391–400 of 483 posts
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What industry are you in? I guess it isn't CS, because you don't even need a degree here. And the context of this thread is CS.
Software Engineering, and in my industry you have to have a degree. You simply won't get hired otherwise.
Don’t believe the people telling you you need accreditation!
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That's what I'm finding. I started with one course because I was worried about time to study and time with my wife and child, but now I'm thinking I could do 2 courses probably without too much concern. My only worry is the Math course. Not having gone to University or high school in 20 years I'm fearful. The other courses have been easy so far though, but like you I'm working on the field, so it's not so new to me.
The math courses were surprisingly difficult for me, but in general, quite good. I spent way too much time on College Algebra (I kid you not, like 20+ hours every week--the pace is insane, they give you like 20-40 pages to read, and a number of assignments). I'm happy I went through them, but yea, MATH1201 was kinda difficult and MATH1280 was super boring (but not as difficult to be honest).
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Software Engineering, and in my industry you have to have a degree. You simply won't get hired otherwise.
Lol even Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google all hire without needing a degree. You can go all the way to the top here with no degree. Don’t believe the people telling you you need accreditation!
But the vast majority of their work force has a real degree from an accredited university, and you know it.
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I can't word this in a non-snarky way, but it's a genuine question: Why do you believe that college can teach making subjective decisions?
>I can't word this in a non-snarky way, but it's a genuine question: >Why do you believe that college can teach making subjective decisions? Lol, most people actually believe that common-sense can be taught to people. I don't.
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Anti-college is not anti-intellectualism. Quite the opposite. Higher education is no longer about education; it's about profit. Pieces of paper are pointless for anything other than wallpaper. Free-range education through meeting and collaborating with others is more beneficial to expanding your knowledge than handing over money to some college. Save those tens of thousands of dollars and years of your life. Spend th…
> Anti-college is not anti-intellectualism. Quite the opposite. Higher education is no longer about education; it's about profit. In the US, maybe. Do people take ridiculous loans for their degree outside of US? Some loans, sure, but loans that amount to 5-10x their future yearly income? I don't know...
[1]http://www.collegescholarships.org/loans/average-debt.htm
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> And promo is often based on leadership of projects. And how do you become the leader of projects? You write compelling documents. This sounds somewhat idealized. As much as writing well is an asset, the understanding and ability to navigate office politics is what increases one's chances at career advancement. In the simplest form, just doing what the boss wants/expects one to do, not doing the unwanted things. No…
What do you think navigating office politics is? A lot of it is communication, and a lot of that communication is written down, especially in the remote work world we are going to. :) Also how do you become the well paid boss that tells people what to do? You get promoted. You often have to communicate to your subordinates on what to do through writing and so on. Otherwise your known as a bad boss and the best might…
I think you and GP have quite different understandings of office politics. I know the GP's perspective: Most office politics is done over coffee/lunch. Then the followup is "Can you present your stuff in our next meeting?" And if not that, then "Do you have a PPT with your proposal?"
People in my company like looking at PPTs. Reading a few pages? Not as much. Just today a senior exec sent out a 4 page whitepaper on the key initiative our department is working on. I probably should do a survey in a week's time to see how many people bothered to read it.
And once again, I think your perspective is biased a bit towards certain SW companies. Most engineering companies don't have remote work (although there's talk in my company to continue allowing it once COVID blows over). It's a well known tech company, but definitely a very traditional one.
> Also how do you become the well paid boss that tells people what to do? You get promoted.
As I pointed out earlier, most companies don't require a formal writeup for promotion beyond the annual review. When I got my last promotion, my manager told me "Both I and my manager are quite familiar with your work, so this paper you're writing is merely to fulfill an HR requirement, and I'm here only to make sure you don't claim something you didn't do," We don't "apply" for promotion. It is granted based on the manager/committee's opinion on how well you're doing. I didn't know I was getting one till it was granted.
Oh, and those annual writeups are a thing of the past. So now your bonus/promotion is entirely based on your manager's opinion. People did protest this change, but I actually welcomed it - I knew the act of writing things up in the past was viewed by most teams as a mere formality, so why waste time on it?
Our company has lots of mentors who do 1:1 or group presentations on career growth. What I write here is reflective of what they say. Not once did they advocate "writing well". Networking, getting to know your manager's needs (or his/her manager's needs), etc are the usual ways to do well. And presenting in front of audiences (for networking, not for promoting your idea - that is secondary).
> You often have to communicate to your subordinates on what to do through writing and so on. Otherwise your known as a bad boss and the best might not want to work with you.
There are plenty of bad bosses in my company. And that's where office politics come into play - "good" engineers in our culture are those who navigate around such bosses via politics (and don't spend time complaining). "Bad" engineers complain or leave.
(I don't agree with the sentiment, but that is the perspective here).
Probably a lot of this has to do with the fact that we have very few competitors. For most of the "best" engineers, going to a competitor is a step down. And from what I've heard from those who left, the culture isn't any better there.
Based on the responses to my initial comment, I'll concede that not every company is like mine - and that's refreshing. It is also clear that my company is not by any means an outlier.
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I am at "large tech co" > 1. You often have to write design docs to communicate what you are making and gather feedback. These documents if badly written won't be as well received. In my company this is entirely up to the culture of the org. Some parts of the company will require it. Other parts treat it as a formality (i.e. few will read it). And other parts don't require it at all. > At many companies, you have a m…
Sounds like a great, healthy company to work for. /s > You write too much. No one will read what you wrote" - almost always delivered after I write an email that has 4+ paragraphs. Writing well does not mean writing a lot. Often it can mean the opposite. The same thing written plainly in fewer words is often better than the opposite. Apply Occam's razor to your writing and shave away the extraneous. Also 15 years isn…
4 paragraphs is "writing a lot"? Seriously? Since this whole thread was about writing classes in university, I don't think anything I wrote there was less than 4 paragraphs, and my grade would have been poor if I had.
How many whitepapers or technical docs have you read that were less than 4 paragraphs? Manuals? Changes explaining a product pivot?
Honestly, some of the responses to my comments fit in the category of "I'm unquestionably right. So if it's not working for him, he must be doing something wrong! Let me try to guess at what that is."
Not the most fruitful way of having a conversation.
In looking at the CS curricilum this looks more like an extended bootcamp. Most regular university courses are not there, the credits/classes won't transfer to full universities, and you're left with a "degree" that pales in comparison to a "regular" degree. Plus you've spent about $5,000 to get their paper. I guess "accredited degree" just doesn't mean the same thing to as what I was thinking.
It doesn't have a compilers construction class. Analysis of Algorithms is an elective class. It's not a real computer science degree.