luck with that. It's pretty much universal that people appreciate some kinds of work and look down on others.

Mike Rowe did a lot of good work promoting more respect for traditionally looked-down-upon jobs. It is just a matter of changing cultural narrative.

Not really. People look down on jobs that pay less for the cost in work and health.

Re: Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments

#95

Post by alisonkisk »

rmrfstar wrote: post #53
chrisseaton wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there were guest lectures by Microsoft employees Given that MS employs some seriously world-leading computer science academics, isn't this a great thing? I wish I got lectures from people like this!

That's well and good for you. The academy is supposed to be its own free-standing institution with its own values and its own agenda. There are intelligent people who don't want to work with people who build mass surveillance systems, provide IT services to scary government agencies, crush competition, etc. Having Microsoft at a university should be like having ROTC at a university. You can opt in if you want, or avo…

You're far overreaching your definition of academia.

Archimedes worked for the military.

Feynman built an atomic bomb.

Re: Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments

#96

Post by alisonkisk »

vmception wrote: post #16
Judgmentality wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Big Tech largely ignores Tier 2 and Tier 3 schools for on campus recruiting, while imagining that the intelligence community has better developers I don't think the general consensus is that intelligence organizations have better developers than big tech. I think the rule of thumb is the better the pay, the better the quality.

There is a pervasive view that they have scifi technology that someone had to program I think after various leaks that idea did evaporate a lot

Because they had infinite budget, not a few high paid geniuses.

Re: Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments

#97

Post by q-big »

dutchmartin wrote: post #8
blackbear_ wrote: post #2

This is all wrong. The purpose of Universities is to uphold, expand and disseminate human culture, not to prepare people for a career in the industry. Big tech should not be allowed to piggyback on the reputation of educational institutions to push their products and the latest fads at the expense of the fundamentals.

I would argue that universities have two tasks: 1. Do research to expand knowledge. 2. Educate new researchers. Big tech just wants highly skilled researchers in their workforce, but there only N students graduating every year. So it is only logical for them to "help" (can be good or bad) the university so n+m students graduate. But the bad thing is that the push for more education can negativly impact the available…

> Big tech just wants highly skilled researchers in their workforce

Are you really sure that big tech wants these people in their workforce? At least the typical tech job interview process tests for quite different skills.

Re: Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments

#98

Post by scarface74 »

Beldin wrote: post #38
kungito wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't the books be able to teach about "how" as well? I'm from a mediocre country where I went to the best CS college and 99% of the things I learned there was from powerpoint presentations, pdf scripts or books full of math exercises. I still got into FAMANG as my first full time job and so did many other people from there. I just never saw the value in our professors. They mostly repeated stuff from text books,…

As an assistant prof in CS: - books can partially teach you the "how" and also partially the "why". - at university, you are being taught how to teach yourself, not necessarily how to perform practical things. Age of the exercise is therefore less relevant. - ideally, teaching a room full of 50 students is easy better than an online class with 50, which easily should beat a video. Not all classes are like this which…

Most people don’t spend tens of thousands of dollars on education to be better citizen of the world. They want to support their habit of needing food and shelter.

Re: Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments

#99

Post by yoyonamite »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #92
readingnews wrote: post #18

As a professor in a computer science department at a state run university (that has one of the oldest CS departments in the nation), I actually am far more afraid of the book publishers than "big tech". They are going down the road of "who needs uni, just use our text, our online learning aids, our online _courses_"... With each new ad from the textbook publishing company, I see a push to have learners just use their…

Those publishers are so predatory and user-hostile, I wonder if they will actually be able to restrain themselves long enough to establish a market. As it is, very few people are stupid enough to buy a "textbook" that comes with auto-self-destruct DRM that renders it unusable at the end of the semester. Of course many college kids are just kids fresh out of highschool with no financial skills or haggling skills so I…

The auto-self-destruct DRM isn't the textbook, it's the mandatory online quizzes provided by the publishers that require an active login. If you don't pay ~$60+ for the login, which only lasts a semester, you can't take the quizzes. If you can't take the quizzes, you fail the class.

Re: Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments

#100

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

yoyonamite wrote: post #99
jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those publishers are so predatory and user-hostile, I wonder if they will actually be able to restrain themselves long enough to establish a market. As it is, very few people are stupid enough to buy a "textbook" that comes with auto-self-destruct DRM that renders it unusable at the end of the semester. Of course many college kids are just kids fresh out of highschool with no financial skills or haggling skills so I…

The auto-self-destruct DRM isn't the textbook, it's the mandatory online quizzes provided by the publishers that require an active login. If you don't pay ~$60+ for the login, which only lasts a semester, you can't take the quizzes. If you can't take the quizzes, you fail the class.

They make limited access "textbooks" too.
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