51 ms·

Look at what you wrote "I developed marketable skills, secured multiple internships". That does not read like school did that for you and probably you could do

by ozim 8y ago

Look at what you wrote "I developed marketable skills, secured multiple internships". That does not read like school did that for you and probably you could do the same without school. How much of that CS101 was studying on your own time? Finishing school is signaling that you are person that shows up in the morning for classes and puts up years of his life to do that. By any means I am hiring developer who is signaling that he is reliable and comes to work every day vs someone who is inconsistent.

AstralStorm 8y ago
More importantly, taking internships means you have some practice, not just theory. Not quite as green. It also signals you actually take some things seriously.
throwaway287391 8y ago
> Finishing school is signaling that you are person that shows up in the morning for classes Not sure about others but I tried my damnedest not to take morning classes unless I absolutely had to -- most semesters I had nothing before 11am or noon. The flexible scheduling was one of my favorite things about college. I did take one 8AM class and thinking back I have no idea how I didn't completely bomb it -- I showed up pretty sparsely after the first week or two.
- slfnflctd 8y ago
  Honestly I think this line is total bunk. I'm quite sure hiring managers believe it to be true - many jobs that don't actually need you to have completed any degree to do the work still require one to get hired - but in my experience, people who haven't completed college are more likely to be willing to put in long hours, while those who have tend to expect/demand more time off. [Not that wanting time off is a bad thing, I just don't think it should be doled out based on whether your parents could afford to put you through school.]
dogma1138 8y ago
Would you go to a doctor that learned medicine form YouTube? I think the problem here is a bias due to the fact that the employment after earning their computer science degree is for many people not about the science part of it but rather about fairly mundane programming and general office work. Good luck arguing that chemistry, biology, mechanical engineering, medicine and many other fields that require specific tools and environments in order to actually study not to mention make any progress in the field are all about signaling.
- pgt 8y ago
  I would.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  The essential question is "why do we think that every skilled job requires a four-year college degree?". It would be a peculiar coincidence if the vast majority of jobs required exactly the same amount of academic education. Why do so many people go on to do work that has little or nothing to do with their major? Here in the UK, a large proportion of healthcare is delivered by healthcare professionals other than doctors. If I go to my GP (family doctor) with a minor ailment, I'm likely to be treated by a Nurse Practitioner, who may have a Master's degree in nursing or may have never attended college at all. If I have a minor surgery, the surgery might be performed by a Surgical Care Practitioner working under the supervision of a consultant surgeon. Lambda School have conclusively shown that it doesn't take four years to make someone into an employable software developer. How many other job skills could be taught through a short bootcamp programme, intensive vocational training or on-the-job training?
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    > The essential question is "why do we think that every skilled job requires a four-year college degree?". That’s not accurate. Law school requires any degree followed by three years of a law degree. Now that’s pure signalling. Every other Anglophone country bar Canada has undergraduate law degrees instead of requiring what amount to two undergraduate degrees.
tokyodude 8y ago
Note: I am not agreeing nor disagreeing with the article. I'm only clarifying what it's trying to say The article is about the fact that school does not show that "developer ... is signaling that he is reliable and comes to work every day" The whole point of the article is there is zero correlation between people who've graduated from college and people who haven't in term of how well they do on the job. It sounds counter intuitive. There's like 3 situations 1. College trains you more than non-college 2. College doesn't train you but shows you're willing to stick things out more than people who didn't go 3. College does nothing what-so-ever (no difference in job performance from hiring people who did or didn't go to college) The author of the article is claiming 100 years of research has shown it's #3. People will let you in the door because you have the paper (diploma) but they are fooling themselves that that paper has any meaning relative to hiring people without that paper Here's another interview with the same author http://www.econtalk.org/bryan-caplan-on-the-case-against-education/ http://www.econtalk.org/bryan-caplan-on-the-case-against-edu... again, I am not agreeing nor disagreeing with the article. I'm only clarifying what it's trying to say Let me add though, the author is claiming this is true in aggregate. Not for your personal anecdote.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  > The whole point of the article is there is zero correlation between people who've graduated from college and people who haven't in term of how well they do on the job. ... among the population who have been hired to do the job. This is conditioning on the collider. The people without a degree who got in are a highly selected sample compared to all people without degrees. Anyone who used this to argue that a degree wasn’t a strong useful signal Wouk be making the same mistake as those trying to get rid of the GRE in graduate admissions because in the population admitted the GRE doesn’t predict anything. If it did that would show under or overweighting ofbthe signal it sends. Zero correlation shows it has been given appropriate weight.
  - hopler 8y ago
    > Anyone who used this to argue that a degree wasn’t a strong useful signal Reread the title of the article. The question is whether an individual would benefit from college even if everyone's college was enrollment/graduation status was kept secret from everyone, even classmates.

