6 ms·

So I guess this was a comedy piece? Some more serious issues I've noticed: #1. They don't teach you that teachers are paid to put up with you. Employers aren't

by unabst 11y ago

So I guess this was a comedy piece? Some more serious issues I've noticed: #1. They don't teach you that teachers are paid to put up with you. Employers aren't paid to put up with you. They're paid to fire people who waste their time and interfere with the work that needs to get done. #2. They don't teach you how to not waste people's time. Some of the group activities that force mingling are the worst. Most real work does not require communication, especially at entry level positions. Take instructions once, and just deliver what is being asked of you. #3. They don't teach you what's being asked of you. Students show up at class, deliver homework and take exams, with the occasional project maybe. Work is all exams. It's about your constant output that is monetarily valued by your employer, which is always being examined. Homework and exams have no value. But the degree has value, right? #4. They don't teach you the degree has little value. The list can go much longer, but even if you're a Harvard PhD, until you get this, you're a fraud. And even if you're a high school dropout, if you get it, you're in business. Employers don't really care where you're from once you're in the building. They just need things to get done. (The degree acquiring experience can be spectacular for you regardless of where you go actually, but degrees just aren't worth what they used to be, for sure.)

onion2k 11y ago
#2. They don't teach you how to not waste people's time. Some of the group activities that force mingling are the worst. Most real work does not require communication, especially at entry level positions. Take instructions once, and just deliver what is being asked of you. That assumes some sort of weird universe where instructions are always perfect. I don't live in that universe. Every person who does paid work of any sort should be questioning their instructions, communicating with their colleagues about the instructions, and giving their manager feedback if the instructions are incomplete or if the situation changes. That applies to everyone from people writing complex software to people paid to literally just dig holes. The notion that communication skills are universally important across all jobs is entirely true.
- unabst 11y ago
  Communication skills are important, but you need to know when to shut the fuck up. That's what's universally important and entirely true. Instructions are never perfect. It's whether you can get the job done anyway, once you know what is being asked of you, which is mostly a one time initiation. Ever see someone repeatedly asking and questioning what is being asked of them? That's someone who is going to struggle for the rest of their lives in every professional environment someone accidentally put them in. Supervisors don't want to hear about imperfections that you could have worked around yourself. You aren't being paid to call and talk and yap. You're being paid to deliver. Your approach is academic already, and goes to prove my point. Instructions only need to meet you half way. In fact, less the more for you. This is why it's completely academically backwards. The more you get done with fewer instructions, the more valuable you are because you cost less time. Imagine a Postal Worker questioning the features on their mobile device (which clearly suck). They're being paid to work with it, not question it and talk about it. Communication skills are important, but communication itself is an absolute bottleneck in any workflow (with emphasis on flow). Minimize communication volume, and maximize communication value. Work is no excuse to talk. But that doesn't mean all work is anti-academic. Most of it is though. The best academic jobs will always be in academia.
  - onion2k 11y ago
    Work is no excuse to talk. I understand that there are people who prefer to work in silence, concentrating on nothing but the task at hand, but the suggestion that everyone should be like that is idiotic. There is a wide variety of people in the workplace; we aren't all the same. The idea that office hours should be limited to work and nothing else betrays who we are: living, sociable human beings.
    - unabst 11y ago
