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Pretty cool how he took a very unusual career/personal route to become such an important figure in the programming world. Good reminder for a parent like me tha

Pretty cool how he took a very unusual career/personal route to become such an important figure in the programming world. Good reminder for a parent like me that getting your kids into a "top" school isn't a must to succeed.

vqc 9y ago
I mean, he went to two "Top 50" schools studying math. Do you mean he didn't go to an Ivy League or a school traditionally known as a top CS school?
- amoorthy 9y ago
  Yes correct (and not saying that top schools are really top; good article on selection bias a few weeks ago on this). I was primarily pointing at the fact that he started in Community College, which is sometimes looked down upon.
- dsacco 9y ago
  Personally, I don't particularly consider schools in the "top 50" to be "top schools." I would consider schools in the top 10, maybe 20 for a particular major to be the colloquial "top schools" in that major. So for Math and CS, yes, this mostly means mort of the Ivies and 10 or so other schools, including MIT and Stanford. In general I'm of the opinion that there is a lot of "top school" inflation in the United States. It's better to consider schools on a major by major basis, especially at the graduate level, where your advisor might be more important than the school. The reason I restrict the top to the top 10 (and top 20 for leniency) is because the admission standards are vastly different the first 10, then the next 10, then the next 10 - 20, and at that point there isn't a significant difference in "attainability" anymore. I term it this way because I think the word "top" is only useful for signaling, not for real qualitative comparison. As a specific example: NYU is listed as a top 30 school for computer science, but while it's a good program, it seems odd to list it as a "top CS school" - is it really that much better than the next 10 or so, or is the term just diluted? Likewise, NYU is in the top 10 for mathematics, which actually seems sane from my perspective. And in the top 25 schools for CS is Rice University - you need a new word to call the group that MIT, NYU and Rice are in, because "top" is no longer all that meaningful.
vinhboy 9y ago
I don't know about that. He went to some pretty good schools and got some pretty advanced degrees. The guy is obviously at genius levels because he is a really advanced programmer even though he didn't really get involved with it much later in his life. I've been programming on and off my whole life, and I can barely understand 1/5 of the concepts he's talking about. Reminds me of that scene from Silicon Valley "He's a 10x, and I am a 1x". That's just some "god" given talents right there. But yes, I generally agree success should not be predicated on what school you went to.

vqc 9y ago

I mean, he went to two "Top 50" schools studying math. Do you mean he didn't go to an Ivy League or a school traditionally known as a top CS school?

amoorthy 9y ago
Yes correct (and not saying that top schools are really top; good article on selection bias a few weeks ago on this). I was primarily pointing at the fact that he started in Community College, which is sometimes looked down upon.
dsacco 9y ago
Personally, I don't particularly consider schools in the "top 50" to be "top schools." I would consider schools in the top 10, maybe 20 for a particular major to be the colloquial "top schools" in that major. So for Math and CS, yes, this mostly means mort of the Ivies and 10 or so other schools, including MIT and Stanford. In general I'm of the opinion that there is a lot of "top school" inflation in the United States. It's better to consider schools on a major by major basis, especially at the graduate level, where your advisor might be more important than the school. The reason I restrict the top to the top 10 (and top 20 for leniency) is because the admission standards are vastly different the first 10, then the next 10, then the next 10 - 20, and at that point there isn't a significant difference in "attainability" anymore. I term it this way because I think the word "top" is only useful for signaling, not for real qualitative comparison. As a specific example: NYU is listed as a top 30 school for computer science, but while it's a good program, it seems odd to list it as a "top CS school" - is it really that much better than the next 10 or so, or is the term just diluted? Likewise, NYU is in the top 10 for mathematics, which actually seems sane from my perspective. And in the top 25 schools for CS is Rice University - you need a new word to call the group that MIT, NYU and Rice are in, because "top" is no longer all that meaningful.

vinhboy 9y ago

I don't know about that. He went to some pretty good schools and got some pretty advanced degrees. The guy is obviously at genius levels because he is a really advanced programmer even though he didn't really get involved with it much later in his life. I've been programming on and off my whole life, and I can barely understand 1/5 of the concepts he's talking about. Reminds me of that scene from Silicon Valley "He's a 10x, and I am a 1x". That's just some "god" given talents right there. But yes, I generally agree success should not be predicated on what school you went to.