4 ms·

I went to CMU with the author; in fact we worked together on one of the semester projects he mentions. There's no doubt that CMU prepares students for the corp

by tfe 16y ago

I went to CMU with the author; in fact we worked together on one of the semester projects he mentions. There's no doubt that CMU prepares students for the corporate world. In fact some programs are expressly tuned for this. But this is exactly what the market demands, so why are we surprised? Industry wants employees that integrate well and work in teams. Students want to be hired by industry. How can we be surprised that the curriculum is tuned for turning out cogs for corporate machines? The demand just doesn't exist for startup education. It's the nature of the beast. How many hardcore entrepreneurs do you know would have been content to take classes on it and be told how to do it? That's the exact opposite of their natural character. :-)

holman 16y ago
I wouldn't necessarily say "surprised" that this is the case; I think there's an opportunity to craft a solution that works for those that do want to explore the startup life. I feel like, in hindsight, there were a lot of students in our major who might be suited for a startup, but they hadn't explored it and thus may be in a different job. That's unfortunate. If there were more focus on startups, more people would at least be exposed to it and they could decide from there. On top of that, I'm not suggesting entrepreneurs would love to take a class and enjoy coloring in the lines, so to speak. The imaginary classes I suggested were all super open-ended, with little to no structure or curriculum. I think that's the best way to teach that subset of the population.
- tfe 16y ago
  Don't get me wrong, I think you make some excellent points and I generally agree. I'm just wondering that if that curriculum were offered, would your target audience even know to enroll? Do the people who would enjoy those courses know when they're starting out that it will be fun and useful for them? Or is that something you have to find out for yourself, through your own experimentation?
  - holman 16y ago
    I think there'd be enough buzz for it. Students chat about classes incessantly, and they gravitate towards classes they find meaningful. I think professors can pretty easily pick out who would be most suited, too, and give them a helpful nudge in the right direction.
    - babeKnuth 16y ago
      it would also tend to probably attract those profs/instructors that are more "aware" of what's out there. they (typically) tend to be the better instructors as well.
bpeters 16y ago
I understand that it is a demand side problem, but the majority of people going into the corporate world are missing some key skills and abilities that go beyond team building. Self motivation, and the ability to see long-term visions is critical to become not only a successful entrepreneur but a successful employee as well. Also, being a hardcore entrepreneur does not mean you completely reject authority and advice. It all depends on the structure of the course. You could implement self determined courses using professors in the position as board advisors and run semester long projects. This would compliment the natural character of the entrepreneur.
steveklabnik 16y ago
Pitt here. > But this is exactly what the market demands, so why are we surprised? Well, CS is _supposed_ to be a theoretical discipline. It's supposed to be basically math. We're supposed to be discovering the nature of computation, not having only one optional upper-level class on it. Instead we get Java schools. It sucks. Furthermore, college doesn't even make for a good vocational experience! You know how many times I heard 'VCS'? Zero. makfiles? Twice. In my web programming class, I was taught Java applets and spaghetti PHP. Software Engineering teaches waterfall, Java beans, and UML. /rant off.
- pjhyett 16y ago
  It shocks me to this day we never once discussed version control in any of my CS classes.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    One of my friends is a graduate student. His research work with a professor does use version control; the prof set him up with a brand new CVS repository the day before he started.
ScotterC 16y ago
CMU as well. Same class year as you guys but I was MechE. I also adore CMU because of it's absolute fundamentals teaching that allowed me to teach myself web development in such a short amount of time after leaving nuclear engineering. The one thing CMU taught me was how to work and learn anything. That's what I do and being a startup guy was a good fit for completely unrelated reasons (mainly my problems with authority). In my undergrad course load, I had very little time to work on the projects I already had, let alone starting something cool on my own. However, that course load was so much tougher then normal employment life, that once I graduated, I could learn so much more while being very underemployed. This underemployment led me to the one place where I could learn everyday and solve cool problems => startups
- babeKnuth 16y ago
  well said. i didn't think of that perspective. my own experience was more along the lines of feeling a disconnect between classwork and how it applied to the real world.
kd1220 16y ago
CMU here also. I graduated several years ago, but I distinctly remember groups of CS students banding together to create things on their own. That's start-up culture. You get a bunch of motivated, technically inclined people together and build something. The CS undergrad lounge always had people fiddling around with things and geeking out. At CMU you are free to do what you want with your spare time. There doesn't necessarily need to be a class for teaching start-ups. A class can simulate anything (DDOS attacks, power outages), but whether or not that simulation is a reflection of reality once the student leaves the classroom remains to be seen. Furthermore, if you need a class to learn something, then there are many hard lessons waiting for you in life. The reason you get a CS degree at CMU is to become a better problem solver. It's a very difficult course of study. When I was there about 1 in 4 students dropped out of the SCS program. If you make it through the program, it is a badge of dedication, and you are definitely transformed into a problem solver. The environment in which you use these problem solving skills - at a start-up or a large corporation - should never be an issue, nor should it require explicit handling. Often when I see a start-up populated with dropouts I'll think "They couldn't even make a 4-year commitment? Does that mean they'll only stick around here for 2 years before they split?" And that is often the case. The infatuation with dropping out and start-up "culture" is purely romantic.

