How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning • Hacker News Board

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#161

Post by WalterBright » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:46 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #105

WalterBright wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if one asks probing questions about the project the candidate lied about doing?

So, the technical interviewer says “no hire.” But the VP (who went to the candidate’s alma mater) says yes. And the Director who knows the candidate’s uncle from the country club says yes. And the candidate really laid it on thick for the hiring manager who has the final say. What did the tech nerd say, again? It increasingly feels like the world’s reward systems have been captured by and saturated with these charmin…

Scott Adams talks about this in one of his books (How To Fail At Everything). Generally, one's dress, tone, vocabulary choice, and grammar are indications of status that others read. The good news is once one is aware of it, one can fake that.

"I'm reasonably sure that my fake voice, with its low notes and artificial confidence, made me appear more capable than I was, and that wasn't difficult because I was largely incompetent at every corporate job I held. Despite my obvious lack of ability, nearly every boss I had—and there were many—identified me as a future corporate executive."

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#162

Post by StandardFuture » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:46 AM UTC

HenryKissinger wrote: post #14

In some countries, like France and the United kingdom, the educational pyramid is even more skewed. In the United kingdom, graduates of Oxford University and Cambridge University are in a class of their own. Oxbridge alumni are overrepresented in politics, business, and the media. In France, the same phenomenon is at work with the École Polytechnique, the Écoles Normales Supérieures, and a few others. This creates sh…

> the educational pyramid is even more skewed

TBF, this might be a more accurate representation of what the education pyramid was always supposed to be.

The biggest problem that I see in the west was the rise of the belief that anyone can simply go through a curriculum and now be upper middle class too.

It's ruining potential, drive, competition, etc. It's super quasi-Marxist as well. Anytime someone proposes a simple solution that will somehow magically guarantee your life to be better is selling snake oil.

> Countries with more equal societies, like the Nordics, and Canada, do not have strong populist movements

Perhaps not as strong, but I am not sure this is actually true. There are growing populist movements in France and Spain for sure. And you could be correct in establishing a pattern between slower economies, higher-inequality and unrest.

> This winner take all economy is stupid

Yes i.e. crony capitalism.

> this competition is the result

Of course, everyone doing the exact same thing and expecting to be the exception to the rule is not actually competition.

Why are you not asking the more critical questions like: why is there yet no competition to Universities themselves?

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#163

Post by barry-cotter » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:47 AM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #104

HenryKissinger wrote: post #14

In some countries, like France and the United kingdom, the educational pyramid is even more skewed. In the United kingdom, graduates of Oxford University and Cambridge University are in a class of their own. Oxbridge alumni are overrepresented in politics, business, and the media. In France, the same phenomenon is at work with the École Polytechnique, the Écoles Normales Supérieures, and a few others. This creates sh…

As a canadian, are we really that much more equal than the USA? Sure, maybe we have less of the extremes on both sides (Less billionairs, and i suspect less hopelessly poor, although i don't know the number on that), but we still have rich people and poor people, a good uni still gives you a major step up.

By college exclusivity yes, you are substantially more equal. Your good universities expand, theirs stay about the same size and become even more exclusive. No one goes Ooooh! if they hear someone went to McGill or Waterloo, excellent as they are. They’re just universities.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#164

Post by SadCanadian » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:47 AM UTC

zhdc1 wrote: post #155

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, the recall is high, even if the precision is low at these top universities. Several of my classmates are now separate post Series A startup founders (investors similar in stature to to Andreessen invested), another is a professor at a peer institution of MIT heading up a research group in theoretical CS, another created his own cryptocurrency (and it is gaining traction quite rapidly), quite a few YC a…

> Do everything you can to get accepted into the very best university possible. It's in your power if you work hard and love what you do (for me, it was coding for fun). "Failure" here would mean attending a Top 20 university instead of a Top 10 (while largely reaping the very same benefits). I agree with the general sentiment, but I think it's worth adding in a couple of caveats. The demand to get into a top univers…

Indeed. As many seek out this opportunity and as they all ramp up their efforts, the participants of the tournament will all look similar in skill and aptitude. Thus, the determining factors will increasingly become luck-based. Everyone that wishes to participate should be made aware that they are signing up for a stress-inducing rat race, and that they better double their effort because, at each step, their competitors get more and more capable.

