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It seems to me that the author is arguing against a straw man. As far as I can tell, very few people are arguing that people with lower grades are better than t

It seems to me that the author is arguing against a straw man. As far as I can tell, very few people are arguing that people with lower grades are better than those with good grades. I think the prevailing sentiment is that it's a poor filter to simply disregard those that didn't do well in school -- the idea is not to abandon high-GPA students for lower-GPA students, but to consider both.

orborde 16y ago
This is true, but you wouldn't know it from the common rhetoric. We praise the comeback kid; the author points out that we need to remember that it's a far better bet never to fall behind in the first place.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  > "we need to remember that it's a far better bet never to fall behind in the first place." True in principle, but since when did low/mediocre grades become associated with "falling behind"? I think that's the cognitive disconnect between the two camps - the pro-academic crowd sees poor grades as a general failure, the rest of us do not. Addressing the article directly: > "Those who get good grades are the ultimate survivors." That's awfully generous, if not quite self-congratulatory. As a staunch believer in the disconnect between academic achievement and real programming competence, I would suggest that the comment is true - but you've survived an arbitrary system constructed to achieve very little. It's a little bit like finding your way out of a garden maze - amusing and interesting perhaps, probably difficult, but the relation of this accomplishment to anything else is hazy. > "They enter an environment, evaluate it critically to figure out what skills they need to succeed and thrive in said environment." Perhaps - but assuming the goal is to be a great programmer (or whatever else your passion may be), why would you spend all your time and effort defeating this arbitrary system as opposed to pursuing things that actually make you a better programmer? (or carpenter, or doctor, or what-have-you). That's the disconnect that I see. Academic performance is measured in such a way that doesn't shed light on real ability, and in fact much of the curriculum for a lot of degrees/certificates bear little relevance to the job they supposedly train for. Beating this system is IMHO meaningless, since it contributes little to your professional abilities. Which is also why I think the medciore grades sometimes get a lot of love - I know more than a few people who eschewed academia in exchange for actually getting their hands dirty and writing a lot of code. They learned what they needed to learn from school, and spent the rest of the time perfecting their craft instead. IMHO these people make stronger programmers than those who spent their time and effort optimizing for something that isn't their end goal. When I was in college, I knew a few people who were hardcore academics. They hit the books really hard, got great grades, aced exams regularly, and generally were kicking ass. What they were not doing was developing their professional abilities - so they graduated with little to no practical experience under their belt. They were rudely surprised when their intensely deep knowledge of a great number of theories weren't at all attractive to employers who needed people to get things done. I also knew this one guy who was academic and spent a lot of time honing his real, executable skills. He's a superstar. Given that, I would say that the real discerning variable here is how much practice you've had at programming - the variable of academic achievements is really largely independent from competence as a hacker. > "there is nothing that stops a high achiever from being a passionate, free-thinking, risk-taker" I would agree with this point with some caveats, but this comment strikes me as particularly arrogant: > "good grades make better anything" Really man, really? Wow, thanks for reinforcing the ivory-tower holier-than-thou stereotype that academics surely must love having. [edit] At the risk of being inflammatory, a lot of this "high grades make better everything" hubbub seems like sour grapes from people who optimized for the wrong variable, and are now frustrated that the "losers" from before have become the winners (insofar as employment goes anyhow), and that the variable they were taught to religiously optimize turned out to be a bit pointless (for the purposes of employment, anyhow).
  - mbenjaminsmith 16y ago
    Out of my circle of friends, I undoubtedly left college with the lowest grades. Some of my friends were straight-A students (and we were at an academically challenging college). But 10+ years out it's arguable that I've achieved more in my career than any of them and there is a very weak correlation between career success and high grades in that group of friends. And yes, while we were still close, I had to deal with a lot of resentment along the way. I heard all kinds of nasty things about how I 'magically' became successful after years of lackluster academic performance. It's silly to say people who do well in school are flawed or are wasting their energy. I think there are many compelling reasons to do well in school. But in my experience there is a sense of entitlement that develops along the way that often leads to a lot of friction and disappointment down the road. Also, after years of hiring and training people, I firmly believe that grades do not predict ability in any meaningful way.
Avshalom 16y ago
>As far as I can tell, very few people are arguing that people with lower grades are better than those with good grades. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1028272 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1028272 There's some one arguing just that. While I don't see it a lot I have certainly seen the point argued, generally right beside some one claiming Einstein was bad at math.
what 16y ago
I would agree that on their own grades are poor filter. You could have less than stellar grades, but may have something else to show your ability (side projects or what not). On the other hand, a high GPA might only demonstrate your mastery of bulimic studying; Memorize and regurgitate.
- pavel_lishin 16y ago
  Or that you learned to game the system.
  - alan-crowe 16y ago
    I find that throw-away comment is a revelation to me. The American education system teaches its bright students to game the system. Then they go to work for Enron or Goldman-Sachs, and game the system. I've lived my life viewing the world through a peculiarly British narrative. Upper class twits preside over a broken system with perverse incentives. Why doesn't it fail? Partly because of the plucky grammar school boy who grows up to occupy a key technocrat role and who heroically resists the lure of perverse incentives and does the right thing. Partly because of the inherent decency and solidarity of the working class, who will not shaft each other even if the system pays them to. So the American experience, in which mainstream people are always looking for an angle and a way to game the system, seems quite alien to me. Duh! It is the way they have been brought up.
    - hnhg 16y ago
      > Partly because of the inherent decency and solidarity of the working class, who will not shaft each other even if the system pays them to. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. Why are you romanticising the working class? Personally speaking, the breadth of my family oddly encompasses the upper and lower classes, and after being close to all of them over the years I can tell you there is nothing inherently wrong or right about a specific class. Some of the most admirable people I have met you would label as "upper class twits," and likewise there are others from more humble backgrounds that you would point to as evidence of an exclusive core of decency within the lower classes. In summary, good and bad people exist in the same proportions in every arbitrary class we would wish to create.
jacquesm 16y ago
I don't know. My brother and me are a nice case study, of course that's just one more anecdote and not exactly science but still. People said that I would go to university and do all kinds of stuff, nobody paid much attention to Maurice. But he was the one to end up going to university, I dropped out in high school. Family circumstances at the time had a lot to do with all this, but still, he's the one with the degree in history and I only have a typing diploma and a driving license as my 'educational record'. Better grades or lower grades doesn't enter in to it. The educational system works well if you're in the middle of the pack, if you are at one or the other extreme you have a problem. I'm not sure if a university degree would have helped me in any way, I'll never know and I'm resigned to that. But I do know that there is more to school than 'subject knowledge', and that in my dealings with people I could have benefited from a deeper immersion in to social structures and how to deal with all kinds of situations. See my post the other day about my past mistakes, I'm pretty sure a few of those are rooted in my checkered history. I wouldn't trade my life for any other, and in the hiring policies of my company I always tried to look past the grades and to the person behind them and their motivation. If I got the feeling they wanted to move ahead in life then that was usually the deciding factor, and for the most part they did not disappoint me, even the ones with good grades ;)
pnelly 16y ago
Kind of an elitist asshole I think. Good Grades, Bad Grades, who cares?!?!, just take care of yourself, if your grades are good, great!, if your grades are bad, try harder, if you're already trying hard, then try something else which better matches your abilities, We ALL have talents. The following pissed me off: "Sure, poor grades can be an indicator of a creative mind but they can also indicate laziness, inability to concentrate, lack of knowledge and skill, inability to complete tasks, poor interpersonal skills etc. Good grades can sometimes mean slavish obedience (rarely), but are more likely to indicate, superior knowledge, better study skills, adaptability, great teamwork skills, quicker mind etc."

