6 ms·

> So having the "let's build something" experience is useful in the real world afterwards. It is, but it’s not the job of academia to teach it. You have side-p

by hk__2 8y ago

> So having the "let's build something" experience is useful in the real world afterwards. It is, but it’s not the job of academia to teach it. You have side-projects, internships, and your whole life to learn practice.

scarface74 8y ago
Where did this whole thought process of it’s not the job of college to help you become employable?
- pjmorris 8y ago
  It's also worth asking 'Where did this whole thought process of "it is the job of college to help you become employable" come from?' There are long-established, deeply-entrenched advocates for both viewpoints, but the 'it is the job' viewpoint is the new one. It's worth understanding the debate.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    When students go to college and either thier parents spend between $40K and 120K for a four year degree or a student takes out a loan, what do you think thier expectations are? If I have a choice between a hiring a junior developer who has a computer science degree and only knows theory and a junior whose only experience is a boot camp where they learned practical skills. I’m going to hire the boot camp graduate first. Yes I have a “computer science” degree in the early 90s from an unknown state school, didn’t learn anything and the only reason I was employable was due to my prior knowledge from years programming in AppleSoft Basic and assembly language and I fell in love with C and stayed on the comp.lang.c newsgroups.
    - kilburn 8y ago
      > If I have a choice between a hiring a junior developer who has a computer science degree and only knows theory and a junior whose only experience is a boot camp where they learned practical skills. I’m going to hire the boot camp graduate first. Google, Faceebok and many others don't seem to agree with that statement. Also, would your answer change if your company's goal was to develop better machine learning algorithms, or network technologies, etc.?
      - scarface74 8y ago
        There is life outside of Silicon Valley. There are 60,000 computer science graduates every year in the US [1] most software developers aren’t working for the FAANG companies or the cool startups trying to change the world. They are working boring corporate jobs writing bespoked internal apps and yet another software as a service offering. Yes I know there are others writing embedded apps, mobile apps, game developers, etc. But most of those companies also are interested in people who can hit the ground running. [1] https://qz.com/929275/you-probably-should-have-majored-in-computer-science/ https://qz.com/929275/you-probably-should-have-majored-in-co...
        kilburn 8y ago
        My point is not that "we should do what SV wants" (I'm not even American). My point is... where would people get the education that bootstraps them to understand the state of the art then? To me that is the University's goal. In CS that means learning lots that may not be practical for a regular job (advanced algebra/calculus, computer architecture, data structure theory, etc.). However, in the long run this should leave you better prepared for the "boring jobs" too. Now, you argue that this kind of education may not be the most efficient training process to regular job excellence? I totally agree. College as devised today is designed as the first step into eventually being able to contribute to the world's knowledge, or at least making good use of it. It is not devised as a way to prepare you for the job world, where immediate applicability trumps everything (in general). I don't know the US system enough, but here in Spain (and at least in France and Germany) there are alternatives to College tuned to that goal. However, most parents (in Spain) still want their children to go the College route. Why? Because College is socially reputable (there are non-college educated leaders, but they are the exception, not the norm), and data shows that college educated people do have a higher expected income throughout their lives. It is percieved as a ladder up the social chain.
        scarface74 8y ago
        When they graduate from college and don’t have the applicable skills to get a job then what? Sallie Mae (the government agency in the US that oversees the student loan program) is going to come knocking on the students door six months after they graduate looking for them to start paying back their loans. Most students are more concerned with the most practical way of putting food on their table and many parents are concerned with getting their kids out of their basements than they are with “increasing the world’s knowledge.” That’s not a luxury the middle class has.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- ShroudedNight 8y ago
  I claim no authority on this, but my understanding was that community college and professional schools were the institutions designed to teach people directly employable skills, and that the university existed to allow people to explore academic subject material for its own inherent value.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Do you think parents or students are paying 10s of thousands of dollars and going in debt for the “inherent value” or with the hopes that they will be more employable? Relatively few people can afford to spend that kind of money to be a “better citizen of the world” without expecting a return.
    - OJFord 8y ago
      The institutions GP suggested do have that role are significantly cheaper.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        And companies would much rather higher someone from a four year school than a two year college and some jobs require a four year degree.
- kilburn 8y ago
