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He cannot start a new college. The CS program for undergrad in Havard is exactly the same as your closer public college. It is about signaling, not education.

He cannot start a new college. The CS program for undergrad in Havard is exactly the same as your closer public college. It is about signaling, not education. And for that, you need time for the college "image" to become elite.

unixbeard1337 7y ago
> The CS program for undergrad in Havard is exactly the same as your closer public college. I've taken community college CS, and I've taken CS50 (online). I did not find this to be the case.
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smacktoward 7y ago
The “start your own college” approach worked out OK for Leland Stanford...
- starpilot 7y ago
  and Andrew Carnegie
  - davidgay 7y ago
    Don't forget Andrew Mellon ;)
- sgpl 7y ago
  I think this comment fails to see that this isn't about philanthropy but about buying into networks/access/prestige that these schools (Yale, Horace Mann) provide. Leland Stanford's reason for starting Stanford in his son's name was to honor his son's memory (who died when he was nine). Perhaps if his son was alive and wanted to attend college, he may have donated to Harvard or Wharton instead.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  It took over 50 years for Stanford to reach the second ranks of elite colleges, and plausibly 80 years to be unambiguously among the first rank. Investments that pay off after death have few takers.
  - gbronner 7y ago
    Helped if the first graduate not only made an absolute fortune, translated a well-known work of classics, and became President...
harryh 7y ago
The CS program for undergrad in Havard is exactly the same as your closer public college I'm sympathetic to your signaling point of view, but this statement is definitely wrong. CS curriculum varies a lot between the top schools and a typical public university. For example I just now looked at the labs for Operating Systems at University of North Carolina and compared that to the work I did at CMU. UNC has students implement malloc and free. At CMU I implemented a process scheduler and virtual memory system.
- JoshuaJB 7y ago
  (Disclaimer: I'm a PhD student in real-time operating systems at UNC.) Each program has its own strengths, and simply comparing between similarly titled classes is an unfortunately poor metric. (Eg. At UNC, OS is really an introduction to C and OS concepts class. The Operating System Implementations class sounds more similar to CMU's OS Class.) Academic programs need to be compared holistically, and only if one is consistently worse than the other do you have an answer. (Otherwise I could go and claim that UNC is better than CMU because our real-time group is much better.) Of course, that's too much analysis for most people (including me), so I would argue that looking at where graduates work is typically an okay proxy for undergraduate educational quality.
  - harryh 7y ago
    I fully admit that my entire understanding of the UNC curriculum is what I just gathered in 5 minutes of googling/reading. So ya, just comparing labs from similarly named classes is definitely not the best methodology. That being said I've spent a lot of time in my career recruiting students out of undergrad. And I've noticed significantly more rigor and in depth work from students from some of the top schools compared to most everywhere else.
- hyperbovine 7y ago
  But CMU has one of the greatest CS departments in the world. Harvard does not.
- throwawayjava 7y ago
throwawayjava 7y ago
> The CS program for undergrad in Havard is exactly the same as your closer public college. No. Not even close. Unless you're taking about flagships like uiuc and Berkeley (which are not local for 99%). This may be true in the humanities but is nowhere near true in the mathematical sciences. My final year analysis course at college only covered a fraction of the content in the FIRST year advanced math sequence at Harvard. As someone who went to one of those truly local state schools then taught at a #1 CS school: the quality difference in CS educations is absolutely insane. See also the "Java Schools" rant.
- brutus1213 7y ago
  I searched through your comment history for the "Java schools rant" but to no avail. Pointer? I went to school just as Java hit .. saw the old C days and then Java (in my OS course .. the horror!). I feel Java for OS stunted me to this day. Curious what your thoughts are on this.
  - throwawayjava 7y ago
    Sorry, not my rant. See here: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/12/29/the-perils-of-javaschools-2/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/12/29/the-perils-of-java... (Also, don't read anything into my user name. I just happened to make my first comment about something related to java and then never logged out.)
maliker 7y ago
Part of the difference is the level of competition with the other students. In math at least, if you want to be in classes with and compete against Putnam winners, there are only 4 or 5 schools you can go to do that.

