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Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

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Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#81

Post by [deleted] »

mindslight wrote: post #80
jstimpfle wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it college, or is the age where many young people visit college, that the start to mature?

It's both. Starting to mature at that age, independence of living on your own, and applying yourself to some kind of real work, but without all of that being colored by unrelenting abuse by the financial treadmill. One could probably replicate that kind of slack outside the university environment, but you still need some kind of direction to be learning rather than merely hanging around and playing video games, so su…

[deleted]

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#82

Post by morkalork »

vasilzhigilei wrote: post #17

There really needs to be a trade school for software engineering. Not just a short boot camp, either. A rigorous 4 year degree that focuses on industry relevant skills and hands-on projects. The biggest reason I got my 1st job out of college at Cloudflare was because I worked on a lot of personal projects and self learned Go and got experience with Postgres, Redis, and basic frontend. These things were not, or barely…

They have this where I live and it's great for pumping out web developer and generic C#/Java CRUD dudes. And to be fair, 90% of the work here is doable with their skills. It's just fucking wild talking to one and they have zero clue about theory or advanced algorithms the rare time it does come up at work. Like a deer in headlights blank stare sort of situation

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#83

Post by michtzik »

chuckadams wrote: post #3

Best to recruit kids before they get exposed to dangerous ideas like the right to vote.

Of course this is just a snide remark that doesn't contribute to the conversation, but it can be interesting to dive deeper:

For example, why don't the kids themselves have the right to vote?

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#84

Post by oulipo2 »

vasilzhigilei wrote: post #17

There really needs to be a trade school for software engineering. Not just a short boot camp, either. A rigorous 4 year degree that focuses on industry relevant skills and hands-on projects. The biggest reason I got my 1st job out of college at Cloudflare was because I worked on a lot of personal projects and self learned Go and got experience with Postgres, Redis, and basic frontend. These things were not, or barely…

It's easier to get a training for those tech (that change all the time) on the job. It's harder to get the CS fundamentals later. Functional programming, type theory, etc are all very important and they are taught in CS schools

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#87

Post by dlcarrier »

bearjaws wrote: post #7

I look back at myself at 18 and damn I was dumb as rocks. I'm amazed I even had an internship working on drivers, the risk is too high.

I had an internship at HP when I was 16. I probably wasn't particularly useful, but I learned a lot about how the corporate world works. I'm glad I didn't have to wait until I was 18 to figure that out, and get on the right course for my education and career.

One of my high-school friends went to college for a teaching credential, only to learn at the end that he didn't like teaching.

College or not, it's extremely useful to be exposed to a field of work for at least a few months, before dedicating years if your life to it.

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#88

Post by dlcarrier »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #28

This is basically taking options on human beings.

Employees are far more like goods in a commodities exchange than anyone seems to want to admit.

Hiring/layoff cycles follow the market value of an employee, not the growth/stagnation of the employer.

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#89

Post by JumpCrisscross »

michtzik wrote: post #83
chuckadams wrote: post #3

Best to recruit kids before they get exposed to dangerous ideas like the right to vote.

Of course this is just a snide remark that doesn't contribute to the conversation, but it can be interesting to dive deeper: For example, why don't the kids themselves have the right to vote?

> why don't the kids themselves have the right to vote?

"Cortical white matter increases from childhood (~9 years) to adolescence (~14 years)," while "cortical grey matter development peaks at ~12 years of age in the frontal and parietal cortices, and 14–16 years in the temporal lobes" [1].

The latter processes emotions and language [2]. Its myelination continues significantly through at least 17 years old [3], through one's mid twenties.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_brain_development_timeli...

[2] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/16799-temporal-lo...

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33359342/#&gid=article-figur...

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#90

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mikert89 wrote: post #16

Highly intelligent kids at 18 are ready for the real world. Its a waste of time to make them memorize random subjects

> Highly intelligent kids at 18 are ready for the real world

Highly-intelligent, disciplined kids should go to college. Others should go to trades, including coding and sales.

More pointedly, we live in a democracy. A population ignorant of the classics, of history, of the law, and only obsessed with personal practical concerns is going to do what such populations always do: swing populist and burn down any institution they don't understand because what isn't instantly comprehensible is obviously the work of the devil.

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