Or, alternatively, seek other options? Maybe try to avoid the race somehow. Since most will be losers, it's probably best to consider alternatives anyway and ask if the prize is even worth winning.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#165

Post by hallarempt » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:48 AM UTC

xvector wrote: post #8

> the schools that focus their training on the quest for competitive advantage betray every plausible ideal of academic excellence. The author does not seem to understand that these are not mutually exclusive. You can receive a fantastic, genuinely excellent education that is also a competitive advantage. Indeed, they go hand in hand - I’d argue it’s harder to give an excellent education that’s somehow not advantageo…

"The author does not seem to understand that these are not mutually exclusive."

Given that he teaches at Yale, he probably understands more than any of us in this comment thread.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#166

Post by StandardFuture » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:49 AM UTC

light_hue_1 wrote: post #81

HenryKissinger wrote: post #14

In some countries, like France and the United kingdom, the educational pyramid is even more skewed. In the United kingdom, graduates of Oxford University and Cambridge University are in a class of their own. Oxbridge alumni are overrepresented in politics, business, and the media. In France, the same phenomenon is at work with the École Polytechnique, the Écoles Normales Supérieures, and a few others. This creates sh…

> Donald Trump's election in 2016 has been dissected and explained hundred different ways. But it is undeniable that his victory (despite the fact that he lost the popular vote by approximately three million) is attributable in part to popular resentment against political and business elites It's very deniable. This simply cannot be the explanation. Trump is an elite. He inherited vast amounts of money and vastly und…

You are talking about the man himself and not the policies that he was promoting.

While both are reasonable things to discuss, you did not actually negate the comment you were responding to.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#167

Post by SadCanadian » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:50 AM UTC

ab_testing wrote: post #69

This kind of acacdemic rat race is very common in developing countries like India and China where there are many times the number of candidates as available good jobs. For a long time, the US colleges avoided this competition mainly because the difference between good and bad career choices was not that great and being a college graduate meant that you were almost guaranteed to achieve a middle class lifestyle. Howev…

Yep. And the more the developed world stagnates, the worse the tournament will get.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#168

Post by tlqsb » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:51 AM UTC

GPerson wrote: post #133

ryandrake wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the technical interviewer says “no hire.” But the VP (who went to the candidate’s alma mater) says yes. And the Director who knows the candidate’s uncle from the country club says yes. And the candidate really laid it on thick for the hiring manager who has the final say. What did the tech nerd say, again? It increasingly feels like the world’s reward systems have been captured by and saturated with these charmin…

I feel palpable despair about this. For me it has tended to imply that the work itself is not valuable, for otherwise the incentive system would be corrected quickly.

What would be the corrective factor? The charismatic oligarchy has inserted itself between the productive people and the money.

The Gervais principle is a thing. The charismatic CEO is helped by the 90% mediocre employees, who like the system. The 10% productive employees are exploited and shouted down.

All that the 10% can do is change jobs or start a company.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#169

Post by StandardFuture » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:53 AM UTC

ab_testing wrote: post #69

This kind of acacdemic rat race is very common in developing countries like India and China where there are many times the number of candidates as available good jobs. For a long time, the US colleges avoided this competition mainly because the difference between good and bad career choices was not that great and being a college graduate meant that you were almost guaranteed to achieve a middle class lifestyle. Howev…

> where there are many times the number of candidates as available good jobs

And there it is.

This same phenomenon is also exactly the "leetcode phenomenon" that we see in the SE field, btw.

You could call it an Eastern culture thing, but your summation captures the why more accurately.

> being a college graduate meant that you were almost guaranteed to achieve a middle class lifestyle.

I imagine that up until the 80s and possibly even 90s this was an upper middle class guarantee.

> the difference between good and bad career choices was not that great

I have never seen it expressed this way but this is spot on. The worst part about this modern reality is that the vast vast majority of jobs that "require a degree" really should not be doing so.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#170

Post by BlueTankEngine » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:56 AM UTC

usaar333 wrote: post #96

hardwaregeek wrote: post #45

As a current student, I see this first-hand. I go to a school that is moderately prestigious, but not well known for CS. Far too many of my classmates are obsessed with the same hamster wheel of optimizing grades, superficial extracurriculars and rec letter chasing. This isn't surprising; it's what got them into this school in the first place. Unfortunately for them it's also quite useless in tech. Some of them go as…

> People try to claim that it really doesn't matter where you go to college. That's not true. There's probably edge cases, like for some startup founders or supreme court justices, but for the more "advantaged" than average children, it largely doesn't seem to matter in aggregate ( https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228303493_Estimatin... )

This study is based on data from the college students of the early 1990s, and previous works in the field use data from 1980's college students. I think your claim might have been true 2 decades ago, but now? I highly doubt it....