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Brown/MIT shooting suspect found dead, officials say

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Re: Brown/MIT shooting suspect found dead, officials say

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again this is just playing into silly stereotypes. The sort of positions you're describing, at least in cases where it's remotely desirable, are stupidly competitive - substantially moreso than e.g. FAANG positions. And these positions, particularly in finance are absolutely brutal, and completely unfit for the overwhelming majority of people. It's not like you flash a degree and you're off to a life of luxury.

I don’t think you need to flash a degree you simply need to get in to get a life of luxury. It’s not like I can go to the Yale club in NYC.

No, you need to be (1) absolutely top tier talent and generally be willing to (2) live your job. Finance is not cushy. It's cut-throat, ridiculously competitive, extremely intensive, and very results oriented (to a fault - see: Taleb). Obviously having a nice school and a good network will obviously give you a better than average chance at getting your foot in the door, but nothing beyond that.

The main reason you see a disproportionate number of people with nice sounding names on their resume in high positions is because to get that nice sounding name on your resume, you already needed to be an elite academic outlier before joining them.

Like imagine I started a basketball school - and was able to get a disproportionate share of people 6'6" or taller to enroll. I'm going to be pumping out a disproportionate share of NBA professionals, regardless of what my school does. Not because of my school, not because of some special hook-up with the NBA, but because of my ability to grab a disproportionate share of 6'6" types who, in turn, make up a disproportionate share of world class basketball players.

Re: Brown/MIT shooting suspect found dead, officials say

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistically, you're correct. That said, the thing about statistics is that outliers exist. Also, imo the "Ivy" advantage is moreso a "family background" advantage - traditionally high social prestige and high entry barrier vocations were gatekept by Ivy and Ivy-adjacent membership. The rise of competitive salary and low barrier of entry vocations like Software and Accounting helped dampen the value of that "Ivy" pr…

I guarantee (as I have before and you’re well aware) every Yale 2017/2018 grad in CS (or likely any quantitative degree) out earns me and my public school undergrad from 2018 and likely has a multiple of my net worth if they decided to pursue private sector employment instead of academia (though exit opportunities for the academic track are pretty lucrative too)

> I guarantee (as I have before and you’re well aware) every Yale 2017/2018 grad in CS (or likely any quantitative degree) out earns me and my public school undergrad from 2018 and likely has a multiple of my net worth if they decided to pursue private sector employment instead of academia

What "public school" did you attend?

I can assure you that if you did some form of STEM at a top/mid UC, UIUC, UWash, GT, UT Austin, UMich, UNC Chapel Hill, and other similar caliber public schools in 17-18 you would have had the exact same opportunities and earning potential as a Yalie or Harvard grad. Most CS/ECE departments offer salary data for you to look at, and at least for my HS peers who attended Cal and UCLA their outcomes were the exact same if not better than my HS classmates at Yale.

I understand layoffs can be traumatic, but I've noticed a persistent negative streak in your comments here on HN and this mindset isn't going to help you.

Re: Brown/MIT shooting suspect found dead, officials say

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guarantee (as I have before and you’re well aware) every Yale 2017/2018 grad in CS (or likely any quantitative degree) out earns me and my public school undergrad from 2018 and likely has a multiple of my net worth if they decided to pursue private sector employment instead of academia (though exit opportunities for the academic track are pretty lucrative too)

> I guarantee (as I have before and you’re well aware) every Yale 2017/2018 grad in CS (or likely any quantitative degree) out earns me and my public school undergrad from 2018 and likely has a multiple of my net worth if they decided to pursue private sector employment instead of academia What "public school" did you attend? I can assure you that if you did some form of STEM at a top/mid UC, UIUC, UWash, GT, UT Aust…

The accept rate of my university was 50% a full tier below UNC

The only people getting Yale like outcomes from my undergrad is one person with exposure to the SpaceX ipo, one that’s a principal eng at Broadcom, and one that’s a senior or perhaps staff at Facebook. That’s 3 people.

Re: Brown/MIT shooting suspect found dead, officials say

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guarantee (as I have before and you’re well aware) every Yale 2017/2018 grad in CS (or likely any quantitative degree) out earns me and my public school undergrad from 2018 and likely has a multiple of my net worth if they decided to pursue private sector employment instead of academia What "public school" did you attend? I can assure you that if you did some form of STEM at a top/mid UC, UIUC, UWash, GT, UT Aust…

The accept rate of my university was 50% a full tier below UNC The only people getting Yale like outcomes from my undergrad is one person with exposure to the SpaceX ipo, one that’s a principal eng at Broadcom, and one that’s a senior or perhaps staff at Facebook. That’s 3 people.

