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The college-for-all model isn't working

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Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#61

Post by [deleted] »

enraged_camel wrote: post #50
Iftheshoefits wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unqualified" by what standard? What makes you think your standards are appropriate for the positions you're offering? And what makes you think your salaries are "very generous?" Lot's of companies think their salary/benefits packages are "very generous" when they're anything but. Without context your post is a giant meaningless assertion. Software developers aren't (typically) stupid. They have a reasonable idea of…

>>"Unqualified" by what standard? What makes you think your standards are appropriate for the positions you're offering? Because we do very rigorous analysis of why successful employees are actually successful. We know what it takes to perform well at each job function. >>And what makes you think your salaries are "very generous?" Lot's of companies think their salary/benefits packages are "very generous" when they'r…

[deleted]

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#62

Post by pc86 »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #54
nsxwolf wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great that you noticed it's an op-ed by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, but, is the college for all model working?

The other option is college for the rich. So it's working better than the alternative.

What about college for those who want a career that demands a degree (realistically, not according to HR)? The discussion here should be about under what circumstances college is meaningful and appropriate, not whether author's world view. If the article is wrong, dispute it with sources.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#63

Post by sounds »

mortenjorck wrote: post #47
ignostic wrote: post #16

It's a joke among engineers that you need to graduate from college so that you can start learning. My college experience (non-technical bachelors) was just a joke, period - high school 2.0. Still, I wouldn't have the good job I do now if I hadn't completed my degree. We keep running into this problem where employers think college degrees are more valuable than they probably are. Part of that is impressed culturally,…

A major benefit of college is a baseline of domain knowledge that will serve you in your professional career, but indeed, that’s also a major benefit of a technical program. The real disconnect is that college is also (or at least is supposed to be, or has traditionally been) a schooling in the liberal arts. Four years spent learning to think critically about society and culture as well as one's area of specializatio…

Yup.

Where the grandparent said "employers think college degrees are more valuable than they probably are," you've highlighted the disconnect between what employers think they're getting from a college grad (certain skills) and what colleges actually do (teach students to think, to learn, to read).

That's not High School 2.0. In fact, High School seems to be the right place for vocational training. It's the pinnacle of state-mandated schooling, and in fact includes vocational requirements. Some schools implement that as wood shop. Others focus so completely on teaching computer skills they become a "magnet school" for that one thing only.

Unskilled work is disappearing and simultaneously employers are demanding more unskilled laborers. The work is disappearing because it's cheaper to have a machine do it flawlessly. The employers don't want skilled labor...labor versus capital all over again.

For a while yet, it may be possible to become really skilled in computing and successfully straddle the divide: make enough money to be comfortable as a skilled laborer. But I think it would be wise for _colleges_ to cross-train all their Science/Engineering students in business.

Colleges (traditionally) focus on the whole person. A person with business skills, connections, and potential funding becomes the new bar for entry. I'm always thankful my professors took the time to do that last part: take us (a team of students) into the real world.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#64

Post by MrFoof »

cheesylard wrote: post #56
cortesoft wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a computer programmer, this really hasn't been my experience. I did not get a degree in a computer related field (have a BA in Philosophy), but have had no problems getting a job. I just showed the work I did for personal projects, and landed a job in weeks. I have since hired many developers, and I only look at education experience if there is nothing else that shows they can do the work. I have hired many people…

As a 19 year old programmer who just dropped out, this eases my anxiety. A lot.

I was you 12 years ago.

The odds are still against you. You will lose opportunities due to credentialism. The best bet is to become better than your peers and be in the top 5% of the talent pool. When you work with someone who really knows their shit, shadow them.

The better bet is to eventually go independent once you know you're more towards the top of the heap. Years ago, a McKinsey subsidiary ultimately ruled me out due to a lack of degree. Nowadays they're a customer and have no problem subcontracting me out, because "I run my own business" and a proven track record is just as sufficient as the degree they otherwise look for.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#65

Post by danudey »

cheesylard wrote: post #56
cortesoft wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a computer programmer, this really hasn't been my experience. I did not get a degree in a computer related field (have a BA in Philosophy), but have had no problems getting a job. I just showed the work I did for personal projects, and landed a job in weeks. I have since hired many developers, and I only look at education experience if there is nothing else that shows they can do the work. I have hired many people…

As a 19 year old programmer who just dropped out, this eases my anxiety. A lot.

As a 31-year-old systems architect and software developer who dropped out of university: I realized that I had to choose between a degree I would enjoy that would be useless in getting me a job, and a degree that I would hate that would be useless in getting me a job. I wasn't cut out for EE or CS, and I didn't have the math marks to get in (and I didn't realize at the time that a lot of my problem was ADD-related). So… I left.

In the end, I lucked my way through a succession of jobs, due in part to the fact that my chosen career, systems admin, doesn't really have a university career path leading to it, so my personal experience was worth as much as anyone else's.

