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Google’s Jeff Dean’s undergrad senior thesis on neural networks (1990) [pdf]

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Re: Google’s Jeff Dean’s undergrad senior thesis on neural networks (1990) [pdf]

#31

Post by ebikelaw »

tdb7893 wrote: post #26
akhilcacharya wrote: post #10

It's really impressive that Jeff accomplished so much despite going to UMN for undergrad.

The flagship university in each state actually always has some very very bright students. The very elite schools don't accept many students and the admissions criteria are far from perfect so a ton of students who would be good enough for top tier schools end up going to state schools. I know a couple different people who were top of their high school class and within a question or two of perfect on their SATs that h…

Lots of people get accepted to fancy-ass schools but then can't afford to attend, and state schools will bend over backwards to get those people.

Re: Google’s Jeff Dean’s undergrad senior thesis on neural networks (1990) [pdf]

#32

Post by sleepychu »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #8

An underappreciated aspect of this is finding an academic department that would allow you to submit something this concise as a senior thesis. My experience, mostly in grad school, was that anyone editing my work wanted more verbiage. If you only needed a short, one-sentence paragraph to say something, it just wasn’t accepted. There had to be more. Jeff Dean is an uncommonly good communicator. But he also benefited f…

I'm not sure what a senior thesis is but my undergraduate thesis was I think 34 pages long. (Excluding the source code listing)

I had a friend who's advisor made them make everything longer the way you describe, theirs was in excess of 100 pages. (IIRC this advisor had suggested that while the guidelines say ~50 pages this was the bare minimum sufficient for a pass).

I guess it depends a lot on your advisor.

Re: Google’s Jeff Dean’s undergrad senior thesis on neural networks (1990) [pdf]

#33

Post by akhilcacharya »

wenc wrote: post #17
akhilcacharya wrote: post #10

It's really impressive that Jeff accomplished so much despite going to UMN for undergrad.

In the U.S., one's undergraduate institution does not correlate to success as much as it does in certain countries like France or Japan, where universities are a pipeline for elite selection and grooming. Also, not all intelligent American kids can or want to go to elite schools, even if they are academically qualified. In the U.S., you often hear stories of kids turning down really good schools for ones they felt we…

> Owing to its population and economy, the U.S. has a large enough talent pool that the top percentile students at large, well-funded state schools (of which UMN is an example) are plenty smart. If you were to meet the really smart top-5-percentile kids from such state colleges (I have), you'd have no doubt that many of them could have attended MIT or CMU.

> To be sure, good colleges can give you a headstart in life -- but it's what you do with that advantage that counts.

I just graduated undergrad from a state school (Rank #49 in CS) but I'm still pretty skeptical of this fact.

Re: Google’s Jeff Dean’s undergrad senior thesis on neural networks (1990) [pdf]

#34

Post by thaumasiotes »

cobookman wrote: post #22
unexpected wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nothing is wrong with UMN - OP is making a joke based on the common refrain that Google only hires Stanford/Harvard kids.

Being at Google it's pretty rare to see a Stanford or Harvard new college grad. It's more common to hear large public Engineering universities & technical institutes.

How many students does Harvard graduate each year? How many employees does Google have? If one year Google hired the entire math and CS graduating class of Harvard, would it still be "pretty rare" to see one of those people at Google?

Re: Google’s Jeff Dean’s undergrad senior thesis on neural networks (1990) [pdf]

#35

Post by akhilcacharya »

ebikelaw wrote: post #31
tdb7893 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flagship university in each state actually always has some very very bright students. The very elite schools don't accept many students and the admissions criteria are far from perfect so a ton of students who would be good enough for top tier schools end up going to state schools. I know a couple different people who were top of their high school class and within a question or two of perfect on their SATs that h…

Lots of people get accepted to fancy-ass schools but then can't afford to attend, and state schools will bend over backwards to get those people.

Is this still true? Most of the top schools today appear to have pretty generous aid compared to my undergrad, which was a state school. Only exception I can think of could be out of state public schools like Berkeley or Georgia Tech or CMU.

Re: Google’s Jeff Dean’s undergrad senior thesis on neural networks (1990) [pdf]

#37

Post by [deleted] »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #35
ebikelaw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people get accepted to fancy-ass schools but then can't afford to attend, and state schools will bend over backwards to get those people.

Is this still true? Most of the top schools today appear to have pretty generous aid compared to my undergrad, which was a state school. Only exception I can think of could be out of state public schools like Berkeley or Georgia Tech or CMU.

[deleted]

Re: Google’s Jeff Dean’s undergrad senior thesis on neural networks (1990) [pdf]

#38

Post by godelmachine »

wenc wrote: post #17
akhilcacharya wrote: post #10

It's really impressive that Jeff accomplished so much despite going to UMN for undergrad.

In the U.S., one's undergraduate institution does not correlate to success as much as it does in certain countries like France or Japan, where universities are a pipeline for elite selection and grooming. Also, not all intelligent American kids can or want to go to elite schools, even if they are academically qualified. In the U.S., you often hear stories of kids turning down really good schools for ones they felt we…

Thanks for the list but I am not entirely sure about Sergey Brin and Larry Page’s alma mater.

Re: Google’s Jeff Dean’s undergrad senior thesis on neural networks (1990) [pdf]

#39

Post by anonytrary »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #10

It's really impressive that Jeff accomplished so much despite going to UMN for undergrad.

The so-called Ivy Leagues miss out on people who peak in academic ability after high school, plus there are more excellent people than there are spots at Ivy Leagues. The upper echelons of pretty much every standard university are going to have equally competent people.
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