> The accept rate of my university was 50% a full tier below UNC

So is UIUC, but UIUC CS/ECE placements are the same as Yale if not better.

> The only people getting Yale like outcomes from my undergrad is one person with exposure to the SpaceX ipo, one that’s a principal eng at Broadcom, and one that’s a senior or perhaps staff at Facebook

Most CS Yalies aren't getting hired at SpaceX, Broadcom, and FAANG. Heck, circa 10 years ago, CS@Yale was dependent on MIT, Harvard, and UConn's CS departments for classes and on-campus recruiting for CS roles.

---------

As such, my question is

1. Are you located in the Bay Area/Seattle/NYC? - if not, you need to find a way to end up working there even if you have to take a hellish commute.

2. How long has your career gap been? - if it's been more than 6 months you need to find a way to spin unemployment and the bad job market into an opportunity (eg. Worked on my own bootstrapped startup, active contributor to OSS projects, attended grad school - highly recommend GT's OMSCS because it's cheap and lets you transfer to on-campus if you so wish)

3. How do you present your career? - Resume and LinkedIn writing/designing is an art

4. Are you picky about salary? - any white collar job is a good job in a bad white collar job market. A bad white collar job is better than being structurally unemployed

Re: Brown/MIT shooting suspect found dead, officials say

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The accept rate of my university was 50% a full tier below UNC The only people getting Yale like outcomes from my undergrad is one person with exposure to the SpaceX ipo, one that’s a principal eng at Broadcom, and one that’s a senior or perhaps staff at Facebook. That’s 3 people.

> The accept rate of my university was 50% a full tier below UNC So is UIUC, but UIUC CS/ECE placements are the same as Yale if not better. > The only people getting Yale like outcomes from my undergrad is one person with exposure to the SpaceX ipo, one that’s a principal eng at Broadcom, and one that’s a senior or perhaps staff at Facebook Most CS Yalies aren't getting hired at SpaceX, Broadcom, and FAANG. Heck, cir…

For the record, I was never laid off from Amazon despite what my username says. I've always been employed, I just switched jobs. I work remote and make about 15% more than the average Google E5 SWE and maybe 85% of a FB E5 SWE according to levels.fyi. We'll see how long that lasts given Google's stock trajectory.

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The UIUC comparison feels a bit misleading given that CS at UIUC has a If CS Yalies aren't working at SpaceX or Broadcom or FANG I'm genuinely unsure of where they'd be working. I'm imagining most work at HRT, Jane Street, Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI getting $750k-$1.5m at 29. The "average" ones work at Google and Facebook. If you go to Yale's LinkedIn, Google is the 3rd highest employer of alumni, after Yale and Yale SOM. That is _not_ the case at my undergrad.

I know they aren't working at IBM or Amazon or GE or GM or other lower tier companies.

Re: Brown/MIT shooting suspect found dead, officials say

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The accept rate of my university was 50% a full tier below UNC So is UIUC, but UIUC CS/ECE placements are the same as Yale if not better. > The only people getting Yale like outcomes from my undergrad is one person with exposure to the SpaceX ipo, one that’s a principal eng at Broadcom, and one that’s a senior or perhaps staff at Facebook Most CS Yalies aren't getting hired at SpaceX, Broadcom, and FAANG. Heck, cir…

For the record, I was never laid off from Amazon despite what my username says. I've always been employed, I just switched jobs. I work remote and make about 15% more than the average Google E5 SWE and maybe 85% of a FB E5 SWE according to levels.fyi. We'll see how long that lasts given Google's stock trajectory. ----- The UIUC comparison feels a bit misleading given that CS at UIUC has a If CS Yalies aren't working…

> work remote and make about 15% more than the average Google E5 SWE and maybe 85% of a FB E5 SWE according to levels.fyi

You're making on par if not higher than most Ivy League grads.

> you go to Yale's LinkedIn, Google is the 3rd highest employer of alumni

Look at their profiles. The overwhelming majority did the terminal Yale MSCS [0]. Back when Yale CS was in a tailspin a decade ago [1], they were admitting almost anyone with a pulse in the terminal MSCS to help rebuild the alumni network. Penn did something similar with Wharton SF 20 years ago when they missed the biotech train.

> If CS Yalies aren't working at SpaceX or Broadcom or FANG I'm genuinely unsure of where they'd be working. I'm imagining most work at HRT, Jane Street, Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI getting $750k-$1.5m at 29

Not really. They end up doing the same jobs as you. Yale has a similar amount of grads at Amazon.

Also, based on the hiring practices of portfolio companies and my friend's startups - the plum jobs end up going to CS/ECE/EECS alumni from Stanford/MIT/Cal/UCLA/UW/UIUC/UT Austin/CMU or regionally well connected programs like SJSU, CalPoly SLO, and mid-tier UCs.

