MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms” • Hacker News Board

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#251

Post by bsder » Fri, Jan 29, 2016, 5:01 AM UTC

melted wrote: post #217

totalrobe wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In SDLC terms, college is an education delivered via the waterfall method whereas the workplace requires a continuing agile process.

Not really. I would argue that today college is little more than a weeding out process that weeds out far too many. You sit in classes and solve bullshit problems with known answers that will have very little bearing on the realities of your professional life once you graduate. For the most part people go to college to have a piece of paper that says they went to college and had enough stamina to tolerate this bullsh…

> You sit in classes and solve bullshit problems with known answers that will have very little bearing on the realities of your professional life once you graduate.

Gonna argue with this one from the standpoint of Electrical Engineering.

I would argue that almost everything up through junior year gets used every day. Basic circuits and basic digital never quits being relevant (I have pulled out a Karnaugh map every now and then to demonstrate to some programming folks that their conditionals were wrong). Basic electronics and op-amps similarly.

Once you hit junior year, the courses get specialized and don't get so much daily use--electromagnetics, digital signal processing, control systems theory, communications system theory.

The problem is that you don't know which one you like until after you take it. And before you take it, you're not useful to a company, either, so intern/apprenticeship doesn't help.

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#252

Post by msellout » Fri, Jan 29, 2016, 5:05 AM UTC

baudehlo wrote: post #234

melted wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thing that could be helpful is not forcing kids to go to school when they're 18. They have no clue whatsoever what they want to do with their lives and by and large motivation to truly learn something is very much lacking. Or at least I lacked it. My MSc with honors is a feat of willpower more than anything else, I ended up using maybe 10% of the knowledge I acquired in those years. Now if my career started i…

At 18 most kids have extremely strong passion about what they want to do. I know I did. I was wrong (maths vs computer science). But persuading them to take a break from that is going to be hard.

> most

My experience says the opposite.

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#253

Post by twothamendment » Fri, Jan 29, 2016, 5:07 AM UTC

gravypod wrote: post #135

solipsism wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> theory of computation, recursion theory and type theory and PL, compilers, complexity theory and algorithms, advanced data structures, concurrency and distributed systems etc All of those are fairly basic topics that most people can pick up in an afternoon or two. ... I think these are fairly rational claims that I am making Um... no. Not fairly rational claims at all.

When I get into my classes at my university I get the textbook, read into the book a little and say "ok, I remember learning about this from X, Y, and Z project I've worked on". I then go on to goof off in every class, as I am doing right this moment. Nothing I have learned is of substance in my algorithms, computer science, or programming classes that I did not already know before I enrolled. I'm bored, and I want t…

Been there, done that. I remember sitting in a database class an being excited that we were covering a topic I didn't know - normalization. Then I realized that I had already learned it through experience at work, I just didn't have a name for it. I just thought I was taking a crappy schema and turning it into something I'd like to use. I knew that there are times denormalization can be good in the right places, but I wouldn't have known what to call it.

I learned stuff in school, just not often and it wasn't due to HN - I didn't have that option back then. I had a few great classes - some with only a dozen people and great professors. A shout out to other people 12 people who might remember - "Horses are pretty".

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#254

Post by telotortium » Fri, Jan 29, 2016, 5:13 AM UTC

jasode wrote: post #91

edtechdev wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting admitted isn't as valuable a signal as getting a degree. Both are a signal or proxy for intelligence (IQ), but getting a degree is also a signal of persistence and conformity to get through the grind of college courses. Bryan Caplan has written much about 'signaling theory' and education in posts like this one: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2006/02/mixed_signals.ht...

>Getting admitted isn't as valuable a signal as getting a degree. It depends. In the limited world of software startup hiring, a compsci student that got admitted to MIT/Stanford but drops out after his freshman year conveys a more valuable signal than graduating from the University of Alabama (a much lower ranked school) after 4 years of study. If it's an older institution doing the hiring such as IBM or Goldman Sac…

What exactly do you mean? Perhaps if that student founds a startup or joins as an early employee immediately after dropping out. I doubt a student who just washes out or lacks work ethic gets a particularly valuable signal if they decide to apply to a startup some time after, although it's probably easy enough to present the departure in a more favorable light, in which case the dropout would regain some prestige.

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#255

Post by gravypod » Fri, Jan 29, 2016, 5:14 AM UTC

twothamendment wrote: post #253

gravypod wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I get into my classes at my university I get the textbook, read into the book a little and say "ok, I remember learning about this from X, Y, and Z project I've worked on". I then go on to goof off in every class, as I am doing right this moment. Nothing I have learned is of substance in my algorithms, computer science, or programming classes that I did not already know before I enrolled. I'm bored, and I want t…

Been there, done that. I remember sitting in a database class an being excited that we were covering a topic I didn't know - normalization. Then I realized that I had already learned it through experience at work, I just didn't have a name for it. I just thought I was taking a crappy schema and turning it into something I'd like to use. I knew that there are times denormalization can be good in the right places, but…

I've had those experiences too. I'd say that the teacher that I am TAing with, who was my teacher for the corse, is actually one of the best educators I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.

I also have met a few teachers in other classes that have been very inspiring.

I just feel that there is something lacking. I wan't something a little more.

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#256

Post by bsder » Fri, Jan 29, 2016, 5:14 AM UTC

melted wrote: post #247

seanp2k2 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stamina to tolerate bullshit and get things done despite thinking they're totally idiotic is valuable skill set in many industries. The piece of paper is also proof that you can follow directions well.