orborde 16y ago

This is true, but you wouldn't know it from the common rhetoric. We praise the comeback kid; the author points out that we need to remember that it's a far better bet never to fall behind in the first place.

potatolicious 16y ago
> "we need to remember that it's a far better bet never to fall behind in the first place." True in principle, but since when did low/mediocre grades become associated with "falling behind"? I think that's the cognitive disconnect between the two camps - the pro-academic crowd sees poor grades as a general failure, the rest of us do not. Addressing the article directly: > "Those who get good grades are the ultimate survivors." That's awfully generous, if not quite self-congratulatory. As a staunch believer in the disconnect between academic achievement and real programming competence, I would suggest that the comment is true - but you've survived an arbitrary system constructed to achieve very little. It's a little bit like finding your way out of a garden maze - amusing and interesting perhaps, probably difficult, but the relation of this accomplishment to anything else is hazy. > "They enter an environment, evaluate it critically to figure out what skills they need to succeed and thrive in said environment." Perhaps - but assuming the goal is to be a great programmer (or whatever else your passion may be), why would you spend all your time and effort defeating this arbitrary system as opposed to pursuing things that actually make you a better programmer? (or carpenter, or doctor, or what-have-you). That's the disconnect that I see. Academic performance is measured in such a way that doesn't shed light on real ability, and in fact much of the curriculum for a lot of degrees/certificates bear little relevance to the job they supposedly train for. Beating this system is IMHO meaningless, since it contributes little to your professional abilities. Which is also why I think the medciore grades sometimes get a lot of love - I know more than a few people who eschewed academia in exchange for actually getting their hands dirty and writing a lot of code. They learned what they needed to learn from school, and spent the rest of the time perfecting their craft instead. IMHO these people make stronger programmers than those who spent their time and effort optimizing for something that isn't their end goal. When I was in college, I knew a few people who were hardcore academics. They hit the books really hard, got great grades, aced exams regularly, and generally were kicking ass. What they were not doing was developing their professional abilities - so they graduated with little to no practical experience under their belt. They were rudely surprised when their intensely deep knowledge of a great number of theories weren't at all attractive to employers who needed people to get things done. I also knew this one guy who was academic and spent a lot of time honing his real, executable skills. He's a superstar. Given that, I would say that the real discerning variable here is how much practice you've had at programming - the variable of academic achievements is really largely independent from competence as a hacker. > "there is nothing that stops a high achiever from being a passionate, free-thinking, risk-taker" I would agree with this point with some caveats, but this comment strikes me as particularly arrogant: > "good grades make better anything" Really man, really? Wow, thanks for reinforcing the ivory-tower holier-than-thou stereotype that academics surely must love having. [edit] At the risk of being inflammatory, a lot of this "high grades make better everything" hubbub seems like sour grapes from people who optimized for the wrong variable, and are now frustrated that the "losers" from before have become the winners (insofar as employment goes anyhow), and that the variable they were taught to religiously optimize turned out to be a bit pointless (for the purposes of employment, anyhow).
- mbenjaminsmith 16y ago
  Out of my circle of friends, I undoubtedly left college with the lowest grades. Some of my friends were straight-A students (and we were at an academically challenging college). But 10+ years out it's arguable that I've achieved more in my career than any of them and there is a very weak correlation between career success and high grades in that group of friends. And yes, while we were still close, I had to deal with a lot of resentment along the way. I heard all kinds of nasty things about how I 'magically' became successful after years of lackluster academic performance. It's silly to say people who do well in school are flawed or are wasting their energy. I think there are many compelling reasons to do well in school. But in my experience there is a sense of entitlement that develops along the way that often leads to a lot of friction and disappointment down the road. Also, after years of hiring and training people, I firmly believe that grades do not predict ability in any meaningful way.