It's the same way if you did decent in accounting or finance at StevensTech or Baruch, you can end up in high finance in a couple years.

> Broadcom

I am intimately aware of their hiring practices. I can safely tell you that Broadcom is not hiring new grads from Ivies (or the US at all). Broadcom is following a strict "fire-and-move-to-India" strategy and paying $90k-140k TCs in Hyderabad, or bringing talent on L1/2s.

[0] - https://engineering.yale.edu/academic-study/departments/comp...

[1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-06/want-a-jo...

Re: Brown/MIT shooting suspect found dead, officials say

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think you need to flash a degree you simply need to get in to get a life of luxury. It’s not like I can go to the Yale club in NYC.

No, you need to be (1) absolutely top tier talent and generally be willing to (2) live your job. Finance is not cushy. It's cut-throat, ridiculously competitive, extremely intensive, and very results oriented (to a fault - see: Taleb). Obviously having a nice school and a good network will obviously give you a better than average chance at getting your foot in the door, but nothing beyond that. The main reason you se…

> Not because of my school, not because of some special hook-up with the NBA, but because of my ability to grab a disproportionate share of 6'6" types who, in turn, make up a disproportionate share of world class basketball players.

But you need to be clear about what that actually means in the context of finance or consulting. Because if it's building relationships and bringing in clients, your major has very little to do with it than a function of your social class as the accumulation of the enviroment you're brought up in. There are millions in China or India who could probably do the grunt work in IB, but it's highly doubtful their cultural differences, especially if they come from working middle/working class will impress clients in the same way as someone with a marginally worse working ethic but speaking the same language and a charismatic personality that can pull in others. That's talent in it's own way, but unrelated to academic achivements.

Re: Brown/MIT shooting suspect found dead, officials say

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you need to be (1) absolutely top tier talent and generally be willing to (2) live your job. Finance is not cushy. It's cut-throat, ridiculously competitive, extremely intensive, and very results oriented (to a fault - see: Taleb). Obviously having a nice school and a good network will obviously give you a better than average chance at getting your foot in the door, but nothing beyond that. The main reason you se…

> Not because of my school, not because of some special hook-up with the NBA, but because of my ability to grab a disproportionate share of 6'6" types who, in turn, make up a disproportionate share of world class basketball players. But you need to be clear about what that actually means in the context of finance or consulting. Because if it's building relationships and bringing in clients, your major has very little…

You're going to need to define what you mean by class. It's an exceptional amorphous term and I don't see your perspective here. You will find people from countless "class" backgrounds at top schools, and even in industry there's a wealth of actual diversity on this front. For instance Tim Cook, the progeny of a shipyard worker, graduated from the prestigious Robertsdale High School [1] whose Wiki leaves me with few nuggets of knowledge about the school other than "During a school football pep rally for the Robertsdale Golden Bears to go against the Spanish Fort Toros, students were seen holding Trump flags and a sign that read 'Put the panic back in Hispanic.'" Even at places like Goldman, Lloyd Blankfein [2] is the former CEO and still the senior chairman at Goldman. He grew up in the projects in NYC. Daddy was a postal worker, mommy a receptionist.

The only common denominator you find in these individuals is being the academic equivalent of our school of 6'6" types.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Cook

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Blankfein

Re: Brown/MIT shooting suspect found dead, officials say

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you not read this and just see it's a huge puff piece for Flock. As far as I can read from the first article and reports they were not pivotal in tracking down the killer. It was once again only someone else who knew that person and came forward, exactly the same as Tyler Robison case "Phil Helsel Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said a person who had information about the suspect played a crucial…

The police state in the article it was helpful in linking the crimes. What evidence do you have to contradict their testimony?

The other article that is directly contrary to what was stated. Actually, almost every other article covering this story mentions nothing about flock and this article in particular spends more time talking about flock and the company profile rather than the tragedy that occurred

Re: Brown/MIT shooting suspect found dead, officials say

#290
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Graduate student violence is more common that it should be. For example, you hear about suicides every year. I can't help but suspect that sometimes it may be related to graduate school itself, which can be stressful and unforgiving, with minimal support, and where supervisors often hold both academic power over their students' futures and financial power over their livelihoods. (And switching supervisors, even at th…

Graduate school violence == suicide?

Grad school students are often required to work ridiculous amounts of unpaid hours for their supervising faculty (well over 40 hrs/week, sometimes meaning 7 days a week). Their eventual graduation is implicitly or explicitly tied to the approval of these monstrous bosses. Source: some of my fellow, less fortunate grad students.
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