Getting shit done is valuable. Tolerating bullshit is absolutely not.

A failure of many youngsters is that they think everything annoying or boring is "bullshit".

For example, I have to practically threaten employees in their 20's to actually fscking pick up the phone and actually TALK to a customer rep. Yes, it can be annoying--they're going to try to sell you something as that's their job. But some of them also know what they're selling better than anybody on the planet. The only way you will figure that out is if you talk to them.

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#257

Post by telotortium » Fri, Jan 29, 2016, 5:17 AM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #238

gravypod wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it to describe the "name brand" that everyone wants although the two are essentially the same.

Is Coca Cola really more popular though? I never got that impression.

Yeah, he could have at least used RC Cola as an example. Coca Cola vs. Pepsi is more comparable to Harvard vs. Stanford -- I'm sure some people have strong opinions favoring one or the other, but they occupy the same stratum, in Silicon Valley at least.

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#258

Post by melted » Fri, Jan 29, 2016, 5:54 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #256

melted wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting shit done is valuable. Tolerating bullshit is absolutely not.

A failure of many youngsters is that they think everything annoying or boring is "bullshit". For example, I have to practically threaten employees in their 20's to actually fscking pick up the phone and actually TALK to a customer rep. Yes, it can be annoying--they're going to try to sell you something as that's their job. But some of them also know what they're selling better than anybody on the planet. The only way…

Don't threaten. Get them engaged, get them to set their own team goals (with your guidance) and get them to agree to the goals. Divide pleasant and unpleasant tasks visibly and fairly. Get rid of people with poisonous attitudes who sabotage this white glove treatment.

Threatening only works in the short term, right up until your best people pick up their shit and leave. In the long term it does not yield the kind of workforce you actually want to have.

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#259

Post by kelseydh » Fri, Jan 29, 2016, 6:12 AM UTC

verst wrote: post #139

ucsdrake wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That used to be the case, but now corporations require you to pass their own exam before they hire you. You mean an ... interview?! Ok, that was purposely obtuse, but I don't see how an extension of a company's interview process (ensuring, through their own testing, that candidates meet the proper qualifications without school bias) is a bad thing. Or how it signals an 'inevitable disruption of modern higher ed'. W…

I think we are still quite a long way away from removing the school bias. In my experience, the large tech companies actively recruit from select few universities (and prefer applicants from those universities). The resume screeners / sourcers are biased to look for top schools also. They often don't want to risk spending time on a candidate from a school with which they are not familiar. Most qualified applicants ne…

There's a good story in Ben Horowitz book the "Hard Thing About Hard Things" that angered me about how blatant good school vs weak school bias appears to exist within the startup world.

But it has good advice on the need to overlook people's "flaws" (if you can call them that): -----

"Hire a worldclass team" is about as helpful as telling someone to "Try their hardest." Anyone building a company likely already is, and if not, you telling them isn't going to suddenly make them try harder.

You know what's hard? Hiring a worldclass sales manager when you have a company that is trading at less than cash at the wake of the dot com bust. Astoundingly, the best sales managers in the world just weren't returning Horowitz's calls. So instead-- in one of my favorite sections of the book-- he describes hiring Mark Cranney.

It was a decision most of his board and his executive team were violently against. (Lesson to Horowitz: "No one else gets a vote.") Cranney actively made people feel uncomfortable-- not what you want in a sales guy. Horowitz describes him as physically looking like a perfect "square." But he was a savant at how to build an effective sales team.

My favorite passage is when Horowitz sat down to explain to his cofounder-- and to many, the face of the company-- Andreessen why he was hiring him:

I let Marc open the conversation...by listing his issues with Cranney: doesn't look or sound like a head of sales, went to a weak school, makes him uncomfortable. I listened very carefully and replied, "I agree with every single one of those isues. However, Mark Cranney is a sales savant. He has mastered sales to a level that far exceeds anybody that I have ever known. If he didn't have the things wrong with him that you enumerated, he wouldn't be willing to join a company that just traded at thirty-five cents per share; he'd be the CEO of IBM." Marc's reply came quickly: "Got it. Let's hire him!" That is the reality of how you hire as a startup CEO going through any degree of shit, which let's face it, they all are. Unless you are Facebook, you can't call whoever you want an offer them a job. (And truth be told, even Facebook doesn't have a 100% batting average on hiring.) You have to find the person the best at the single unique skill you need and tolerate everything else that comes with them. The reason they aren't running IBM despite their skills. That is helpful hiring advice.

(https://pando.com/2014/03/04/the-hard-thing-about-hard-thing...) ------

Anyways, personally I prefer companies using screening tests over degrees because it is more meritocratic.

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#260

Post by cgm616 » Fri, Jan 29, 2016, 6:18 AM UTC

msellout wrote: post #252

baudehlo wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 18 most kids have extremely strong passion about what they want to do. I know I did. I was wrong (maths vs computer science). But persuading them to take a break from that is going to be hard.

> most My experience says the opposite.

In my experience, there are three groups of kids in high school, at least concerning future studies/employment.

One group maybe wants to do something because it pays well, with no motivation because they aren't passionate.

The next group is very passionate about one or two things, and have lots of motivation. However, they seem to view that as the only option, even though more likely than not it will change and shift.

The third group has motivation to do work that is interesting, but they have know idea what to specialize in and have a few things they don't want to do. They aren't necessarily good at it all, and it's overwhelming to think about plans for the future because of the open-ended nature of that question to them.

This is what I've observed. And of course, people change between these groups all the time.