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> Kudos to E&Y for taking a radical approach to hiring. Kudos to E&Y for taking a sensible approach to hiring. As I'm sure your aware most colleges and second

> Kudos to E&Y for taking a radical approach to hiring. Kudos to E&Y for taking a sensible approach to hiring. As I'm sure your aware most colleges and secondary schools share similar patterns for teaching and student evaluation. Those patterns are not optimal for all brain types. Furthermore those patterns are not optimal for all work types. Anecdotally many of use can point to one or more unimpressive individuals holding impressive credentials of post graduate education. Personally speaking, I'm a high school dropout. I work in a niche that did not exist during the time I would have been in college. What degree plan would have served me best? Oddly enough, a degree in philosophy. Obviously that would have been mine (and my parents) last choice. I'm not saying college or secondary education are bad, it's just that when I look ahead for my children, it's a crap shoot. Should I pressure them to attend college? Why? Short of medicine, and certain credentialed professions what essential knowledge about their future profession will they learn in college that they could not possibly learn on their own (ab initio or ad hoc) through various other means?

gjkood 11y ago
I wish I could speak for professions such as Medicine or Law, but I can't. I can however speak for an Engineering degree. The following is an example of what a typical CS undergraduate student would study in the US[1]: ● AL - Algorithms and Complexity ● AR - Architecture and Organization ● CN - Computational Science ● DS - Discrete Structures ● GV - Graphics and Visualization ● HCI - Human-Computer Interaction ● IAS - Information Assurance and Security ● IM - Information Management ● IS - Intelligent Systems ● NC - Networking and Communications ● OS - Operating Systems ● PBD - Platform-based Development ● PD - Parallel and Distributed Computing ● PL - Programming Languages ● SDF - Software Development Fundamentals ● SE - Software Engineering ● SF - Systems Fundamentals ● SP - Social Issues and Professional Practice A typical 4 year undergraduate degree covers 120 credits typically divided among 40 (3 credits each) or more subjects. In addition to the 18 or so above the rest of the subjects include subjects in primary engineering, mathematics, electronics, mechanics, humanities and several others in addition to all the related practical/lab work. Most lay people assume that getting a degree in CS means learning HTML, CSS, one or two programming languages and most possibly some CRUD application development with a database backend. Hence the prevalence of 'boot camps' of various natures that create 'rock stars'. There is no way in heck that a person who is not forced into the degree track is going to be motivated enough to study all of this stuff. A lot of this is very very hard. Now, after studying all of this, do you think you will use even a small fraction of this in the types of jobs a typical IT/software consultant would do in 90% of the run of the mill jobs out there. NO. However the degree exposed you to subjects that you would never be exposed to unless you were in that field. And this is only an undergraduate degree. There is more to a degree that what you can learn by self motivation. At least in the technical space. [1] Computer Science Curricula 2013; ACM/IEEE Computer Society https://www.acm.org/education/CS2013-final-report.pdf https://www.acm.org/education/CS2013-final-report.pdf
- aianus 11y ago
  You could study the stuff listed in 2 years of school max. The rest of university (from my experience) is fluff designed to fill up four years so they can bring in more tuition dollars. How many people would pay $1,100 for "Intro to Spanish" or "Society, Technology and Values" if it wasn't a requirement to get your CS degree?
- ryanmarsh 11y ago
  > There is no way in heck that a person who is not forced into the degree track is going to be motivated enough to study all of this stuff. A lot of this is very very hard. Bullshit. I'm studying this stuff now and it is hard but I love it.

gjkood 11y ago

I wish I could speak for professions such as Medicine or Law, but I can't. I can however speak for an Engineering degree. The following is an example of what a typical CS undergraduate student would study in the US[1]: ● AL - Algorithms and Complexity ● AR - Architecture and Organization ● CN - Computational Science ● DS - Discrete Structures ● GV - Graphics and Visualization ● HCI - Human-Computer Interaction ● IAS - Information Assurance and Security ● IM - Information Management ● IS - Intelligent Systems ● NC - Networking and Communications ● OS - Operating Systems ● PBD - Platform-based Development ● PD - Parallel and Distributed Computing ● PL - Programming Languages ● SDF - Software Development Fundamentals ● SE - Software Engineering ● SF - Systems Fundamentals ● SP - Social Issues and Professional Practice A typical 4 year undergraduate degree covers 120 credits typically divided among 40 (3 credits each) or more subjects. In addition to the 18 or so above the rest of the subjects include subjects in primary engineering, mathematics, electronics, mechanics, humanities and several others in addition to all the related practical/lab work. Most lay people assume that getting a degree in CS means learning HTML, CSS, one or two programming languages and most possibly some CRUD application development with a database backend. Hence the prevalence of 'boot camps' of various natures that create 'rock stars'. There is no way in heck that a person who is not forced into the degree track is going to be motivated enough to study all of this stuff. A lot of this is very very hard. Now, after studying all of this, do you think you will use even a small fraction of this in the types of jobs a typical IT/software consultant would do in 90% of the run of the mill jobs out there. NO. However the degree exposed you to subjects that you would never be exposed to unless you were in that field. And this is only an undergraduate degree. There is more to a degree that what you can learn by self motivation. At least in the technical space. [1] Computer Science Curricula 2013; ACM/IEEE Computer Society https://www.acm.org/education/CS2013-final-report.pdf https://www.acm.org/education/CS2013-final-report.pdf

aianus 11y ago
You could study the stuff listed in 2 years of school max. The rest of university (from my experience) is fluff designed to fill up four years so they can bring in more tuition dollars. How many people would pay $1,100 for "Intro to Spanish" or "Society, Technology and Values" if it wasn't a requirement to get your CS degree?
ryanmarsh 11y ago
> There is no way in heck that a person who is not forced into the degree track is going to be motivated enough to study all of this stuff. A lot of this is very very hard. Bullshit. I'm studying this stuff now and it is hard but I love it.