  It comes from afar, and is an ever-ongoing discussion. I would recommend reading [1] if you are really interested. If you are but no so much, the last paragraph is revealing: "If we seek guidance from the past, it is better to see the 'idea of the university' not as a fixed set of characteristics, but as a set of tensions, permanently present, but resolved differently according to time and place. Tensions between teaching and research, and between autonomy and accountability, most obviously. [...] between the transmission of established knowledge, and the search for original truth; between the inevitable connection of universities with the state and the centres of economic and social power, and the need to maintain critical distance; between reproducing the existing occupational structure, and renewing it from below by promoting social mobility; between serving the economy, and providing a space free from immediate utilitarian pressures; between teaching as the encouragement of open and critical attitudes, and society's expectation that universities will impart qualifications and skills. To come down too heavily on one side of these balances will usually mean that the aims of the university are being simplified and distorted." [1] http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/the-idea-of-a-university-today http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/the-ide...
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I don’t have a problem in theory, but with the median household income in the US being $60K a year[1] how many families can afford to invest in college for any other reason besides trying to give thier children a better opportunity? [1] https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-average-income-in-usa-family-household-history-3306189 https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-average-income-in-usa-fam...
    - sitkack 8y ago
      College should be a right, not an investment. http://www.internationale-studierende.de/en/prepare_your_studies/financing/cost_of_education/ http://www.internationale-studierende.de/en/prepare_your_stu...
      - scarface74 8y ago
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Well did you choose a vocational course at college, or did you choose a degree at a University. The former is for learning a job/role, the latter is for learning about a subject. The academic development in a subject/subjects may make you better for some jobs but that is not their primary purpose; you often need to add on your own extras if you want to be career ready.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I chose a degree in the early 90s. My first job out of college in 1996 was as a computer operator. Shortly after I was hired, they got a new contract where they needed someone to build a fairly complicated data entry system. I was the only person who knew how to program. I got it done, put it on my resume and got another job two years later. I had no training and my university degree didn’t prepare me for it. While I already knew how to program, had played around with assembly on both my //e and later my Mac and taught myself C, and really only went to my little unknown state college for the piece of paper and not to learn, where would I have been if I had expected to actually learn something useful in college? No one tells any other profession that they shouldn’t go to college expecting to get s job, why is CS different? Are you really going to say that most college students and parents spend tens of thousands of dollars on a college education just so they can be “a better member of society”?
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      >No one tells any other profession that they shouldn’t go to college expecting to get s job // Erm, isn't it your choice, study a subject or get a vocational qualification. I realise there's middle ground, they're the poles. Why should we ruin universities just so businesses don't have to filter candidates, train recruits from a younger age, or have apprenticeships? Seems better to use universities to expand human knowledge (individually and universally) than it does to use them as a hugely expensive way to do a first filter on company recruitment processes.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        Why should we ruin universities just so businesses don't have to filter candidates, train recruits from a younger age, or have apprenticeships? It’s not about should, it’s about reality. The corporations have already spoken. We can either accept reality for what it is or graduate a bunch of students with CS degrees that are saddled with debt that have a hard time finding a job. In the immortal words of Kosh, “Once the avalanche has started, the pebbles no longer have a vote”. CS grads coming out of college are competing with foreign developers who were trained to get a job, have more experience and that will work for less.
sumedh 8y ago
> It is, but it’s not the job of academia to teach it. You have side-projects, internships, and your whole life to learn practice. and then you get employers saying they dont get skilled people.
- hk__2 8y ago
  > and then you get employers saying they dont get skilled people. That’s not the problem of academia.
  - BrandoElFollito 8y ago
    yes it is - the aim of academia is to prepare people for what they will do in the future, not some reality-disconnected curriculum.
    - hk__2 8y ago
      > yes it is - the aim of academia is to prepare people for what they will do in the future, not some reality-disconnected curriculum. They already do that. The fact that some people believe going in class and doing nothing on the side will suffice is the issue here, not academia itself.
  - sumedh 8y ago
    It should be, try telling students and their parents that the degree which you got after going in debt wont help you in getting a job.
    - hk__2 8y ago
      It helps tremendously. But is it sufficient in getting you a job? No, you have to work on the side in order to practice what you learn. Employers often care more about your GitHub than your degree.
      - sumedh 8y ago
        Yes students need to work on the side as well but you cannot just wash your hands off and say "That’s not the problem of academia."

