3 ms·

Interesting article. This confirms something I've suspected for a while, which is that elite colleges matter immensely if you don't study STEM. You could turn

by geebee 11y ago

Interesting article. This confirms something I've suspected for a while, which is that elite colleges matter immensely if you don't study STEM. You could turn this into a different question - is the value of an elite college that it allows you to major in something other than STEM? And maybe one step further - if elite colleges differentiate themselves from other colleges through the prospects they offer non-STEM students, does that mean it may be rational for very elite students to avoid STEM, which serves as an equalizer? I have noticed this anecdotally by observing the prospects of strong students who went to good but not elite schools. You could be a very strong international relations student from a mid-tier UC (say, UC Davis or UCSD), but your prospects really won't be as good as they would be if you'd gone to Yale. It isn't game over, but Yale is a huge boost. But if you major in CS, they will be the same… … or will they? There certainly is still a difference in kind, just not one that is as readily apparent to people who see a bunch of squiggles, symbols, and text flashing by on a screen. There is an easily observed difference between being a the director of the American Music Heritage foundation (an invented title and organization) at $130k a year and a senior crud bug fixer for $130k a year. But these differences exist within tech as well. An interesting data science position where you have a lot of autonomy is a very different life from checking in with the scrum team every morning to talk about whether you've figured out why the config file changes are making the computer say "ERRNO 63: gcc header updater missing", even if they both pay the same. Do elite colleges lead to a hidden difference in kind within the tech field, similar to what is observable outside of tech?

sotojuan 11y ago
There's a difference between the prospects of an okay school vs elite school for CS. The gap just happens to be much smaller. In our industry there are many people who do just fine with no CS degree, CS degree from obscure schools, or degree at all. Almost no other industry can say that. However, in general, elite school means better opportunities, better classmates that motivate you, better companies recruiting, etc. The difference exists, it's just "smaller" and evens out with time. Remember that in our industry you can move to $100k+ after 3-5 years of experience (of course, if you put in work, network and get better, but the demand for "mid/senior" devs is big). I've found that your background rarely matters at that point.
- geebee 11y ago
  I agree with you about salary. You can move up in salary and title, and the data here seems to suggest that it won't make a huge difference whether you majored in CS at MIT or San Jose State - you need to go to a proper program, sure, but prestige isn't nearly as big a factor as it is in many other fields. That said, I'm not sure you're responding to my question, which is whether there is a hidden difference in kind rather than in salary. For instance, your background may not matter if you're moving up to what I cynically describe as "mid/senior crud big fixer", and it may be that those jobs pay as well as "mid/senior data scientist" who works in an R&Dish role without looking deadlines or scrum tickets. Even if both earn the same salary, I consider one role to be much more desirable than the other (though I actually do kind of enjoy chasing down bugs sometimes). Does the MIT grad have a better crack at the more interesting, R&Dish job with greater autonomy, less micromanagement, fewer deadlines? It's a question, not a conclusion (I suspect it's true, but I acknowledge that I don't have the data to support it). If so, I wouldn't say background rarely matters - it does matter, but it won't show up in the numbers if all you're looking at is salary.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    I went to Stanford. It doesn't get me promotion. But it does get me interviews. So indirectly yeah I earn more because of it, since I'm in the short list for many job applications.
- geebee 11y ago
  I agree with you about salary. You can move up in salary and title, and the data here seems to suggest that it won't make a huge difference whether you majored in CS at MIT or San Jose State - you need to go to a proper program, sure, but prestige isn't nearly as big a factor as it is in many other fields. That said, I'm not sure you're responding to my question, which is whether there is a hidden difference in kind rather than in salary. For instance, your background may not matter if you're moving up to what I cynically describe as "mid/senior crud big fixer", and it may be that those jobs pay as well as "mid/senior data scientist" who works in an R&Dish role without looking deadlines or scrum tickets. Even if both earn the same salary, I consider one role to be much more desirable than the other (though I actually do kind of enjoy chasing down bugs sometimes). Does the MIT grad have a better crack at the more interesting, R&Dish job with greater autonomy, less micromanagement, fewer deadlines? It's a question, not a conclusion (I suspect it's true, but I acknowledge that I don't have the data to support it). If so, I wouldn't say background rarely matters - it does matter, but it won't show up in the numbers if all you're looking at is salary.

by geebee 11y ago

sotojuan 11y ago

There's a difference between the prospects of an okay school vs elite school for CS. The gap just happens to be much smaller. In our industry there are many people who do just fine with no CS degree, CS degree from obscure schools, or degree at all. Almost no other industry can say that. However, in general, elite school means better opportunities, better classmates that motivate you, better companies recruiting, etc. The difference exists, it's just "smaller" and evens out with time. Remember that in our industry you can move to $100k+ after 3-5 years of experience (of course, if you put in work, network and get better, but the demand for "mid/senior" devs is big). I've found that your background rarely matters at that point.

geebee 11y ago
I agree with you about salary. You can move up in salary and title, and the data here seems to suggest that it won't make a huge difference whether you majored in CS at MIT or San Jose State - you need to go to a proper program, sure, but prestige isn't nearly as big a factor as it is in many other fields. That said, I'm not sure you're responding to my question, which is whether there is a hidden difference in kind rather than in salary. For instance, your background may not matter if you're moving up to what I cynically describe as "mid/senior crud big fixer", and it may be that those jobs pay as well as "mid/senior data scientist" who works in an R&Dish role without looking deadlines or scrum tickets. Even if both earn the same salary, I consider one role to be much more desirable than the other (though I actually do kind of enjoy chasing down bugs sometimes). Does the MIT grad have a better crack at the more interesting, R&Dish job with greater autonomy, less micromanagement, fewer deadlines? It's a question, not a conclusion (I suspect it's true, but I acknowledge that I don't have the data to support it). If so, I wouldn't say background rarely matters - it does matter, but it won't show up in the numbers if all you're looking at is salary.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  I went to Stanford. It doesn't get me promotion. But it does get me interviews. So indirectly yeah I earn more because of it, since I'm in the short list for many job applications.
geebee 11y ago
I agree with you about salary. You can move up in salary and title, and the data here seems to suggest that it won't make a huge difference whether you majored in CS at MIT or San Jose State - you need to go to a proper program, sure, but prestige isn't nearly as big a factor as it is in many other fields. That said, I'm not sure you're responding to my question, which is whether there is a hidden difference in kind rather than in salary. For instance, your background may not matter if you're moving up to what I cynically describe as "mid/senior crud big fixer", and it may be that those jobs pay as well as "mid/senior data scientist" who works in an R&Dish role without looking deadlines or scrum tickets. Even if both earn the same salary, I consider one role to be much more desirable than the other (though I actually do kind of enjoy chasing down bugs sometimes). Does the MIT grad have a better crack at the more interesting, R&Dish job with greater autonomy, less micromanagement, fewer deadlines? It's a question, not a conclusion (I suspect it's true, but I acknowledge that I don't have the data to support it). If so, I wouldn't say background rarely matters - it does matter, but it won't show up in the numbers if all you're looking at is salary.