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> The professional exam (country's CPA equivalent) is structured like this so yeah we structured your exams to intentionally & artificially create stress. Even

by saulrh 7y ago

> The professional exam (country's CPA equivalent) is structured like this so yeah we structured your exams to intentionally & artificially create stress. Even on second and third thought this seems insane. I can understand doing it on something that turns out to be relatively inconsequential as a learning experience, but doing it for people's PEs and final exams? That sounds like a great way to overwhelm every possible feature related to engineering quality in favor of "how well do they survive an unrealistically horrible stress-test". Because, like you said, nobody dies if you screw up. Being able to handle acute stress is not that useful for a civil engineer or similar. Teaching people to handle chronic stress? Maybe, but the research I see says that there is no way to deal with chronic stress and even attempting it damages you, potentially permanently. Acute stress, nope.

Havoc 7y ago
>this seems insane A little bit. Big part of the issue was that the professional exam results were published by originating university. So there was this really perverse incentive for universities to send only the most battle hardened candidates into the process to kept the very public stats on the uni's performance on these independent professional exams high. And if you think that's wild - it gets better. This being HN: Some enterprising genius looked at this entire process and decided he's going to set up a recruitment company that does nothing other than exporting survivors of above process. Literally park them anywhere globally - nothing really matters & nobody cares where cause clearly these guys can cope and collecting a juicy placement fee is easy money. One of the best/safest business models I've ever seen - leverages a beautifully subtle anomaly in the global labour market that isn't immediately obvious to outsiders. >Being able to handle acute stress is not that useful for a civil engineer or similar. Alas in my particular world (Accounting/auditing) it is. 3 months of soul crushing stress and rest of year is more relaxed. Rinse & repeat. >Teaching people to handle chronic stress? That's one saving grace I guess. I find that 3 months of intense stress is bearable. Or rather it's about the limit of my endurance. Certainly not healthy - talking about this purely practically.
- saulrh 7y ago
  > Alas in my particular world (Accounting/auditing) it is. 3 months of soul crushing stress and rest of year is more relaxed. Rinse & repeat. Cripes. And I bet that the soul-crushing stress even after you've gotten the license is probably because you don't have enough people licensed to do the work, which in turn is because the universities try to keep their stats high which artificially restricts the supply. And there's probably a feedback loop going on where the industry considers the stress "normal" and adds it to the PE because "that's how the industry is and you need to be able to handle it", normalizing the deviance and inducing evaporative cooling [1]. No offense, and thank you for being able to handle your job because auditing is one of those things that's certainly necessary for the smooth functioning of civilization and it really sounds to me like the supply of that capability is dangerously restricted, but... yet again I am thankful that my interests guided me to a career in software engineering. 1. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZQG9cwKbct2LtmL3p/evaporative-cooling-of-group-beliefs https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZQG9cwKbct2LtmL3p/evaporativ...
  - Havoc 7y ago
    Yeah sometimes I wonder about that career choice of mine. Software or actual engineering would have been cool. >it really sounds to me like the supply of that capability is dangerously restricted In some countries yes quite restricted, don't think dangerously so. Way more scared of them rubberstamping poor candidates. Plus auditing isn't particularly difficult to be honest. >one of those things that's certainly necessary for the smooth functioning of civilization Maybe. I'm not 100% convinced. I'll definitely take the job security though.
chriselles 7y ago
I definitely agree with teaching all folks to both mitigate for physical/mental/emotional/social stressors as well as for making effective decisions while experiencing stress. Chronic stress is an interesting choice of words. I believe far more people than we realise experience chronic stress, some of which can be mitigated effectively, and some not. I don’t think it’s worth training people to mitigate for extreme stress unless their profession compels/requires it. Risk of permanent damage is real.

by saulrh 7y ago

Havoc 7y ago

>this seems insane A little bit. Big part of the issue was that the professional exam results were published by originating university. So there was this really perverse incentive for universities to send only the most battle hardened candidates into the process to kept the very public stats on the uni's performance on these independent professional exams high. And if you think that's wild - it gets better. This being HN: Some enterprising genius looked at this entire process and decided he's going to set up a recruitment company that does nothing other than exporting survivors of above process. Literally park them anywhere globally - nothing really matters & nobody cares where cause clearly these guys can cope and collecting a juicy placement fee is easy money. One of the best/safest business models I've ever seen - leverages a beautifully subtle anomaly in the global labour market that isn't immediately obvious to outsiders. >Being able to handle acute stress is not that useful for a civil engineer or similar. Alas in my particular world (Accounting/auditing) it is. 3 months of soul crushing stress and rest of year is more relaxed. Rinse & repeat. >Teaching people to handle chronic stress? That's one saving grace I guess. I find that 3 months of intense stress is bearable. Or rather it's about the limit of my endurance. Certainly not healthy - talking about this purely practically.

saulrh 7y ago
> Alas in my particular world (Accounting/auditing) it is. 3 months of soul crushing stress and rest of year is more relaxed. Rinse & repeat. Cripes. And I bet that the soul-crushing stress even after you've gotten the license is probably because you don't have enough people licensed to do the work, which in turn is because the universities try to keep their stats high which artificially restricts the supply. And there's probably a feedback loop going on where the industry considers the stress "normal" and adds it to the PE because "that's how the industry is and you need to be able to handle it", normalizing the deviance and inducing evaporative cooling [1]. No offense, and thank you for being able to handle your job because auditing is one of those things that's certainly necessary for the smooth functioning of civilization and it really sounds to me like the supply of that capability is dangerously restricted, but... yet again I am thankful that my interests guided me to a career in software engineering. 1. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZQG9cwKbct2LtmL3p/evaporative-cooling-of-group-beliefs https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZQG9cwKbct2LtmL3p/evaporativ...
- Havoc 7y ago
  Yeah sometimes I wonder about that career choice of mine. Software or actual engineering would have been cool. >it really sounds to me like the supply of that capability is dangerously restricted In some countries yes quite restricted, don't think dangerously so. Way more scared of them rubberstamping poor candidates. Plus auditing isn't particularly difficult to be honest. >one of those things that's certainly necessary for the smooth functioning of civilization Maybe. I'm not 100% convinced. I'll definitely take the job security though.

chriselles 7y ago

I definitely agree with teaching all folks to both mitigate for physical/mental/emotional/social stressors as well as for making effective decisions while experiencing stress. Chronic stress is an interesting choice of words. I believe far more people than we realise experience chronic stress, some of which can be mitigated effectively, and some not. I don’t think it’s worth training people to mitigate for extreme stress unless their profession compels/requires it. Risk of permanent damage is real.