by ozim 8y ago

AstralStorm 8y ago

More importantly, taking internships means you have some practice, not just theory. Not quite as green. It also signals you actually take some things seriously.

throwaway287391 8y ago

> Finishing school is signaling that you are person that shows up in the morning for classes Not sure about others but I tried my damnedest not to take morning classes unless I absolutely had to -- most semesters I had nothing before 11am or noon. The flexible scheduling was one of my favorite things about college. I did take one 8AM class and thinking back I have no idea how I didn't completely bomb it -- I showed up pretty sparsely after the first week or two.

slfnflctd 8y ago
Honestly I think this line is total bunk. I'm quite sure hiring managers believe it to be true - many jobs that don't actually need you to have completed any degree to do the work still require one to get hired - but in my experience, people who haven't completed college are more likely to be willing to put in long hours, while those who have tend to expect/demand more time off. [Not that wanting time off is a bad thing, I just don't think it should be doled out based on whether your parents could afford to put you through school.]

dogma1138 8y ago

Would you go to a doctor that learned medicine form YouTube? I think the problem here is a bias due to the fact that the employment after earning their computer science degree is for many people not about the science part of it but rather about fairly mundane programming and general office work. Good luck arguing that chemistry, biology, mechanical engineering, medicine and many other fields that require specific tools and environments in order to actually study not to mention make any progress in the field are all about signaling.

pgt 8y ago
I would.
jdietrich 8y ago
The essential question is "why do we think that every skilled job requires a four-year college degree?". It would be a peculiar coincidence if the vast majority of jobs required exactly the same amount of academic education. Why do so many people go on to do work that has little or nothing to do with their major? Here in the UK, a large proportion of healthcare is delivered by healthcare professionals other than doctors. If I go to my GP (family doctor) with a minor ailment, I'm likely to be treated by a Nurse Practitioner, who may have a Master's degree in nursing or may have never attended college at all. If I have a minor surgery, the surgery might be performed by a Surgical Care Practitioner working under the supervision of a consultant surgeon. Lambda School have conclusively shown that it doesn't take four years to make someone into an employable software developer. How many other job skills could be taught through a short bootcamp programme, intensive vocational training or on-the-job training?
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  > The essential question is "why do we think that every skilled job requires a four-year college degree?". That’s not accurate. Law school requires any degree followed by three years of a law degree. Now that’s pure signalling. Every other Anglophone country bar Canada has undergraduate law degrees instead of requiring what amount to two undergraduate degrees.

tokyodude 8y ago

Note: I am not agreeing nor disagreeing with the article. I'm only clarifying what it's trying to say The article is about the fact that school does not show that "developer ... is signaling that he is reliable and comes to work every day" The whole point of the article is there is zero correlation between people who've graduated from college and people who haven't in term of how well they do on the job. It sounds counter intuitive. There's like 3 situations 1. College trains you more than non-college 2. College doesn't train you but shows you're willing to stick things out more than people who didn't go 3. College does nothing what-so-ever (no difference in job performance from hiring people who did or didn't go to college) The author of the article is claiming 100 years of research has shown it's #3. People will let you in the door because you have the paper (diploma) but they are fooling themselves that that paper has any meaning relative to hiring people without that paper Here's another interview with the same author http://www.econtalk.org/bryan-caplan-on-the-case-against-education/ http://www.econtalk.org/bryan-caplan-on-the-case-against-edu... again, I am not agreeing nor disagreeing with the article. I'm only clarifying what it's trying to say Let me add though, the author is claiming this is true in aggregate. Not for your personal anecdote.

barry-cotter 8y ago
> The whole point of the article is there is zero correlation between people who've graduated from college and people who haven't in term of how well they do on the job. ... among the population who have been hired to do the job. This is conditioning on the collider. The people without a degree who got in are a highly selected sample compared to all people without degrees. Anyone who used this to argue that a degree wasn’t a strong useful signal Wouk be making the same mistake as those trying to get rid of the GRE in graduate admissions because in the population admitted the GRE doesn’t predict anything. If it did that would show under or overweighting ofbthe signal it sends. Zero correlation shows it has been given appropriate weight.
- hopler 8y ago
  > Anyone who used this to argue that a degree wasn’t a strong useful signal Reread the title of the article. The question is whether an individual would benefit from college even if everyone's college was enrollment/graduation status was kept secret from everyone, even classmates.