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Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

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Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#111

Post by zeth___ »

tehlike wrote: post #89
ss2003 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. Having a degree from CC marks you as from the lower class. Upper level and prestigious positions tend to be filled with people just like those already there. There was a good study on this http://www.asanet.org/journals/ASR/Dec12ASRFeature.pdf

But doest it mean lower class is much higher than it'd have been otherwise? That's still a win.

If the last 50 years have taught us anything it's that the middle class will be pushed lower, the lower class will be pushed lower still and the upper class will take all the winnings.

The economy has been a zero sum game for the majority for a very long time, so zero sum game strategies is what they employ.

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#112

Post by swimfar »

moab wrote: post #107
oflannabhra wrote: post #83

My state has a network of community and technical colleges. There is a program that allows one to get their Associates degree through community colleges, then transfer to a state school and continue paying community college tuition. 10 years ago, this allowed for earning an engineering degree for $2k a year, or $8-10k. In my experience, community colleges were very much viewed as remedial. I’d guess that many of the…

I think university experiences are bi-modal. If you're going to an essentially unranked university with very poor professors/a non-existent graduate program, you'd probably be better off going to community college and saving an order of magnitude in tuition. On the other hand if you're going to a, say, top-25 school, the price tag is probably worth it and opens the door to graduate schools and research mentorship tha…

But if you do two years at a community college and then two years at one of your top-25 schools you get the same benefits. It's also generally easier to transfer into a university than it is to get accepted right out of high school.

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#113

Post by garmaine »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #94
garmaine wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

B.Sc. Computer Information Systems, Wahresleben University, 2014. (Wahres Leben = “real life” in German) If they actually check they won’t find the university but they can’t discount the fact it might exist. So HR is more likely to follow up with you then throw your resume out, and you can take that chance to explain you being more to the table than a university graduate.

If one person in the hiring chain knows German, you're out of luck. And more than likely, if they can't find a university, you are probably lying. Universities are big, kinda hard to not be able to find one. You should not lie on your resume, but if you're going to lie, just find a way to make it harder to verify. Presumably the for-profit schools that got shut down in the last few years would be hard to check with.…

The point is if they knew German they’d get the joke... you’re not trying to lie. You’re trying to get past the crazy HR driven mandate that EVERYONE have a 4 year degree, even when it has zero relevance to the job.

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#114

Post by throwawayjava »

dgbarnes wrote: post #37

As someone who's attended a community college both in my undergraduate career and again in preparation for grad school, this is something I think about quite a bit. Overall I'm pretty happy with my experiences studying at community college, and I'm of the mind that for most subjects, you can get a good education there. While I think it might be possible to get a decent education in preparation for a software developm…

I wish I could upvote this a million times.

Your first point is 100% spot on.

Your second point deserves a caveat: CS does mean something at colleges/universities. they almost all follow the ACM model curriculum:

- CS I -> CS II -> Data Structures

- Discrete Math and Calculus I

- A smattering of available electives from a few fairly uniform buckets (SE,DB,OOP; OS,PL; ML/AI; theory,algorithms).

Contents of courses change (true in Math also! Biz Calc vs. Eng Calc vs. Honors/Advanced Calc). But overall shape stays the same. Can't guarantee outcomes, but can guarantee intent.

Unlike colleges/universities, at the national level, CCs have a serious cruft issue in CS/IT. It's totally impossible to tell what someone might know from the name of the degree program alone. Not even overall shape of curriculum is obvious.

IMO there's a simple solution: CCs nation-wide should pare down everything into a few specific named degrees:

1. Associates in CS Foundations: basically ACM without electives. Designed for transfer to a BA/BS.

2. Associates in Software Development: the non-math portion of ACM + some pragmatic courses (e.g., databases and web dev). Can have various version of this marketed as "AS in SD with Emphasis in ___" where ___ is chosen according to local/regional labor market. E.g., most bootcamps are somewhat like "AS in SD with an Emphasis in Web Development using ".

3. Associates in Information Technologies: catch-all for the stuff that doesn't even fulfill the non-math, non-elective portion of the ACM model. So "VBA scripting", "Networking aka CISCO certs", "Database Administrator aka Oracle&MS certs", "Applications aka MS Office+Web publishing", etc. degrees currently offered by CCs. Again, various versions can be marketed as "AS in Information Technologies with Emphasis in ___"

These issues might not be recognizable to folks in states like California with amazing CC systems, but in most of America, just figuring out which of the half dozen similar-sounding "IT/CS" associates degrees you want is a serious problem. And very often the answer is "none" because all gazillion of them fit into bucket #3 and you're really looking for bucket 1 or 2.

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#115

Post by commandlinefan »

ss2003 wrote: post #61
montrose wrote: post #20

If this trend is real it will be really good for social mobility.

I don't think so. Having a degree from CC marks you as from the lower class. Upper level and prestigious positions tend to be filled with people just like those already there. There was a good study on this http://www.asanet.org/journals/ASR/Dec12ASRFeature.pdf

That was my first thought - companies are just looking for people who consider themselves (or can be embarrassed into thinking of themselves) as “lesser” and are willing to accept lower paychecks in return.

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#116

Post by srtjstjsj »

oflannabhra wrote: post #83

My state has a network of community and technical colleges. There is a program that allows one to get their Associates degree through community colleges, then transfer to a state school and continue paying community college tuition. 10 years ago, this allowed for earning an engineering degree for $2k a year, or $8-10k. In my experience, community colleges were very much viewed as remedial. I’d guess that many of the…

Having a "top 5" school grad (even at the bachelors level) teaching at a community college is extremely rare. Your case was not common.

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#117

Post by mixmastamyk »

skookumchuck wrote: post #90
toomuchtodo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your suggestion for OP where their resume is immediately discard because of no education? Networking and meetups won’t get you passed HR filters and corporate requirements. As I mentioned, even if you don’t get the job or lose the job, you’re still ahead of not trying. And you now have experience to put towards your next employer (and your old employer will only verify employment dates, as they don’t want to…

Maybe you think you can get ahead by lying. Don't expect others to congratulate you for it.

Think? Socio-paths are at the top of every organization.

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#118

Post by eanzenberg »

drpgq wrote: post #98
ransom1538 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I took a course for fun at a local community college: physics. There was nothing more fascinating learning physics from someone that did accident reconstructions for 30 years. It is a different feel than being lectured to by someone that hasn't finished their graduate program. Then for fun I tried again: Oracle. My teacher? A former executive at WellsFargo and Oracle. He was extremely wealthy, and taught for fu…

Yeah but how much did the community college teacher publish?

How is publishing relevant to teaching?

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#119

Post by coldseattle »

ourmandave wrote: post #19

Back in the mid-80's my local CCs were teaching COBOL, JCL and Fortran. Probably because of that mainframe they had chilling in the server room. Personal computer courses were non-existent, except for one day "How To Use Your PC or Apple" class.

Did you read the article?
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