unixbeard1337 7y ago

> The CS program for undergrad in Havard is exactly the same as your closer public college. I've taken community college CS, and I've taken CS50 (online). I did not find this to be the case.

deleted 7y ago
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deleted 7y ago
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smacktoward 7y ago

The “start your own college” approach worked out OK for Leland Stanford...

starpilot 7y ago
and Andrew Carnegie
- davidgay 7y ago
  Don't forget Andrew Mellon ;)
sgpl 7y ago
I think this comment fails to see that this isn't about philanthropy but about buying into networks/access/prestige that these schools (Yale, Horace Mann) provide. Leland Stanford's reason for starting Stanford in his son's name was to honor his son's memory (who died when he was nine). Perhaps if his son was alive and wanted to attend college, he may have donated to Harvard or Wharton instead.
barry-cotter 7y ago
It took over 50 years for Stanford to reach the second ranks of elite colleges, and plausibly 80 years to be unambiguously among the first rank. Investments that pay off after death have few takers.
- gbronner 7y ago
  Helped if the first graduate not only made an absolute fortune, translated a well-known work of classics, and became President...

harryh 7y ago

The CS program for undergrad in Havard is exactly the same as your closer public college I'm sympathetic to your signaling point of view, but this statement is definitely wrong. CS curriculum varies a lot between the top schools and a typical public university. For example I just now looked at the labs for Operating Systems at University of North Carolina and compared that to the work I did at CMU. UNC has students implement malloc and free. At CMU I implemented a process scheduler and virtual memory system.

JoshuaJB 7y ago
(Disclaimer: I'm a PhD student in real-time operating systems at UNC.) Each program has its own strengths, and simply comparing between similarly titled classes is an unfortunately poor metric. (Eg. At UNC, OS is really an introduction to C and OS concepts class. The Operating System Implementations class sounds more similar to CMU's OS Class.) Academic programs need to be compared holistically, and only if one is consistently worse than the other do you have an answer. (Otherwise I could go and claim that UNC is better than CMU because our real-time group is much better.) Of course, that's too much analysis for most people (including me), so I would argue that looking at where graduates work is typically an okay proxy for undergraduate educational quality.
- harryh 7y ago
  I fully admit that my entire understanding of the UNC curriculum is what I just gathered in 5 minutes of googling/reading. So ya, just comparing labs from similarly named classes is definitely not the best methodology. That being said I've spent a lot of time in my career recruiting students out of undergrad. And I've noticed significantly more rigor and in depth work from students from some of the top schools compared to most everywhere else.
hyperbovine 7y ago
But CMU has one of the greatest CS departments in the world. Harvard does not.
throwawayjava 7y ago

throwawayjava 7y ago

> The CS program for undergrad in Havard is exactly the same as your closer public college. No. Not even close. Unless you're taking about flagships like uiuc and Berkeley (which are not local for 99%). This may be true in the humanities but is nowhere near true in the mathematical sciences. My final year analysis course at college only covered a fraction of the content in the FIRST year advanced math sequence at Harvard. As someone who went to one of those truly local state schools then taught at a #1 CS school: the quality difference in CS educations is absolutely insane. See also the "Java Schools" rant.

brutus1213 7y ago
I searched through your comment history for the "Java schools rant" but to no avail. Pointer? I went to school just as Java hit .. saw the old C days and then Java (in my OS course .. the horror!). I feel Java for OS stunted me to this day. Curious what your thoughts are on this.
- throwawayjava 7y ago
  Sorry, not my rant. See here: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/12/29/the-perils-of-javaschools-2/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/12/29/the-perils-of-java... (Also, don't read anything into my user name. I just happened to make my first comment about something related to java and then never logged out.)

maliker 7y ago

Part of the difference is the level of competition with the other students. In math at least, if you want to be in classes with and compete against Putnam winners, there are only 4 or 5 schools you can go to do that.