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> "However, I’ve only ever needed a tiny fraction of what I learned there in my jobs at Google and Facebook." That's interesting. What did you do at those pos

> "However, I’ve only ever needed a tiny fraction of what I learned there in my jobs at Google and Facebook." That's interesting. What did you do at those positions? I was at a different FAANG and used the hell out what I learned at university. RF knowledge, embedded systems, creating physics simulations, and a bunch of other stuff. Hell, I wish I'd learned more; some DSP knowledge would be hella handy right about now. If people are finding that they aren't using what they learned at university in their career, it's the career that's the problem, not the university education. The university is not responsible for the career path people choose to take.

xyzzyz 7y ago
I worked in Chrome for a while, but for past few years I worked in security related areas, both at Google and at Facebook. You could make the case that the mathematics I’ve learned helped me understand how RSA and ECC work, but that has actually been mostly irrelevant in my experience, unlike things like system design, vulnerability detection and management, fuzzing, reverse engineering, which I have mostly learned on the job, not at university. If people are finding that they aren't using what they learned at university in their career, it's the career that's the problem, not the university education. This is a bit myopic with respect to how normal people view university education. For a typical person, the point of education is not to learn things, but to obtain a degree. The point of degree is to get a good job. If they manage to get a good job, that’s a success, and nothing more is expected from the university education: people learn how to do the job mostly on the job anyway. In this context, if people don’t use what they learned in the university in the careers, that’s okay, what matters for normal people is the career, not the learning. Of course, it might be different for you (it is different for me, I love learning for learning’s sake), but that’s observably not how most people approach life.
- throwaway87378 7y ago
  > This is a bit myopic with respect to how normal people view university education. For a typical person, the point of education is not to learn things, but to obtain a degree. The point of degree is to get a good job. If they manage to get a good job, that’s a success, and nothing more is expected from the university education The point of a university, however, is for people to learn things. The fact that most people today treat universities as trade schools is unfortunate, and IMO is having a negative effect on universities and people (like myself) that went/are going there to actually learn something.
heavenlyblue 7y ago
What do you do there, exactly? Are you building hardware, or are you implying those skills were somehow transferable to software development?
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  I work on the software side but have had a lot of jobs that dealt with interfacing with hardware and sensors.

xyzzyz 7y ago

I worked in Chrome for a while, but for past few years I worked in security related areas, both at Google and at Facebook. You could make the case that the mathematics I’ve learned helped me understand how RSA and ECC work, but that has actually been mostly irrelevant in my experience, unlike things like system design, vulnerability detection and management, fuzzing, reverse engineering, which I have mostly learned on the job, not at university. If people are finding that they aren't using what they learned at university in their career, it's the career that's the problem, not the university education. This is a bit myopic with respect to how normal people view university education. For a typical person, the point of education is not to learn things, but to obtain a degree. The point of degree is to get a good job. If they manage to get a good job, that’s a success, and nothing more is expected from the university education: people learn how to do the job mostly on the job anyway. In this context, if people don’t use what they learned in the university in the careers, that’s okay, what matters for normal people is the career, not the learning. Of course, it might be different for you (it is different for me, I love learning for learning’s sake), but that’s observably not how most people approach life.

throwaway87378 7y ago
> This is a bit myopic with respect to how normal people view university education. For a typical person, the point of education is not to learn things, but to obtain a degree. The point of degree is to get a good job. If they manage to get a good job, that’s a success, and nothing more is expected from the university education The point of a university, however, is for people to learn things. The fact that most people today treat universities as trade schools is unfortunate, and IMO is having a negative effect on universities and people (like myself) that went/are going there to actually learn something.

heavenlyblue 7y ago

What do you do there, exactly? Are you building hardware, or are you implying those skills were somehow transferable to software development?

ThrowawayR2 7y ago
I work on the software side but have had a lot of jobs that dealt with interfacing with hardware and sensors.