My recommendation: do lots of projects, contribute to open-source, put a bunch of personal projects up on github (and do them right; document them well and write good code), and apply to forward-thinking companies (startups, etc.). Show that you can do the work and no company worth their salt will care too much about how you learned it.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#66

Post by WalterBright »

ignostic wrote: post #16

It's a joke among engineers that you need to graduate from college so that you can start learning. My college experience (non-technical bachelors) was just a joke, period - high school 2.0. Still, I wouldn't have the good job I do now if I hadn't completed my degree. We keep running into this problem where employers think college degrees are more valuable than they probably are. Part of that is impressed culturally,…

> My college experience (non-technical bachelors) was just a joke

I'm sorry for you. My college experience was very valuable to me (not for the diploma, nobody cares about my diploma, least of all me). I learned a great deal about how to solve problems, how to figure out what was important, how to separate truth from crap, how to learn, and the confidence that I can do it.

Caltech's honor system has also been very formative for me and I've applied it since then with considerable success.

The more I hear about other peoples' college experiences, the more I appreciate how lucky I was to wind up at Caltech.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#67

Post by runako »

enraged_camel wrote: post #20
crygin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have skilled labor shortages at the prices they're willing to pay. Every time you hear an employer claim they can't find someone for a position, inquire about the salary they're offering.

This type of bullshit seems to be widely believed on HN. I work in the engineering department of a software company and I'm closely involved with recruitment and interviews. I'll tell you this: the vast majority of people (over 95%) we turn down are unqualified, period. Meaning, we wouldn't hire them even at half the salary level advertised for the position. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what we're willing to…

You're omitting the likelihood that your applicant pool is tainted by compensation that's not inline with what your desired candidates want. (Note: this is not the same as what comp firms tell you is the 85th percentile or whatever.) (I know, you're "generous" for the market, which also claims a talent shortage and may have the same problem.)

But...approaching the edge case, do you think you would see more qualified candidates in your applicant pool if you advertised & offered a $1m/year package for the positions? Have you tried advertising the positions at double (or triple) the compensation to see if that changes matters? If you didn't test this, how do you know that the applicant pool has nothing to do with what you're willing to pay?

I'm here in Atlanta, and I can cite examples of people leaving for SF because their expected compensation goes up by a triple-digit percentage (sigh, candidates ignore costs but that's a different story). This effect changes the applicant pool in SF, perhaps boosting comp by 100%+ would work for your company locally? Certainly poaching talented employees gets easier when you offer a raise of $100k to join your firm.

Put another way: why would employment be different from other supply/demand markets where price matters, even if the price being asked is potentially distasteful to the buyer (see TSLA, AMZN, TWTR, FB, NYC apartments, or the flavor of your choice)?

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#68

Post by danudey »

nsxwolf wrote: post #34

We're not saving for our kids' college. The oldest is 16 years away, and we believe that college will either be totally unaffordable, or the bubble will have burst and won't exist in its current form. We are focusing on our retirement instead, because we believe it's far better to take care of that and not become a burden on your kids just when they're trying to take care of their own families and retirements.

It's also far more valuable to teach your kids to save for their own college. A few years of odd jobs, paper delivery, whatever will make them appreciate that money isn't infinite. My parents didn't (and couldn't) afford to pay for my college, and thanks to that I knew that every year I stayed would be another ten grand in debt I would have to pay off. That led to me leaving university after a pointless year and going into the workforce. As I suspected, it was the best education-related decision I'd made.

That said, be careful. Student loans offices generally make the assumption that parents will contribute towards their kids' education; if the current status quo does remain at that point (and I hope it doesn't) they may find themselves unable to afford college because they'll be told that you'll be paying for half of it.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#69

Post by WalterBright »

mortenjorck wrote: post #47
ignostic wrote: post #16

It's a joke among engineers that you need to graduate from college so that you can start learning. My college experience (non-technical bachelors) was just a joke, period - high school 2.0. Still, I wouldn't have the good job I do now if I hadn't completed my degree. We keep running into this problem where employers think college degrees are more valuable than they probably are. Part of that is impressed culturally,…

A major benefit of college is a baseline of domain knowledge that will serve you in your professional career, but indeed, that’s also a major benefit of a technical program. The real disconnect is that college is also (or at least is supposed to be, or has traditionally been) a schooling in the liberal arts. Four years spent learning to think critically about society and culture as well as one's area of specializatio…

I've always wondered about the reputed benefit of learning to think critically from a liberal arts education.

For example, with engineering, an airplane built from your design flies or does not. There's no pretending it flies when it doesn't. Reality cannot be fooled, so one is forced to learn to think critically.

But with liberal arts, the same person can argue both points of view with equal facility - how does one tell which is correct? What good is being able to criticize without a mechanism for determining the correct way? Or even a better way?

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#70

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

cortesoft wrote: post #52
ignostic wrote: post #16

It's a joke among engineers that you need to graduate from college so that you can start learning. My college experience (non-technical bachelors) was just a joke, period - high school 2.0. Still, I wouldn't have the good job I do now if I hadn't completed my degree. We keep running into this problem where employers think college degrees are more valuable than they probably are. Part of that is impressed culturally,…

As a computer programmer, this really hasn't been my experience. I did not get a degree in a computer related field (have a BA in Philosophy), but have had no problems getting a job. I just showed the work I did for personal projects, and landed a job in weeks. I have since hired many developers, and I only look at education experience if there is nothing else that shows they can do the work. I have hired many people…

My gut tells me that there are a lot of well-regarded programmers with an education in Philosophy.
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