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UIUC grad here. Pretty sure I was the author's TA at one point too :) All of these programs and events are a huge step in the right direction. I personally di
by matmann2001 11y ago
UIUC grad here. Pretty sure I was the author's TA at one point too :)
All of these programs and events are a huge step in the right direction. I personally did my best to even help some of these programs grow, particularly iFoundry and the group that eventually became Hack Illinois. But the biggest challenge I found was bridging the chasm between this hacker/entrepreneur culture and the existing academic/research culture.
As a premier research university, the UIUC engineering curriculum is heavily focused on the theoretical. In my years there, I really had to go out of my way to obtain some hands-on learning experiences. Those are so important for breeding a hacker/entrepreneur culture. It's how you learn to work with real-world constraints, how to network and collaborate, and how to fail well. A textbook and a Powerpoint lecture just can't teach that.
So the question I pose, to the author and to the readers, is this: How do we change the way students are taught?
- eldavido 11y agoBe careful what you wish for. Asking universities to teach "hands-on learning" isn't productive; you'll get plenty of that, that's more recent and marketable, from practical work experience. I'd rather the universities go even further in the theoretical direction. What I got from engineering school wasn't just another 2-3 years of work experience, it was much deeper things like numeracy, learning to write well, lifelong relationships, appreciation for rigor, and a hell of a work ethic. It was a fantastic value for the time and money I put in and it was absolutely worth it. (UIUC alumnus living/working in SF)
- afridi 11y agoI think a balance is needed. A lot of my friends in CS graduating after 4 years of college (at a number of schools including at UIUC) feel less confident going into the industry than people I know that have gone through developer bootcamps. Theory is definitely important, but the number of hands-on/practical courses needs to be increased as well.
- eldavido 11y agoDon't worry about it. People who get paid to assess the actual -- not perceived -- quality of tech talent for a living (hiring managers, bigco recruiters) aren't fooled by this. The mere amount of stamina it takes to complete an Illinois engineering degree is enough of a signal. Your experience might be different if you're dealing with money guys with no operating experience who trust the Harvard/Stanford pedigree uber alles, second/third-tier startup founders who dropped out because they're "the next steve jobs" and would rather drop acid than finish their degrees, "journalists" writing schlok "content" for valleywag/techcrunch etc. without an iota of fact-checking, and other hilarious SV stereotypes that this area seems to attract in droves. Try not to let it get you down too much. There's more to life that the front page of Techcrunch.