      Right. You continue to exemplify my point. Talkers truly underestimate the bandwidth it takes to engage someone properly, and if you're not engaging someone properly, your presence is just insulting. If you're in an open office without walls or cubicles, and people kept talking to you, you wouldn't get anything done. Their excuse? That they're living, sociable, human beings. Well, tell that to your boss. Think of a busy kitchen. People don't talk beyond the signals required to advance workflow. Of course, everyone can chat when they're not busy. But that's also when the business isn't making any money. Restaurants close to take you off the clock. Think of all the jobs that require focus, like programming and writing. Think of all the jobs that are so much easier with focus, like almost every job. Of course, if you like to talk, just get a job that requires it. Waiters get to talk while they wait for customers, and get to talk with customers. Journalists, teachers, lawyers, consultants, entertainers. And my suggestion was to know when to shut up, not that everyone must work in silence. There is a time for communication, and for your presentation skills to shine. It just isn't "whenever I feel sociable because that's who I am, yo". But that's school! Get it? And all this, they DO NOT TEACH IN SCHOOL.
WalterBright 11y ago
> They don't teach you the degree has little value. It's true you can get a degree, even an engineering degree, without learning much of any value. But if you go to college to actually get an education, the degree is simply a side effect. If you avoid the hard classes, do as little as possible, etc., and get a degree but don't be surprised to find out that degree is worthless.
- x1798DE 11y ago
  I think you have this exactly backward. Learning during college is a side effect. You are paying for the degree mostly as a costly signal. If you want to learn but don't care about a degree, there are much better and cheaper ways than going to college.
  - WalterBright 11y ago
    > You are paying for the degree mostly as a costly signal. That's not why I went to college. I went to learn engineering, and I did, and I enjoyed it. > much better and cheaper ways In a word, baloney. I got a great deal out of college, far more than I would have with self-study. I know that people claim you can learn math on your own, but I've never encountered one who did. Not in 40 years of working with engineers.
    - x1798DE 11y ago
      > In a word, baloney. I got a great deal out of college, far more than I would have with self-study. I'm not just saying this off the cuff, there's pretty strong evidence that the thing you are paying for is the signal. Consider anecdotal evidence in terms of what people consider valuable - in many colleges you can walk in to any class without presenting any identification and just start learning, for free. If you asked the Professor if you can sit in on the class even though you are not enrolled in the school, I'm fairly certain a huge majority of them would say yes (I've done it myself for multiple classes at a law school). > I know that people claim you can learn math on your own, but I've never encountered one who did. Not in 40 years of working with engineers. There's a huge selection effect there, in that you can learn these things easily (especially now) on your own by using it, but people can learn these things are also generally the people for whom college is easy, so you would expect them all to have learned it in college anyway. See the Wikipedia article on Signalling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_%28economics%29#Job-market_signalling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_%28economics%29#Job...). The point is, learning is generally a beneficial side effect of our education system.
stevetrewick 11y ago
>Most real work does not require communication This made me roll my eyes. This may apply to whatever you are currently engaged in, I couldn't possibly say, but it is not at all typical. Take a look at [0] which lists occupation types from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Go have a look at the underlying data tables. Now, you can either choose to classify the majority of those as 'not real work' or you can concede that projecting outwards from where you are might not be a good way to reason about the world. [0] http://www.careerinfonet.org/oview3.asp?id=&level=Overall&nodeid=5 http://www.careerinfonet.org/oview3.asp?id=&level=Overall&no...
Radim 11y ago
I see there's some controversy here about your points (or perhaps just your way of presenting them?). I'd like to weigh to say your advice is solid. Employees are absolutely valued by their boss based on how much hand-holding they require and how autonomous they are. In fact, in functional companies, that's what decides your factual seniority: Not the years your butt sat physically in some chair, but how little you need to get going and have results. It's not controversial at all. From students who need the instructions in almost algorithmic form and understand no context, to business owners who create their own opportunities and generate time for others, there's a whole spectrum.

