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Job placement program for top students in Stanford's online AI class

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Re: Job placement program for top students in Stanford's online AI class

#71
post #38

Maybe, but be careful and think 'long shot': I was one of three researchers in a team at Yorktown Heights that did some of the best research in AI in the world, published a string of peer-reviewed papers, was the source of two commercial products, gave a paper at the AAAI IAAI conference in Stanford with for that year the 25 best AI applications in the world, personally won an award, etc. I've taught computer science…

Yet there are AI applications coming from Google, Apple, Microsoft and many other companies (voice products, kinect, etc.), and service based companies that work on these advanced topics too like ITA used to be. Why do you think those companies weren't interested in you? or weren't you interested in the projects they had to offer? (I'm guessing it's the latter but I could be wrong) Edit: for example some opportunitie…

I got no meaningful feedback on why I was not hired. The resumes led to only five interviews, and I'm counting phone interviews.

The main issues were (1) I am a US citizen and, thus, not on an H1B and (2) I was over 50.

Generally a subordinate is supposed to be younger.

Re: Job placement program for top students in Stanford's online AI class

#72

Prof Thrun mentioned in the last office hours that there were about 1650 people with "perfect scores" and he seemed a little thunderstruck by that and said he would admit these folks into Stanford if he could, because they are (paraphrasing, from memory)"Stanford quality". What struck me was how much importance he gave to this metric, which isn't that hard to game on an online offering. I know a few people (who shall…

I know a few people (who shall remain nameless) who collaborate and check each others Why would someone do this for a free online course that gives no credit for a degree? I mean, the whole point is to learn, not get the highest grade. I really fail to understand people sometimes.

Because they suspected that there might be value in getting great scores? (As has been proven true?)

Re: Job placement program for top students in Stanford's online AI class

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were looking for someone to hire you to do AI work because you were great in AI. This reads more to me as using a student's performance in ai-class as a proxy for their overall software engineering performance. Seems like a better metric than many others that employers use.

I was just trying to get HIRED for anything, anything at all, not seriously illegal, immoral, or dangerous, and I would have compromised on those. So, since this thread was about 'job placement' for students who did well in an AI class, I posted about my experience getting hired where part of my background was some expertise in AI. Net, I have to conclude that, in getting a "job", expertise in AI will be from very ra…

> I was just trying to get HIRED for anything, anything at all

You are "overqualified". People will read your resume and assume that you will be unhappy with a regular software engineering job, and therefore not hire you for such a position.

Like it or not, you'd need to find an AI job where people needed your particular skills. (Or something closely related.)

Re: Job placement program for top students in Stanford's online AI class

#74

Maybe, but be careful and think 'long shot': I was one of three researchers in a team at Yorktown Heights that did some of the best research in AI in the world, published a string of peer-reviewed papers, was the source of two commercial products, gave a paper at the AAAI IAAI conference in Stanford with for that year the 25 best AI applications in the world, personally won an award, etc. I've taught computer science…

Thanks for the leads, guys. Yes, that job hunting when I sent those 1000 resume copies was from 1995 to about 2005.

Finally I gave up on getting hired and decided to start a business.

I'm now deep into that effort and at least for now should continue it.

Re: Job placement program for top students in Stanford's online AI class

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were looking for someone to hire you to do AI work because you were great in AI. This reads more to me as using a student's performance in ai-class as a proxy for their overall software engineering performance. Seems like a better metric than many others that employers use.

I was just trying to get HIRED for anything, anything at all, not seriously illegal, immoral, or dangerous, and I would have compromised on those. So, since this thread was about 'job placement' for students who did well in an AI class, I posted about my experience getting hired where part of my background was some expertise in AI. Net, I have to conclude that, in getting a "job", expertise in AI will be from very ra…

Sorry, I had assumed you were playing the AI angle, and my heart bleeds for people who get binned as "overqualified" and ignored. I still think the difference here is "did really well in one AI course, so is likely to do well in software in general", and not that the students are being recruited for AI jobs.

Re: Job placement program for top students in Stanford's online AI class

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just trying to get HIRED for anything, anything at all, not seriously illegal, immoral, or dangerous, and I would have compromised on those. So, since this thread was about 'job placement' for students who did well in an AI class, I posted about my experience getting hired where part of my background was some expertise in AI. Net, I have to conclude that, in getting a "job", expertise in AI will be from very ra…

> I was just trying to get HIRED for anything, anything at all You are "overqualified". People will read your resume and assume that you will be unhappy with a regular software engineering job, and therefore not hire you for such a position. Like it or not, you'd need to find an AI job where people needed your particular skills. (Or something closely related.)

I just applied for anything, and not just for software engineering jobs. The resumes I sent to Google, Microsoft, GE Research, etc. were for whatever I was qualified for.

At the time, 1995-2005 (see my post below) AI was not much on the radar of companies. It would, could, and should have been but was not.

But asking that a company need "particular skills" that are a bit advanced is, as I explained, fundamentally something of a long shot.

Net, if someone has some advanced expertise and sees an application, then they should just start a business and there be CEO-CTO-CIO, and Chief Scientist along with chief floor sweeper until they get funding and/or revenue and can hire people.

Re: Job placement program for top students in Stanford's online AI class

#77

Well, I haven't received any such email and my score in the class is 98% so far (with only the final exam pending this week). I expected that around 10,000 people would have a perfect score in the class given my experience with Asian participation in online programming contests. There are a few countries in that part of the world where organizing a group to check each others' work and ensuring perfect scores is commo…

I'm not so sure about that given that I'm from one of the countries you've mentioned. My guess is that the profile of people who've taken part in ai class would be very different from what you would see in coding contest sites. Since no rewards were promised, I would think that those groups of people who would game the system to get perfect scores would be a very small number.

Re: Job placement program for top students in Stanford's online AI class

#79

Prof Thrun mentioned in the last office hours that there were about 1650 people with "perfect scores" and he seemed a little thunderstruck by that and said he would admit these folks into Stanford if he could, because they are (paraphrasing, from memory)"Stanford quality". What struck me was how much importance he gave to this metric, which isn't that hard to game on an online offering. I know a few people (who shall…

I know a few people (who shall remain nameless) who collaborate and check each others Why would someone do this for a free online course that gives no credit for a degree? I mean, the whole point is to learn, not get the highest grade. I really fail to understand people sometimes.

Bragging rights?

Re: Job placement program for top students in Stanford's online AI class

#80

Prof Thrun mentioned in the last office hours that there were about 1650 people with "perfect scores" and he seemed a little thunderstruck by that and said he would admit these folks into Stanford if he could, because they are (paraphrasing, from memory)"Stanford quality". What struck me was how much importance he gave to this metric, which isn't that hard to game on an online offering. I know a few people (who shall…

I know a few people (who shall remain nameless) who collaborate and check each others Why would someone do this for a free online course that gives no credit for a degree? I mean, the whole point is to learn, not get the highest grade. I really fail to understand people sometimes.

Its possible that to them, the scores aren't important and its a more conducive (and realistic) learning environment if they work together to solve the problems rather than doing it alone. There are many advantages:

* rather than just giving up on a problem, you can talk it out and learn together * you get the opportunity to teach the material that you think you know that others find hard (a good heuristic for problems you may have just barely understood, but gotten correct anyway). Teaching material is a great way to learn it, and expose any gaps you might have in your knowledge. * instant feedback on problems while they are still fresh in your memory

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