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Google's Plan to Disrupt the College Degree Is Absolute Genius

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Re: Google's Plan to Disrupt the College Degree Is Absolute Genius

#71

Post by soco »

F_J_H wrote: post #31
twblalock wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universities are not intended to be vocational schools or trade schools. That's why electives are required to graduate. That's why CS programs teach theory more than practice. It's always worth being a well-rounded person. The most successful software engineers I know are not the most technically proficient. They are the ones who understand how their customers and their employees and their managers view the world, an…

Agreed, but how much debt should one take on to learn these other skills? (Scott Galloway has been talking about this a lot lately - university degree cost inflation, which has skyrocketed without a commensurate increase in the quality of the product/service.) There are other ways to pick up these skills, which are much more cost effective.

I assume your comment is made from an US perspective. Other countries manage to give students education without burying them in debt... maybe there's a lesson, somewhere...

Re: Google's Plan to Disrupt the College Degree Is Absolute Genius

#72

Post by gostsamo »

dredmorbius wrote: post #70
gostsamo wrote: post #6

Is there such a term as "edmill"? A process of mass producing cheap labor for low-paid positions. This post just smells of hype and marketing for something like that.

Short answer: Yes, highly-focused skills-centric but narrow education has a long history. Longer answer: It's useful to keep in mind the (usually) unstated goals of educational systems: - Produce a technically-skilled, but politically pliable, working class. - Produce a managerially competent, but not revolutionary, management and professional class. - Persist existing power structures, whatever their form; political…

Huh, I've struck a nerve there. :)

A question is where we should draw the line between education never being able to teach everything that one needs and education being only a way to utilize people. I would put it where a skill let's you acquire additional knowledge and capabilities, such like reading, math, logic, and the like. In that sense, MIT and teaching someone how to use excel for project reports go in different categories.

This is an opinion only though. The debate is rather large and it has many nuances.

Re: Google's Plan to Disrupt the College Degree Is Absolute Genius

#73

Post by dredmorbius »

gostsamo wrote: post #72
dredmorbius wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short answer: Yes, highly-focused skills-centric but narrow education has a long history. Longer answer: It's useful to keep in mind the (usually) unstated goals of educational systems: - Produce a technically-skilled, but politically pliable, working class. - Produce a managerially competent, but not revolutionary, management and professional class. - Persist existing power structures, whatever their form; political…

Huh, I've struck a nerve there. :) A question is where we should draw the line between education never being able to teach everything that one needs and education being only a way to utilize people. I would put it where a skill let's you acquire additional knowledge and capabilities, such like reading, math, logic, and the like. In that sense, MIT and teaching someone how to use excel for project reports go in differ…

Yeah, I've been kicking these ideas around for a while.

There are a few directions we could take this. Some freaks (myself) find them all fascinating.

There's the development of modern business comms and procedures, notably at railroads and DuPont Chemical. Joanne Yates has written a history. These became codified in business practices training.

Standardisation itself has been a tremendous advance, much of it lead by a Republican, Herbert Hoover, as Commerce Secretary.

The establishment of common practices, methods, and skills is itself a powerful asset for companies. Armies of workers skilled in typing, filing, programming languages, operating systems, productivity software, and more, make the underlying companies' products and services more valuable.

The classification of skills on a hierarchy is its own mess --- from basic to complex. Breaking apart the Seven Liberal Arts into their sub-groupings of the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric --- think of these as input, precessing, and output), and quadrivium (maths, geometry, music, and astronomy --- quantity, quantity in space, quantity in time, and quantity in space and time), reveals some of this. I've been considering similar fundamental divisions of technical mechanisms to fundamental dynamics or elements.

Or the classical professions: medicine, law, theology, business. Later engineering and technology in its own right.

There's the durability or ephemerality of knowledge, skills, and equipment. I've been in tech long enough to have some sense of what does and does not endure, possibly even why. Future Sock spoke to this 50 years ago.

Then there is the nature, history, and function of education, as institution, as sevice, as profession, its roles in society, culture, business, industry, politics, and military. The impacts of the wars of the 19th & 20th centuries really cannot be overstated. There are many tensions, and many covert or latent functions (a wonderful concept from sociologist Robert K. Melton).

