Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005) • Hacker News Board

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#21

Post by indiejade » Fri, Jul 10, 2009, 8:46 PM UTC

quizbiz wrote: post #3

mscarborough wrote: post #2

Misleading headline, particularly the quotes. In this article no school said any such thing, only the author in creating an analogy. Synopsis: Business schools outsource their student application web app, said web app has bug that allows students to change GET parameters and see their acceptance status early. Exploit is posted to BusinessWeek forums, and at least some of those students who tried the hack were denied…

Harvard != MIT

The MS&E program I applied to at Stanford University also routed me through ApplyYourself, which I thought seemed like a really deprecated site. But hey, if it's an MS&E program and a bigwig Uni name, who was I to question?

https://app.applyyourself.com/?id=SU-GRAD

All in all, it was an awful, horrible experience (the website application). What a disgrace to supposed prestigious Universities. Not to mention a waste of pompous application fees for many hopefuls.

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#22

Post by pguerin » Fri, Jul 10, 2009, 8:48 PM UTC

hahaha this reminds me of a discussion I just had today with a student at the business school of my university. He was pissed off at the "IT people" because they know nothing about management and never finishes on time their projects. The way he talked to me was as if it was all our fault and that we were simply lazy. He was agressive to me even if he never worked with me and told me to check the "new york" methodology and the "ITIL" best practices for doing IT services. I haven't found them on google, does someone know anything about that?

It's great to live in a world where management loves and respect us! A world where they try to understand what is hard about software development instead of thinking about how much time it takes to "place a button there" :)

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#23

Post by quizbiz » Fri, Jul 10, 2009, 8:49 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #7

"Instead of students studying Literature, Art, History, and Science they would be going through the motions of a scholar while occupying their minds with things that formerly had been learned at a desk as an apprentice in a dreary Victorian counting house." Wow, that may be the best description of the concerns of the MBA I've ever read. I have my MBA and, to this day, I still don't know how I feel about it. Sure, it…

It seems business is very applicable in the real world, making relationships, making the most of them. Why do more academic courses like Economics or Political Science have such a better reputation?

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#24

Post by nopal » Fri, Jul 10, 2009, 8:50 PM UTC

As progressively dumber programmers build progressively more complex systems we will see more of this kind of attempt to paper over coding mistakes with lawyers, sanctions, policies, and laws.

How very true.

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#25

Post by aptimpropriety » Fri, Jul 10, 2009, 9:03 PM UTC

One of the more interesting parts of the college application process (there weren't many) was comparing the websites of top-tier schools. Echoing what the writer said - it's amazing how poor the structure, workflow, security and general design the web systems of these schools with $X-billion endowment are.

MIT stood out as an exception; the rest I dealt with were par at best. Fast forward two years - I now attend an ivy league school with what I would consider a laughable website and data storage system.

"You must close your browser to log out of the system" - I don't even have to probe to know it's bad.

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#26

Post by emzo » Fri, Jul 10, 2009, 9:05 PM UTC

quizbiz wrote: post #23

edw519 wrote: post #7

"Instead of students studying Literature, Art, History, and Science they would be going through the motions of a scholar while occupying their minds with things that formerly had been learned at a desk as an apprentice in a dreary Victorian counting house." Wow, that may be the best description of the concerns of the MBA I've ever read. I have my MBA and, to this day, I still don't know how I feel about it. Sure, it…

It seems business is very applicable in the real world, making relationships, making the most of them. Why do more academic courses like Economics or Political Science have such a better reputation?

I have to agree. Even though I don't like to admit it, maybe my time in higher education would have been better spent studying a business related subject. If you're passionate enough about CS/hacking, there's so much info available online these days, you'll learn just as much by immersing yourself in the hacker communities in your own time as you would have studying for a degree.

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#27

Post by lallysingh » Fri, Jul 10, 2009, 9:26 PM UTC

Huh, if they were disqualifying students for modifying URLs, I wonder how hard it'd be to scan the results for all students applying.

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#28

Post by gaius » Fri, Jul 10, 2009, 9:49 PM UTC

pguerin wrote: post #22

hahaha this reminds me of a discussion I just had today with a student at the business school of my university. He was pissed off at the "IT people" because they know nothing about management and never finishes on time their projects. The way he talked to me was as if it was all our fault and that we were simply lazy. He was agressive to me even if he never worked with me and told me to check the "new york" methodolo…

He's upset that they don't know about his specialist subject, yet is completely ignorant about theirs. And I bet he doesn't get why none of his employees respect him either.

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#29

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 10, 2009, 9:51 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#30

Post by sbt » Fri, Jul 10, 2009, 9:51 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #7

"Instead of students studying Literature, Art, History, and Science they would be going through the motions of a scholar while occupying their minds with things that formerly had been learned at a desk as an apprentice in a dreary Victorian counting house." Wow, that may be the best description of the concerns of the MBA I've ever read. I have my MBA and, to this day, I still don't know how I feel about it. Sure, it…

Sure. I think it's accepted that you go to business school to network with students with rich parents. A friend of mine applying said that if she didn't get into any of the top 5 programs, it wasn't worth going.