School is all about signaling, not skill-building • Hacker News Board

Re: School is all about signaling, not skill-building

#71

Post by TAForObvReasons » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 8:55 AM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #23

Maybe for the elite. But for middle class people like myself, I developed marketable skills, secured multiple internships, and found it easy to get a full-time job straight out of school. I had about a years worth of industry experience via internships (one for 6 months, two others 3 months each). Signaling doesn't buy you much. At least in engineering, because a technical interview will sort out whether or not you a…

> Software Engineering is a notable exception, most other fields don't quiz as part of the job interview process: soft skills and credentials or state licenses or bar exams are relied upon more heavily. Maybe signaling matters more in these fields?

License and bar exams are more serious than people in technology are willing and ready to admit. They serve the role of quizzes because the "passing score" requires a baseline of knowledge that the quizzes attempt to establish. This isn't a matter of signaling so much as the effectiveness of the testing process. The fact that software companies cannot rely on these factors is a poor reflection of the industry.

Practically speaking, there's nothing stopping the JS foundation from developing a curriculum, standard test and credential.

Re: School is all about signaling, not skill-building

#72

Post by rjf72 » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:00 AM UTC

hooch wrote: post #16

“If a student wants to study at Princeton, he doesn’t really need to apply or pay tuition. He can simply show up and start taking classes. As a professor, I assure you that we make near-zero effort to stop unofficial education; indeed, the rare, earnestly curious student touches our hearts. At the end of four years at Princeton, though, the guerrilla student would lack one precious thing: a diploma. The fact that alm…

One key thing this paragraph misses is the characterization of this sort of person. Imagine we have a person that would independently, without extrinsic reward or 'push', show up to classes completely of their own accord. And we must further assume that they would engage in all assignments and somehow try to regularly test their understanding - the feedback exams offer is crucial to demonstrating understanding. And we assume they're doing well on Princeton quality and standard of work, all completely independently.

How did this person do in high school? Given high school is orders of magnitude more trivial, we can assume they were likely at or near the top of their classes, and probably would have shown remarkable results in skill assessment exams. And with that sort of motivation he also probably would have been involved in immense extracurricular and other such events. This person would likely have been able to get into any university he ever wanted.

Top universities do provide a certainly better than average education, but their main strength has nothing to do with their quality of education. It's the quality of their student body - which turns success stories into a self fulfilling prophecy. Imagine you start an 'basketball school' and only accept people that are at least 6'6", highly athletic, can dunk from x feet, run 100 meters in y seconds, etc. Go figure -- you're going to 'produce' a disproportionately huge number of NBA quality players simply because your admittance is already heavily biased to individuals who are already headed in that direction.

The point of this is that none of this has anything to do with signaling, but it also has very little to do with the quality of education received. The value of an e.g. Princeton degree is that you're the sort of person that could get accepted into Princeton which would be comparable to the sort of person that could get admitted to 'Basketball U'. Regardless of what happens during those 4 years, you're already almost certainly going to be ahead of 99% of the rest of the population. The degree just works as 'proof of filtering'. E.g. even if our basketball university had a pretty bad education system, you'd still see NBA quality players emerging from it at a way way higher rate than the population of non-admitted individuals.

Re: School is all about signaling, not skill-building

#73

Post by pembrook » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:07 AM UTC

Zarath wrote: post #62

Come on, have we really swung so far on the "game is rigged" and "college isn't what it used to be" pendulum that we're acting like college doesn't build useful skills. Before college I had never written a program in my life outside of my TI-83. Coming out of college I was able to secure a full time job at a highly respected software company. They didn't hire me because my program was great (it wasn't that great), bu…

We’re in the minority. Most professions aren’t engineering. Or medicine.

Think of the average student graduating with a generic business degree. What actual skills does this person possess after 4 years of schooling?

This is why so many Fortune 500 companies have new grad trainee programs that they funnel people through. The fact is, most of these generic “business” jobs can be done by anyone with a few months of on the job learning.

How many project managers, marketing managers, account executives, sales people, HR professionals, tech support, etc. could’ve stepped into those same roles without spending 4 years at an extremely expensive party (as they would have 50 years ago)?

Re: School is all about signaling, not skill-building

#74

Post by erbium » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:26 AM UTC

avcdsuia wrote: post #68

Ken_Adler wrote: post #56

Crazy story: my son actually did what the author suggested, he talked his way into a free education at Princeton!!! He audited all the classes he wanted to... no diploma, but what a great experience (and a great story....) From the article: Ponder this: If a student wants to study at Princeton, he doesn’t really need to apply or pay tuition. He can simply show up and start taking classes. As a professor, I assure you…

Not a US citizen, but AFAIK, a course includes lectures, office hours, assignments etc. How did he manage to fully understand the materials without all the resources that are provided only for registered students?