by unabst 11y ago

onion2k 11y ago

#2. They don't teach you how to not waste people's time. Some of the group activities that force mingling are the worst. Most real work does not require communication, especially at entry level positions. Take instructions once, and just deliver what is being asked of you. That assumes some sort of weird universe where instructions are always perfect. I don't live in that universe. Every person who does paid work of any sort should be questioning their instructions, communicating with their colleagues about the instructions, and giving their manager feedback if the instructions are incomplete or if the situation changes. That applies to everyone from people writing complex software to people paid to literally just dig holes. The notion that communication skills are universally important across all jobs is entirely true.

unabst 11y ago
Communication skills are important, but you need to know when to shut the fuck up. That's what's universally important and entirely true. Instructions are never perfect. It's whether you can get the job done anyway, once you know what is being asked of you, which is mostly a one time initiation. Ever see someone repeatedly asking and questioning what is being asked of them? That's someone who is going to struggle for the rest of their lives in every professional environment someone accidentally put them in. Supervisors don't want to hear about imperfections that you could have worked around yourself. You aren't being paid to call and talk and yap. You're being paid to deliver. Your approach is academic already, and goes to prove my point. Instructions only need to meet you half way. In fact, less the more for you. This is why it's completely academically backwards. The more you get done with fewer instructions, the more valuable you are because you cost less time. Imagine a Postal Worker questioning the features on their mobile device (which clearly suck). They're being paid to work with it, not question it and talk about it. Communication skills are important, but communication itself is an absolute bottleneck in any workflow (with emphasis on flow). Minimize communication volume, and maximize communication value. Work is no excuse to talk. But that doesn't mean all work is anti-academic. Most of it is though. The best academic jobs will always be in academia.
- onion2k 11y ago
  Work is no excuse to talk. I understand that there are people who prefer to work in silence, concentrating on nothing but the task at hand, but the suggestion that everyone should be like that is idiotic. There is a wide variety of people in the workplace; we aren't all the same. The idea that office hours should be limited to work and nothing else betrays who we are: living, sociable human beings.
  - unabst 11y ago
    Right. You continue to exemplify my point. Talkers truly underestimate the bandwidth it takes to engage someone properly, and if you're not engaging someone properly, your presence is just insulting. If you're in an open office without walls or cubicles, and people kept talking to you, you wouldn't get anything done. Their excuse? That they're living, sociable, human beings. Well, tell that to your boss. Think of a busy kitchen. People don't talk beyond the signals required to advance workflow. Of course, everyone can chat when they're not busy. But that's also when the business isn't making any money. Restaurants close to take you off the clock. Think of all the jobs that require focus, like programming and writing. Think of all the jobs that are so much easier with focus, like almost every job. Of course, if you like to talk, just get a job that requires it. Waiters get to talk while they wait for customers, and get to talk with customers. Journalists, teachers, lawyers, consultants, entertainers. And my suggestion was to know when to shut up, not that everyone must work in silence. There is a time for communication, and for your presentation skills to shine. It just isn't "whenever I feel sociable because that's who I am, yo". But that's school! Get it? And all this, they DO NOT TEACH IN SCHOOL.

WalterBright 11y ago

> They don't teach you the degree has little value. It's true you can get a degree, even an engineering degree, without learning much of any value. But if you go to college to actually get an education, the degree is simply a side effect. If you avoid the hard classes, do as little as possible, etc., and get a degree but don't be surprised to find out that degree is worthless.

x1798DE 11y ago
I think you have this exactly backward. Learning during college is a side effect. You are paying for the degree mostly as a costly signal. If you want to learn but don't care about a degree, there are much better and cheaper ways than going to college.
- WalterBright 11y ago
  > You are paying for the degree mostly as a costly signal. That's not why I went to college. I went to learn engineering, and I did, and I enjoyed it. > much better and cheaper ways In a word, baloney. I got a great deal out of college, far more than I would have with self-study. I know that people claim you can learn math on your own, but I've never encountered one who did. Not in 40 years of working with engineers.
  - x1798DE 11y ago
    > In a word, baloney. I got a great deal out of college, far more than I would have with self-study. I'm not just saying this off the cuff, there's pretty strong evidence that the thing you are paying for is the signal. Consider anecdotal evidence in terms of what people consider valuable - in many colleges you can walk in to any class without presenting any identification and just start learning, for free. If you asked the Professor if you can sit in on the class even though you are not enrolled in the school, I'm fairly certain a huge majority of them would say yes (I've done it myself for multiple classes at a law school). > I know that people claim you can learn math on your own, but I've never encountered one who did. Not in 40 years of working with engineers. There's a huge selection effect there, in that you can learn these things easily (especially now) on your own by using it, but people can learn these things are also generally the people for whom college is easy, so you would expect them all to have learned it in college anyway. See the Wikipedia article on Signalling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_%28economics%29#Job-market_signalling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_%28economics%29#Job...). The point is, learning is generally a beneficial side effect of our education system.

stevetrewick 11y ago

>Most real work does not require communication This made me roll my eyes. This may apply to whatever you are currently engaged in, I couldn't possibly say, but it is not at all typical. Take a look at [0] which lists occupation types from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Go have a look at the underlying data tables. Now, you can either choose to classify the majority of those as 'not real work' or you can concede that projecting outwards from where you are might not be a good way to reason about the world. [0] http://www.careerinfonet.org/oview3.asp?id=&level=Overall&nodeid=5 http://www.careerinfonet.org/oview3.asp?id=&level=Overall&no...

Radim 11y ago

I see there's some controversy here about your points (or perhaps just your way of presenting them?). I'd like to weigh to say your advice is solid. Employees are absolutely valued by their boss based on how much hand-holding they require and how autonomous they are. In fact, in functional companies, that's what decides your factual seniority: Not the years your butt sat physically in some chair, but how little you need to get going and have results. It's not controversial at all. From students who need the instructions in almost algorithmic form and understand no context, to business owners who create their own opportunities and generate time for others, there's a whole spectrum.