The college-for-all model isn't working • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by alexeisadeski3 » Wed, Dec 04, 2013, 9:48 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #101

arebop wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The liberal arts mechanism for ordering arguments is democracy! The idea of liberal arts is that their study enables one to participate as a full-fledged member of society. Thinking critically about arguments that concern society requires not just checking the validity but also the soundness of an argument. I suppose you really need some understanding of culture and history to make up your mind about many issues of i…

Re: validity of the argument. In engineering, you learn to discern logical fallacies rather quickly. Insulting your computer (ad hom) won't fix bugs in your programs. Insults in issues of importance to society are the norm, even going to the highest levels. As a lawyer friend told me once: 1. if justice is on your side, argue justice 2. if the law is on your side, argue the law 3. if neither the law nor justice is on…

"When the facts are with you, pound the facts. When the law is with you, pound the law. When neither are with you, pound the table and scream like hell."

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

#122

Post by fiesycal » Wed, Dec 04, 2013, 11:59 AM UTC

SiVal wrote: post #120

fiesycal wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed the corn would be a shortage. But do you think there is a current shortage in STEM fields? A lot of people don't. http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-i...

Thanks for that link. VERY interesting. My impression, subject to change, is that there is a STEM shortage at the bottom (technicians) that rapidly diminishes as you head toward the top (PhDs), where there is a significant surplus. I think we are short technicians, because so many people who would have been happy with two years of technical training and a basic, working class wage after graduation are instead herded…

Yea I'd'd agree that trades jobs/technicians are probably experiencing a slight shortage due to the reasons you said. In Australia trades people can easily clear 100k.

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

#123

Post by crpatino » Wed, Dec 04, 2013, 12:43 PM UTC

roc wrote: post #27

pflats wrote: post #9

"Meanwhile, companies in a range of sectors — manufacturing, construction, healthcare and other STEM fields — report severe skilled labor shortages." Construction and manufacturing have severe labor shortages? I'd love to see a source for that claim. In my neck of the woods, they still haven't recovered from the recession.

Labor shortages have this habit of producing wage spikes for the in-demand employees. Absent such spikes, I'm not sure I would take self-reporting as anything more than gossip or political speech. I would like to see asked, of these people who can't find employees, is how much they've had to increase their salary offers to fill positions. Because my anecdotal experience is that the people who can't fill positions are…

I more or less agree with you, but would like to add into the big picture. This is where economic theory meets really... and falls short.

Salaries cannot be increased ad-infinitum. Even an extraordinary candidate's potential contribution can add so much value, since it is constrained by the way it fits in the business (and ultimately by the market for the product/service your team is helping to provide).

Requirements cannot be decreased arbitrarily either. The relationship between skill and value added is non linear, and may fall rapidly into the negatives below some threshold (it takes more time for a mentor to teach a rookie how to do things than to do things himself, borderline incompetent employees make costly mistakes, etc).

So, we are basically in a situation where a market cannot sustain itself (Paul Graham wrote about this in one of his essays, the example he used is how this same forces drove out the existance of butlers). So, in this sense, I believe shortages of labor are very real.

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

#124

Post by roc » Wed, Dec 04, 2013, 7:08 PM UTC

crpatino wrote: post #123

roc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor shortages have this habit of producing wage spikes for the in-demand employees. Absent such spikes, I'm not sure I would take self-reporting as anything more than gossip or political speech. I would like to see asked, of these people who can't find employees, is how much they've had to increase their salary offers to fill positions. Because my anecdotal experience is that the people who can't fill positions are…

I more or less agree with you, but would like to add into the big picture. This is where economic theory meets really... and falls short. Salaries cannot be increased ad-infinitum. Even an extraordinary candidate's potential contribution can add so much value, since it is constrained by the way it fits in the business (and ultimately by the market for the product/service your team is helping to provide). Requirements…

The experience of the dot com bubble suggests the general shape of how much salaries can increase and requirements decrease. [1]

As we're not remotely approaching either end of that envelope, I'm not too convinced that any hard limits are coming into play.

I mean, we're not talking about whether anyone can hire couriers to write web services for six figures. We're talking about whether employers are willing to hire people with 5 years of experience with Technology X at X% more than their last comparable hire, as opposed to waiting around for the posting-perfect-match outlier with the requested 10 years experience, but who'll accept essentially the same wage as that last 5-years-experience hire.

[1] Much of that might have been arguably unsustainable, but not all. And again, we're talking about degrees and trends: are offers going up at all? Are employers budging on requirements at all?

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

#125

Post by cheesylard » Thu, Dec 05, 2013, 12:25 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #87

MrFoof wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I was you 12 years ago. And it's even worse now.

Wait, really? I was under the impression that a college degree for programmers is less important nowadays.