Hackers are some of the most meritocratic and egalitarian people I know, but sometimes I sense a sort of backlash against our peers who went to so-called 'name-brand' colleges by those, like the vast majority of us, who went to non-luxury colleges. Do you see this as well in your workplace? If so, please discuss reasons you think this might be happening. How much differently do you treat people based on where they went to college? Thanks!
Ask HN: Is there a bias against hackers from 'name-brand' colleges?
1–10 of 20 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is there a bias against hackers from 'name-brand' colleges?
#2There's jealousy sometimes, but ultimately if you've got skill commensurate (or better) with the name brand of your degree, it's not a problem at all. Most people are cool. If you're an arrogant ass, you'll get treated like one. If you got hired by management based on your school, but you can't code very well, people will look down on you.
Actually, the broader backlash by far seems to be from some self-taught hackers against people who've gone to school for computer science. There seems to be this idea out there that a computer science program is worthless for becoming a good hacker. For crappy programs, this is true. For great ones, it couldn't be further from the truth.
Anyway, do expect some people to try to test you though and embarrass you if they can. Of course, those people probably would have tried no matter where you went to school.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a bias against hackers from 'name-brand' colleges?
#3There's jealousy sometimes, but ultimately if you've got skill commensurate (or better) with the name brand of your degree, it's not a problem at all. Most people are cool. If you're an arrogant ass, you'll get treated like one. If you got hired by management based on your school, but you can't code very well, people will look down on you. Actually, the broader backlash by far seems to be from some self-taught hacker…
thanks for the quick reply! i'm curious about your statement about "skill commensurate with the name brand of your degree" ... does that imply that certain people are held to a higher standard due to where they went to college? that seems unfair both to those people (who have unreasonably elevated expectations) and to everyone else (who have lowered expectations since they don't have a name-brand diploma). if 2 people are in the same position at the same company receiving the same pay (working as peers), shouldn't others expect something similar from them regardless of their degrees?
Re: Ask HN: Is there a bias against hackers from 'name-brand' colleges?
#4Hopefully I know enough about a co-worker's skills to form a good opinion of them before I find out what college they went to. If you bring it up in our first conversation, I'm going to wonder why.
On the other hand, if you went to grad school, research is such a small world that this kind of thing comes up more often - I might ask who your advisor was, etc, to find out whether we have friends in common. It's less about skills.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a bias against hackers from 'name-brand' colleges?
#5There's jealousy sometimes, but ultimately if you've got skill commensurate (or better) with the name brand of your degree, it's not a problem at all. Most people are cool. If you're an arrogant ass, you'll get treated like one. If you got hired by management based on your school, but you can't code very well, people will look down on you. Actually, the broader backlash by far seems to be from some self-taught hacker…
thanks for the quick reply! i'm curious about your statement about "skill commensurate with the name brand of your degree" ... does that imply that certain people are held to a higher standard due to where they went to college? that seems unfair both to those people (who have unreasonably elevated expectations) and to everyone else (who have lowered expectations since they don't have a name-brand diploma). if 2 peopl…
does that imply that certain people are held to a higher standard [with unreasonably elevated expectations] due to where they went to college?
In my experience it's true. Do I think it's unfair? Probably exactly as unfair as giving preference to someone during the hiring process because of where they went to school. Equal and opposite "unfairness." :)
Re: Ask HN: Is there a bias against hackers from 'name-brand' colleges?
#6"Hackers are some of the most meritocratic and egalitarian people I know..."
Maybe you need to meet some new hackers.
I have never seen this. Ever.
30 years. 90 companies. 1,000,000 lines of code.
Maybe it's just because people who know me know better than to bother with details instead of issues.
Your "pedigree" is a detail. Your work is an issue. Don't waste your time with those who don't know the difference.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a bias against hackers from 'name-brand' colleges?
#7[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Is there a bias against hackers from 'name-brand' colleges?
#8A brand name helps in getting job interviews and it helps open doors. Backlash is very uncommon, unless you are a jerk.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a bias against hackers from 'name-brand' colleges?
#9It's a good question, but tough to answer because its impossible to generalize the behavior of "hackers".
That said, I have heard of backlash against 'name-brand' colleges at a startup, but it was, interestingly, not by hackers but by business dev. people.
I think at the end of the day, you're a jerk if you judge a person by their college. And you're a jerk if you think going to a good college actually means you're inherently more capable than other folks.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a bias against hackers from 'name-brand' colleges?
#10There's jealousy sometimes, but ultimately if you've got skill commensurate (or better) with the name brand of your degree, it's not a problem at all. Most people are cool. If you're an arrogant ass, you'll get treated like one. If you got hired by management based on your school, but you can't code very well, people will look down on you. Actually, the broader backlash by far seems to be from some self-taught hacker…
thanks for the quick reply! i'm curious about your statement about "skill commensurate with the name brand of your degree" ... does that imply that certain people are held to a higher standard due to where they went to college? that seems unfair both to those people (who have unreasonably elevated expectations) and to everyone else (who have lowered expectations since they don't have a name-brand diploma). if 2 peopl…
Is it really unfair to hold someone to a higher standard because they went to a 'good' school? I think part of the way we estimate future performance is by examining past performance, and performing well at a name-brand school should indicate ability to perform well at tasks for which their education prepared them.
On the other hand, doing well at a non-name-brand school doesn't mean another person can't perform well, it just means that you can't predict quite as easily how well they'll do.
If you give an easy exam and everyone scores 90% or better you don't know much more about the person who scored 100% than you do about the person who scored 90%. If, on the other hand, you give an extremely difficult exam that results in a curve with the 90% cut-off at 80% and the 10% cut-off at 20% you know much more about the abilities of those who did well compared to the abilities of those who did poorly. I think people tend to view a name-brand college as a the very tough exam and a non-name-brand college as the easy exam. Whether or not this is a safe assumption is another question.