by hk__2 8y ago

scarface74 8y ago

Where did this whole thought process of it’s not the job of college to help you become employable?

pjmorris 8y ago
It's also worth asking 'Where did this whole thought process of "it is the job of college to help you become employable" come from?' There are long-established, deeply-entrenched advocates for both viewpoints, but the 'it is the job' viewpoint is the new one. It's worth understanding the debate.
- scarface74 8y ago
  When students go to college and either thier parents spend between $40K and 120K for a four year degree or a student takes out a loan, what do you think thier expectations are? If I have a choice between a hiring a junior developer who has a computer science degree and only knows theory and a junior whose only experience is a boot camp where they learned practical skills. I’m going to hire the boot camp graduate first. Yes I have a “computer science” degree in the early 90s from an unknown state school, didn’t learn anything and the only reason I was employable was due to my prior knowledge from years programming in AppleSoft Basic and assembly language and I fell in love with C and stayed on the comp.lang.c newsgroups.
  - kilburn 8y ago
    > If I have a choice between a hiring a junior developer who has a computer science degree and only knows theory and a junior whose only experience is a boot camp where they learned practical skills. I’m going to hire the boot camp graduate first. Google, Faceebok and many others don't seem to agree with that statement. Also, would your answer change if your company's goal was to develop better machine learning algorithms, or network technologies, etc.?
    - scarface74 8y ago
      There is life outside of Silicon Valley. There are 60,000 computer science graduates every year in the US [1] most software developers aren’t working for the FAANG companies or the cool startups trying to change the world. They are working boring corporate jobs writing bespoked internal apps and yet another software as a service offering. Yes I know there are others writing embedded apps, mobile apps, game developers, etc. But most of those companies also are interested in people who can hit the ground running. [1] https://qz.com/929275/you-probably-should-have-majored-in-computer-science/ https://qz.com/929275/you-probably-should-have-majored-in-co...
      - kilburn 8y ago
        My point is not that "we should do what SV wants" (I'm not even American). My point is... where would people get the education that bootstraps them to understand the state of the art then? To me that is the University's goal. In CS that means learning lots that may not be practical for a regular job (advanced algebra/calculus, computer architecture, data structure theory, etc.). However, in the long run this should leave you better prepared for the "boring jobs" too. Now, you argue that this kind of education may not be the most efficient training process to regular job excellence? I totally agree. College as devised today is designed as the first step into eventually being able to contribute to the world's knowledge, or at least making good use of it. It is not devised as a way to prepare you for the job world, where immediate applicability trumps everything (in general). I don't know the US system enough, but here in Spain (and at least in France and Germany) there are alternatives to College tuned to that goal. However, most parents (in Spain) still want their children to go the College route. Why? Because College is socially reputable (there are non-college educated leaders, but they are the exception, not the norm), and data shows that college educated people do have a higher expected income throughout their lives. It is percieved as a ladder up the social chain.
        scarface74 8y ago
        When they graduate from college and don’t have the applicable skills to get a job then what? Sallie Mae (the government agency in the US that oversees the student loan program) is going to come knocking on the students door six months after they graduate looking for them to start paying back their loans. Most students are more concerned with the most practical way of putting food on their table and many parents are concerned with getting their kids out of their basements than they are with “increasing the world’s knowledge.” That’s not a luxury the middle class has.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
ShroudedNight 8y ago
I claim no authority on this, but my understanding was that community college and professional schools were the institutions designed to teach people directly employable skills, and that the university existed to allow people to explore academic subject material for its own inherent value.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Do you think parents or students are paying 10s of thousands of dollars and going in debt for the “inherent value” or with the hopes that they will be more employable? Relatively few people can afford to spend that kind of money to be a “better citizen of the world” without expecting a return.
  - OJFord 8y ago
    The institutions GP suggested do have that role are significantly cheaper.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      And companies would much rather higher someone from a four year school than a two year college and some jobs require a four year degree.
kilburn 8y ago