Re: Google's Plan to Disrupt the College Degree Is Absolute Genius

#74

Post by robomartin »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #51
robomartin wrote: post #39

I see a lot of negativity in this thread. What’s wrong with Google giving a bunch of people a taste and the opportunity to grow? I prefer to believe in the ability of people to reach beyond their station in life. Sometimes all they need is inspiration. If Google can provide that it’s great.

The concern is whether Google actually is giving them an opportunity to grow. As was mentioned downthread, most existing training certificate programs offer no real growth and exist only to create a stagnant job pool in service of the commercial interests of the company issuing them. I'm optimistic that this program will be different, but I understand why someone who distrusts Google might be concerned.

Strictly speaking, neither Google nor any other single entity is responsible for giving anyone any opportunity of any kind; to work, learn, grow, etc. That they do is is very cool.

From my experience, the best people at anything (it doesn't have to be coding, anything in life) are those who caught a glimpse of something that resonated with them and, from that point forward, could not let it go.

In other words, from my perspective, the opportunity to grow is created by the person, not by external actors.

Here's a simple example: How often the children of very rich people end-up being complete losers? They don't lack resources at all. They don't lack opportunity at all. What they lack is hunger, exposure, discipline, struggle and that something that creates that spark that inspires so many to excel.

This is why I said that what Google is doing is great. You don't need to put people through a full CS curriculum for them to be useful and, more importantly, to change their lives. What they do with the experience and insight after that is up to them.

Re: Google's Plan to Disrupt the College Degree Is Absolute Genius

#76

Post by Jimmc414 »

robjan wrote: post #68
Jimmc414 wrote: post #53

The author doesn't seem to understand how supply and demand work. Unless there's about to be a massive increase in the availability of these jobs, this is going to create a bubble that will reduce these salaries and lower the skill level in these positions.

It doesn't push down salaries but does increase the signal to noise ratio when it comes to hiring and therefore the cost of talent acquisition. In influx of bootcamps in my area caused something similar with Software Engineers. We didn't want to automatically exclude people from these institutions but we ended up having to.

If you had not excluded them do you believe it would have pushed down salaries?

Re: Google's Plan to Disrupt the College Degree Is Absolute Genius

#77

Post by Jimmc414 »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #44

The author seems to exist in a permanent state of enthusiasm, for mega corps and their corpy things. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=Justin+Bariso Just an observation.

I clicked your link to disagree with you but the evidence is on your side.

Re: Google's Plan to Disrupt the College Degree Is Absolute Genius

#78

Post by Jimmc414 »

thehappypm wrote: post #30
goatherders wrote: post #9

College in the USA is an economic plague on young people. This most certainly can't be as bad.

Except that’s completely untrue. College degrees are well worth the investment — the earning potential increases of having a college degree vastly dwarf tuition costs. When people are young, debt is a problem, but those same people continue to see (exponential) income growth over the course of their careers and eventually beat the debt, and then some. Folks without degrees struggle with income growth.

Are you basing this on your experience or the current market realities?

Re: Google's Plan to Disrupt the College Degree Is Absolute Genius

#79

Post by Jimmc414 »

blackflame7000 wrote: post #12

Half the classes they make you take at universities are worthless anyways. They're just there to keep you 4 years and get more money. A CS major doesn't need to learn about Greek Mythology.

To be fair, I'd probably hire the programmer with the knowledge of greek mythology over the one without. Personal preferences aside, great programmers are very rarely one dimensional

Re: Google's Plan to Disrupt the College Degree Is Absolute Genius

#80

Post by blackflame7000 »

dx87 wrote: post #18
blackflame7000 wrote: post #12

Half the classes they make you take at universities are worthless anyways. They're just there to keep you 4 years and get more money. A CS major doesn't need to learn about Greek Mythology.

They're only worthless if you're treating college as a vocational school instead of a chance to broaden your horizons.

They are worthless from a cost-benefit analysis. You could join a social club for free and broaden your horizons in ways that would be vastly better for your career.
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