The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much • Hacker News Board

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#131

Post by philangist » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 10:01 PM UTC

cheald wrote: post #126

philangist wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a twenty year old who didn't go to school and doesn't have a degree would you hire me - or at least consider me for an interview - based off my github here ( https://github.com/philangist?tab=repositories ). I am actually gainfully employed right now at a job I like a lot, but I sometimes worry that I might be pigeonholing myself due to my lack of a formal degree.

I'd certainly consider you for an interview (you show actual development ability and an understanding of some important concepts in your work, which is much more than many interviewees), but speaking frankly, the profile is a little weak - it consists mostly of experimental or toy stuff without any kind of evidence of real-world application, no tests, nothing that's been packaged up for use by other people. These are…

> ...the profile is a little weak - it consists mostly of experimental or toy stuff without any kind of evidence of real-world application, no tests, nothing that's been packaged up for use by other people.

This is definitely true. I generally put up small one off projects where I implement an idea I'm interested in, as opposed to long-term libraries or applications that are intended to be used by others. For the longest time I wasn't technically skilled enough to contribute to other people's code, but now I think it's more about a lack of time and interest for me. I'll definitely make a deliberate effort to collaborate and work on other people's projects going forward. I'm curious to know though, what do you mean when you say that I "show an understanding of some important concepts in [my] work"?

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#132

Post by cheald » Tue, Apr 07, 2015, 3:19 AM UTC

philangist wrote: post #131

cheald wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd certainly consider you for an interview (you show actual development ability and an understanding of some important concepts in your work, which is much more than many interviewees), but speaking frankly, the profile is a little weak - it consists mostly of experimental or toy stuff without any kind of evidence of real-world application, no tests, nothing that's been packaged up for use by other people. These are…

> ...the profile is a little weak - it consists mostly of experimental or toy stuff without any kind of evidence of real-world application, no tests, nothing that's been packaged up for use by other people. This is definitely true. I generally put up small one off projects where I implement an idea I'm interested in, as opposed to long-term libraries or applications that are intended to be used by others. For the lon…

Writing a garbage collector and binary wire protocol client, even if they're just toys, show an understanding of how things work that is important. A depressing number of professional developers are basically just stacking code legos that someone else built on top of each other until an approximation of the right result comes out, and never get deeper than that. The fact that you've even attempted a mark-and-sweep garbage collector marks you as someone who isn't afraid to get their hands dirty. It's a good thing.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#133

Post by sytelus » Tue, Apr 07, 2015, 5:19 AM UTC

brianbreslin wrote: post #114

My father is a university administrator, and he told me this theory years ago, that the costs were due to excess bureaucracy.

What would be an example? What these administrators are doing anyway to destroy so much of value?

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#134

Post by mehedi_ku06 » Tue, Apr 07, 2015, 6:09 AM UTC

Hello! Thank you for your opinion. I’d like to try to compare it to my previous experience of learning through Skype on online classes for free. I did around 10 conversations over Skype with a native speaker from http://preply.com/en. And I was pretty satisfied with their Quality. I think they have a strong teaching quality. Following their course curriculum now I can speak english like a native.They also provide Private Tuition . But I Want to try another option

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#135

Post by seunosewa » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 12:47 PM UTC

mcmancini wrote: post #130

muzz wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage is this relative to say, football coaches?

No quantitative idea, but as disgusting as the salaries for football coaches (N.B., depending on the school, it may be a budget separate from the academic enterprise), university presidents, &c. are, I would be willing to bet that they are dwarfed by the army of bureaucrats handling what I termed regulatory compliance. On the research side, off the top of my head you've got grant administrators, institute review boar…

> Accepting federal funding takes a lot of work. I think we're getting closer to the real reason there ...