Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College • Hacker News Board

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#91

Post by netphobe » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 10:12 PM UTC

autotune wrote: post #47

finaliteration wrote: post #2

I attended community college for a few years before transferring to a 4-year university. During that time I took a variety of technical and non-technical courses that I really enjoyed and felt I got a lot of value from due to the small class sizes and ability to connect with professors outside of class fairly easily. I would have stopped after getting my Associate’s degree as I felt like I had learned a lot and I had…

I'm like you except I skipped college and went straight into the working world. It's entirely possible to do without an education but you have to get creative with how you acquire that initial experience, in my case through volunteering to do basic IT work before landing the first job and then some minor open source contributions to move into the devops space. Sure I'm probably not making $300K/year at the Big 4 any…

How old are you, if you don't mind breaking some OPSEC?

Making it quick, I'm a 20 year old native who's having a troubling time keeping optimistic and feeling 'locked out' from the job market around here. I've only been doing front-end engineering for a non profit for a few years now since High School, but everything still feels so far away and impossible to me, especially because I didn't go straight to college, so I've just been wondering if I'm just not trying hard enough or if I'm actually locked out until I build a decent resume...

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#92

Post by foxbarrington » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 10:27 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #84

samcheng wrote: post #4

This is an interesting reaction to the "bootcamp" trend (and subsequent implosion). I think it has a better chance of succeeding: you might not need four years of university education to become an entry-level developer, but a few weeks of intensive "bootcamp" training isn't enough.

> (and subsequent implosion) Can you elaborate?

Probably referring to articles like this: http://hackeducation.com/2017/07/22/bootcamp-bust

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#93

Post by monocularvision » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 10:30 PM UTC

oflannabhra wrote: post #83

My state has a network of community and technical colleges. There is a program that allows one to get their Associates degree through community colleges, then transfer to a state school and continue paying community college tuition. 10 years ago, this allowed for earning an engineering degree for $2k a year, or $8-10k. In my experience, community colleges were very much viewed as remedial. I’d guess that many of the…

Incredible that I had the exact same thing happen to me, including the class: Physics.

My CC years were almost always superior education wise over university.

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#94

Post by ocdtrekkie » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 10:38 PM UTC

garmaine wrote: post #57

toomuchtodo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your suggestion for OP where their resume is immediately discard because of no education? Networking and meetups won’t get you passed HR filters and corporate requirements. As I mentioned, even if you don’t get the job or lose the job, you’re still ahead of not trying. And you now have experience to put towards your next employer (and your old employer will only verify employment dates, as they don’t want to…

B.Sc. Computer Information Systems, Wahresleben University, 2014. (Wahres Leben = “real life” in German) If they actually check they won’t find the university but they can’t discount the fact it might exist. So HR is more likely to follow up with you then throw your resume out, and you can take that chance to explain you being more to the table than a university graduate.

If one person in the hiring chain knows German, you're out of luck. And more than likely, if they can't find a university, you are probably lying. Universities are big, kinda hard to not be able to find one.

You should not lie on your resume, but if you're going to lie, just find a way to make it harder to verify. Presumably the for-profit schools that got shut down in the last few years would be hard to check with. Obviously they aren't accredited, but that's not your fault. It'd be, at least, a believable lie.

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#95

Post by theparanoid » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 10:45 PM UTC

netphobe wrote: post #91

autotune wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm like you except I skipped college and went straight into the working world. It's entirely possible to do without an education but you have to get creative with how you acquire that initial experience, in my case through volunteering to do basic IT work before landing the first job and then some minor open source contributions to move into the devops space. Sure I'm probably not making $300K/year at the Big 4 any…

How old are you, if you don't mind breaking some OPSEC? Making it quick, I'm a 20 year old native who's having a troubling time keeping optimistic and feeling 'locked out' from the job market around here. I've only been doing front-end engineering for a non profit for a few years now since High School, but everything still feels so far away and impossible to me, especially because I didn't go straight to college, so…

You need a decent resume. I graduated with a math degree and couldn't get a software engineering job until going back and getting a CS degree. I'd already been programming for years. There was another guy from my class that had to do the same too.

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#96

Post by ransom1538 » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 10:46 PM UTC

oflannabhra wrote: post #83

My state has a network of community and technical colleges. There is a program that allows one to get their Associates degree through community colleges, then transfer to a state school and continue paying community college tuition. 10 years ago, this allowed for earning an engineering degree for $2k a year, or $8-10k. In my experience, community colleges were very much viewed as remedial. I’d guess that many of the…

This.

I took a course for fun at a local community college: physics. There was nothing more fascinating learning physics from someone that did accident reconstructions for 30 years. It is a different feel than being lectured to by someone that hasn't finished their graduate program. Then for fun I tried again: Oracle. My teacher? A former executive at WellsFargo and Oracle. He was extremely wealthy, and taught for fun - he did not publish some book or beg for grants.

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#97

Post by lowken10 » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 10:53 PM UTC

oflannabhra wrote: post #83

My state has a network of community and technical colleges. There is a program that allows one to get their Associates degree through community colleges, then transfer to a state school and continue paying community college tuition. 10 years ago, this allowed for earning an engineering degree for $2k a year, or $8-10k. In my experience, community colleges were very much viewed as remedial. I’d guess that many of the…

That was my experience. I went from the local community college to the top University in the state (currently a top 10 ranked public University) and found the the teachers at the community college were in most cases superior to the University professors.

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#98

Post by drpgq » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 11:00 PM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #96

oflannabhra wrote: post #83

My state has a network of community and technical colleges. There is a program that allows one to get their Associates degree through community colleges, then transfer to a state school and continue paying community college tuition. 10 years ago, this allowed for earning an engineering degree for $2k a year, or $8-10k. In my experience, community colleges were very much viewed as remedial. I’d guess that many of the…

This. I took a course for fun at a local community college: physics. There was nothing more fascinating learning physics from someone that did accident reconstructions for 30 years. It is a different feel than being lectured to by someone that hasn't finished their graduate program. Then for fun I tried again: Oracle. My teacher? A former executive at WellsFargo and Oracle. He was extremely wealthy, and taught for fu…

Yeah but how much did the community college teacher publish?

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#99

Post by goodells » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 11:05 PM UTC

oflannabhra wrote: post #83

My state has a network of community and technical colleges. There is a program that allows one to get their Associates degree through community colleges, then transfer to a state school and continue paying community college tuition. 10 years ago, this allowed for earning an engineering degree for $2k a year, or $8-10k. In my experience, community colleges were very much viewed as remedial. I’d guess that many of the…

I just finished my undergrad at a traditional four-year university in the United States and this is spot on. The language problem you mention is very real - I have taken classes with professors who are almost incomprehensible when speaking English. In some of my computer science lectures it was not uncommon for a student to ask the professor a question and for him to answer it in a language other than English, which doesn't seem fair.

Re: Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College

#100

Post by Buldak » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 11:06 PM UTC

oflannabhra wrote: post #83

My state has a network of community and technical colleges. There is a program that allows one to get their Associates degree through community colleges, then transfer to a state school and continue paying community college tuition. 10 years ago, this allowed for earning an engineering degree for $2k a year, or $8-10k. In my experience, community colleges were very much viewed as remedial. I’d guess that many of the…

I went to a liberal arts college and a lot of the virtues of community college mentioned in this thread remind me of my own experience (smaller class sizes, broader curricula, professors dedicated to teaching rather than research). Well, except price, anyway.