by tfe 16y ago

holman 16y ago

I wouldn't necessarily say "surprised" that this is the case; I think there's an opportunity to craft a solution that works for those that do want to explore the startup life. I feel like, in hindsight, there were a lot of students in our major who might be suited for a startup, but they hadn't explored it and thus may be in a different job. That's unfortunate. If there were more focus on startups, more people would at least be exposed to it and they could decide from there. On top of that, I'm not suggesting entrepreneurs would love to take a class and enjoy coloring in the lines, so to speak. The imaginary classes I suggested were all super open-ended, with little to no structure or curriculum. I think that's the best way to teach that subset of the population.

tfe 16y ago
Don't get me wrong, I think you make some excellent points and I generally agree. I'm just wondering that if that curriculum were offered, would your target audience even know to enroll? Do the people who would enjoy those courses know when they're starting out that it will be fun and useful for them? Or is that something you have to find out for yourself, through your own experimentation?
- holman 16y ago
  I think there'd be enough buzz for it. Students chat about classes incessantly, and they gravitate towards classes they find meaningful. I think professors can pretty easily pick out who would be most suited, too, and give them a helpful nudge in the right direction.
  - babeKnuth 16y ago
    it would also tend to probably attract those profs/instructors that are more "aware" of what's out there. they (typically) tend to be the better instructors as well.

bpeters 16y ago

I understand that it is a demand side problem, but the majority of people going into the corporate world are missing some key skills and abilities that go beyond team building. Self motivation, and the ability to see long-term visions is critical to become not only a successful entrepreneur but a successful employee as well. Also, being a hardcore entrepreneur does not mean you completely reject authority and advice. It all depends on the structure of the course. You could implement self determined courses using professors in the position as board advisors and run semester long projects. This would compliment the natural character of the entrepreneur.

steveklabnik 16y ago

Pitt here. > But this is exactly what the market demands, so why are we surprised? Well, CS is _supposed_ to be a theoretical discipline. It's supposed to be basically math. We're supposed to be discovering the nature of computation, not having only one optional upper-level class on it. Instead we get Java schools. It sucks. Furthermore, college doesn't even make for a good vocational experience! You know how many times I heard 'VCS'? Zero. makfiles? Twice. In my web programming class, I was taught Java applets and spaghetti PHP. Software Engineering teaches waterfall, Java beans, and UML. /rant off.

pjhyett 16y ago
It shocks me to this day we never once discussed version control in any of my CS classes.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  One of my friends is a graduate student. His research work with a professor does use version control; the prof set him up with a brand new CVS repository the day before he started.

ScotterC 16y ago

CMU as well. Same class year as you guys but I was MechE. I also adore CMU because of it's absolute fundamentals teaching that allowed me to teach myself web development in such a short amount of time after leaving nuclear engineering. The one thing CMU taught me was how to work and learn anything. That's what I do and being a startup guy was a good fit for completely unrelated reasons (mainly my problems with authority). In my undergrad course load, I had very little time to work on the projects I already had, let alone starting something cool on my own. However, that course load was so much tougher then normal employment life, that once I graduated, I could learn so much more while being very underemployed. This underemployment led me to the one place where I could learn everyday and solve cool problems => startups

babeKnuth 16y ago
well said. i didn't think of that perspective. my own experience was more along the lines of feeling a disconnect between classwork and how it applied to the real world.

kd1220 16y ago

CMU here also. I graduated several years ago, but I distinctly remember groups of CS students banding together to create things on their own. That's start-up culture. You get a bunch of motivated, technically inclined people together and build something. The CS undergrad lounge always had people fiddling around with things and geeking out. At CMU you are free to do what you want with your spare time. There doesn't necessarily need to be a class for teaching start-ups. A class can simulate anything (DDOS attacks, power outages), but whether or not that simulation is a reflection of reality once the student leaves the classroom remains to be seen. Furthermore, if you need a class to learn something, then there are many hard lessons waiting for you in life. The reason you get a CS degree at CMU is to become a better problem solver. It's a very difficult course of study. When I was there about 1 in 4 students dropped out of the SCS program. If you make it through the program, it is a badge of dedication, and you are definitely transformed into a problem solver. The environment in which you use these problem solving skills - at a start-up or a large corporation - should never be an issue, nor should it require explicit handling. Often when I see a start-up populated with dropouts I'll think "They couldn't even make a 4-year commitment? Does that mean they'll only stick around here for 2 years before they split?" And that is often the case. The infatuation with dropping out and start-up "culture" is purely romantic.