By asking for them.

Re: School is all about signaling, not skill-building

#75

Post by ozim » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:31 AM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #23

Maybe for the elite. But for middle class people like myself, I developed marketable skills, secured multiple internships, and found it easy to get a full-time job straight out of school. I had about a years worth of industry experience via internships (one for 6 months, two others 3 months each). Signaling doesn't buy you much. At least in engineering, because a technical interview will sort out whether or not you a…

Look at what you wrote "I developed marketable skills, secured multiple internships". That does not read like school did that for you and probably you could do the same without school. How much of that CS101 was studying on your own time?

Finishing school is signaling that you are person that shows up in the morning for classes and puts up years of his life to do that. By any means I am hiring developer who is signaling that he is reliable and comes to work every day vs someone who is inconsistent.

Re: School is all about signaling, not skill-building

#76

Post by yorwba » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:42 AM UTC

avcdsuia wrote: post #68

Ken_Adler wrote: post #56

Crazy story: my son actually did what the author suggested, he talked his way into a free education at Princeton!!! He audited all the classes he wanted to... no diploma, but what a great experience (and a great story....) From the article: Ponder this: If a student wants to study at Princeton, he doesn’t really need to apply or pay tuition. He can simply show up and start taking classes. As a professor, I assure you…

Not a US citizen, but AFAIK, a course includes lectures, office hours, assignments etc. How did he manage to fully understand the materials without all the resources that are provided only for registered students?

Also not a US citizen and I don't know how it works at Princeton, but in my experience, getting actionable feedback on assignments is rare. You may get told where your mistakes are, but not how you should have done it instead. Most of the value of assignments is in simply doing them; that forces you to review the necessary material.

As for office hours, I never went to any, but I assume that they're not going to check your student ID, just as they don't check before lectures.

Re: School is all about signaling, not skill-building

#77

Post by npunt » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:48 AM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #58

"You study arcane subjects year after year, knowing you’ll never use most of what you learned after graduation" Well, that wasn't true for me, and I'm pretty sure for those in engineering or science, it isn't, but even the history, philosophy, and economics courses I took I recall and use. Even Steve Jobs, who merely audited a class on calligraphy, took a great value from it. The fundamental flaw of Capland argument,…

Background on GMU's economics dept funding, where this guy is faculty: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/us/koch-donors-george-mas...

Re: School is all about signaling, not skill-building

#78

Post by dash2 » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:56 AM UTC

Article was fine until this:

  These behaviors make perfect sense if — and only if — 
  employers are eager to detect workers who dutifully 
  confirm to social expectations. In a society where 
  parents, teachers and peers glorify graduation, failing
  classes and dropping out are deviant acts.

This is a misunderstanding. Employers pay attention to qualifications, e.g. on a CV, as an informational shortcut. If you don't get the qualification, then you are pooling with everyone else who didn't - including nonconformists, but also the incompetent and lazy. If you get the qualification, even only just, then you are in the category with everyone else who did, including brilliant top achievers.

Maybe employers do care about social conformity, maybe even overwhelmingly so - but this evidence doesn't show that. Looks like a journalist misreading the academic literature.

Re: School is all about signaling, not skill-building

#79

Post by iguy » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:58 AM UTC

antt wrote: post #64

quickthrower2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The just show up mentality exists, but those people are learning online or reading books. What’s the advantage of commuting to a live lecture?

Mainly the syllabus and being told what to ignore.

And a forced pace, to keep moving instead of disappearing down every passing rabbit-hole.

Re: School is all about signaling, not skill-building

#80

Post by SamReidHughes » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:58 AM UTC

rjf72 wrote: post #72

hooch wrote: post #16

“If a student wants to study at Princeton, he doesn’t really need to apply or pay tuition. He can simply show up and start taking classes. As a professor, I assure you that we make near-zero effort to stop unofficial education; indeed, the rare, earnestly curious student touches our hearts. At the end of four years at Princeton, though, the guerrilla student would lack one precious thing: a diploma. The fact that alm…

One key thing this paragraph misses is the characterization of this sort of person. Imagine we have a person that would independently, without extrinsic reward or 'push', show up to classes completely of their own accord. And we must further assume that they would engage in all assignments and somehow try to regularly test their understanding - the feedback exams offer is crucial to demonstrating understanding. And w…

Part of the advantage of a quality student body, to other students, is that classes can be more rigorous and move faster and farther.