Avshalom 16y ago

>As far as I can tell, very few people are arguing that people with lower grades are better than those with good grades. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1028272 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1028272 There's some one arguing just that. While I don't see it a lot I have certainly seen the point argued, generally right beside some one claiming Einstein was bad at math.

what 16y ago

I would agree that on their own grades are poor filter. You could have less than stellar grades, but may have something else to show your ability (side projects or what not). On the other hand, a high GPA might only demonstrate your mastery of bulimic studying; Memorize and regurgitate.

pavel_lishin 16y ago
Or that you learned to game the system.
- alan-crowe 16y ago
  I find that throw-away comment is a revelation to me. The American education system teaches its bright students to game the system. Then they go to work for Enron or Goldman-Sachs, and game the system. I've lived my life viewing the world through a peculiarly British narrative. Upper class twits preside over a broken system with perverse incentives. Why doesn't it fail? Partly because of the plucky grammar school boy who grows up to occupy a key technocrat role and who heroically resists the lure of perverse incentives and does the right thing. Partly because of the inherent decency and solidarity of the working class, who will not shaft each other even if the system pays them to. So the American experience, in which mainstream people are always looking for an angle and a way to game the system, seems quite alien to me. Duh! It is the way they have been brought up.
  - hnhg 16y ago
    > Partly because of the inherent decency and solidarity of the working class, who will not shaft each other even if the system pays them to. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. Why are you romanticising the working class? Personally speaking, the breadth of my family oddly encompasses the upper and lower classes, and after being close to all of them over the years I can tell you there is nothing inherently wrong or right about a specific class. Some of the most admirable people I have met you would label as "upper class twits," and likewise there are others from more humble backgrounds that you would point to as evidence of an exclusive core of decency within the lower classes. In summary, good and bad people exist in the same proportions in every arbitrary class we would wish to create.

jacquesm 16y ago

I don't know. My brother and me are a nice case study, of course that's just one more anecdote and not exactly science but still. People said that I would go to university and do all kinds of stuff, nobody paid much attention to Maurice. But he was the one to end up going to university, I dropped out in high school. Family circumstances at the time had a lot to do with all this, but still, he's the one with the degree in history and I only have a typing diploma and a driving license as my 'educational record'. Better grades or lower grades doesn't enter in to it. The educational system works well if you're in the middle of the pack, if you are at one or the other extreme you have a problem. I'm not sure if a university degree would have helped me in any way, I'll never know and I'm resigned to that. But I do know that there is more to school than 'subject knowledge', and that in my dealings with people I could have benefited from a deeper immersion in to social structures and how to deal with all kinds of situations. See my post the other day about my past mistakes, I'm pretty sure a few of those are rooted in my checkered history. I wouldn't trade my life for any other, and in the hiring policies of my company I always tried to look past the grades and to the person behind them and their motivation. If I got the feeling they wanted to move ahead in life then that was usually the deciding factor, and for the most part they did not disappoint me, even the ones with good grades ;)

pnelly 16y ago

Kind of an elitist asshole I think. Good Grades, Bad Grades, who cares?!?!, just take care of yourself, if your grades are good, great!, if your grades are bad, try harder, if you're already trying hard, then try something else which better matches your abilities, We ALL have talents. The following pissed me off: "Sure, poor grades can be an indicator of a creative mind but they can also indicate laziness, inability to concentrate, lack of knowledge and skill, inability to complete tasks, poor interpersonal skills etc. Good grades can sometimes mean slavish obedience (rarely), but are more likely to indicate, superior knowledge, better study skills, adaptability, great teamwork skills, quicker mind etc."