It comes from afar, and is an ever-ongoing discussion. I would recommend reading [1] if you are really interested. If you are but no so much, the last paragraph is revealing: "If we seek guidance from the past, it is better to see the 'idea of the university' not as a fixed set of characteristics, but as a set of tensions, permanently present, but resolved differently according to time and place. Tensions between teaching and research, and between autonomy and accountability, most obviously. [...] between the transmission of established knowledge, and the search for original truth; between the inevitable connection of universities with the state and the centres of economic and social power, and the need to maintain critical distance; between reproducing the existing occupational structure, and renewing it from below by promoting social mobility; between serving the economy, and providing a space free from immediate utilitarian pressures; between teaching as the encouragement of open and critical attitudes, and society's expectation that universities will impart qualifications and skills. To come down too heavily on one side of these balances will usually mean that the aims of the university are being simplified and distorted." [1] http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/the-idea-of-a-university-today http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/the-ide...
- scarface74 8y ago
  I don’t have a problem in theory, but with the median household income in the US being $60K a year[1] how many families can afford to invest in college for any other reason besides trying to give thier children a better opportunity? [1] https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-average-income-in-usa-family-household-history-3306189 https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-average-income-in-usa-fam...
  - sitkack 8y ago
    College should be a right, not an investment. http://www.internationale-studierende.de/en/prepare_your_studies/financing/cost_of_education/ http://www.internationale-studierende.de/en/prepare_your_stu...
    - scarface74 8y ago
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Well did you choose a vocational course at college, or did you choose a degree at a University. The former is for learning a job/role, the latter is for learning about a subject. The academic development in a subject/subjects may make you better for some jobs but that is not their primary purpose; you often need to add on your own extras if you want to be career ready.
- scarface74 8y ago
  I chose a degree in the early 90s. My first job out of college in 1996 was as a computer operator. Shortly after I was hired, they got a new contract where they needed someone to build a fairly complicated data entry system. I was the only person who knew how to program. I got it done, put it on my resume and got another job two years later. I had no training and my university degree didn’t prepare me for it. While I already knew how to program, had played around with assembly on both my //e and later my Mac and taught myself C, and really only went to my little unknown state college for the piece of paper and not to learn, where would I have been if I had expected to actually learn something useful in college? No one tells any other profession that they shouldn’t go to college expecting to get s job, why is CS different? Are you really going to say that most college students and parents spend tens of thousands of dollars on a college education just so they can be “a better member of society”?
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    >No one tells any other profession that they shouldn’t go to college expecting to get s job // Erm, isn't it your choice, study a subject or get a vocational qualification. I realise there's middle ground, they're the poles. Why should we ruin universities just so businesses don't have to filter candidates, train recruits from a younger age, or have apprenticeships? Seems better to use universities to expand human knowledge (individually and universally) than it does to use them as a hugely expensive way to do a first filter on company recruitment processes.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Why should we ruin universities just so businesses don't have to filter candidates, train recruits from a younger age, or have apprenticeships? It’s not about should, it’s about reality. The corporations have already spoken. We can either accept reality for what it is or graduate a bunch of students with CS degrees that are saddled with debt that have a hard time finding a job. In the immortal words of Kosh, “Once the avalanche has started, the pebbles no longer have a vote”. CS grads coming out of college are competing with foreign developers who were trained to get a job, have more experience and that will work for less.

sumedh 8y ago

> It is, but it’s not the job of academia to teach it. You have side-projects, internships, and your whole life to learn practice. and then you get employers saying they dont get skilled people.

hk__2 8y ago
> and then you get employers saying they dont get skilled people. That’s not the problem of academia.
- BrandoElFollito 8y ago
  yes it is - the aim of academia is to prepare people for what they will do in the future, not some reality-disconnected curriculum.
  - hk__2 8y ago
    > yes it is - the aim of academia is to prepare people for what they will do in the future, not some reality-disconnected curriculum. They already do that. The fact that some people believe going in class and doing nothing on the side will suffice is the issue here, not academia itself.
- sumedh 8y ago
  It should be, try telling students and their parents that the degree which you got after going in debt wont help you in getting a job.
  - hk__2 8y ago
    It helps tremendously. But is it sufficient in getting you a job? No, you have to work on the side in order to practice what you learn. Employers often care more about your GitHub than your degree.
    - sumedh 8y ago
      Yes students need to work on the side as well but you cannot just wash your hands off and say "That’s not the problem of academia."