5 ms·

I think this is a good point, but I'm not entirely sure that these skills distinguishes grads from non-grads. I think grads are much more likely to possess thes

by ksdale 7y ago

I think this is a good point, but I'm not entirely sure that these skills distinguishes grads from non-grads. I think grads are much more likely to possess these skills for sure, but I would guess that a large percentage of grads don't possess these skills either (at least in my experience). I don't intend this as a criticism, but rather just an observation, that someone could see writing ability and communication capacity and cultural knowledge and assume a grad, and thus make these types of observations a self-fulfilling prophecy.

sandworm101 7y ago
Much depends on which degrees and knowledge we are talking about. Anyone with a STEM degree knows the metric system. Anyone with a law degree can string sentences together into something useful. But a political science undergrad...a few years doing coding bootcamps .... these are not assurances of anything.
networkimprov 7y ago
Great writers and orators are born, not made. In just the same sense as musicians and artists. Naturally all of the above hone their skills with practice, but the great ones started from a different baseline.
- throwawayjava 7y ago
  Yeah, but I don't need great writers. I need people who I can trust to given presentations to clients, executives, or directors of other divisions of the business. I need people who can communicate clearly in writing with clients/stakeholders. I need people who can write good commit logs, comments, and technical documentation for other engineers. In the extremely limit, I need people who can write a white paper or research paper. I'm not looking for the next Dickens or Fitzgerald.
- strken 7y ago
  How can we tell the difference between great writers who are born, great writers who end up on the edge of the Bell curve through random decisions during childhood, and great writers who are deliberately raised to greatness? Taking you literally, I can't see any reason why greatness should be determined solely at birth.
- pm90 7y ago
  Did those Great writers learn writing in the womb? Which language are they good at writing in and how did they learn that?
throwawayjava 7y ago
> I think grads are much more likely to possess these skills for sure, but I would guess that a large percentage of grads don't possess these skills either (at least in my experience). I agree with this assessment. Even some top-tier CS programs seem to routinely graduate students with poor writing skills and sub-par cultural awareness. I always recommend to interns that they take some writing-intensive courses, and possibly even pick up a minor in a writing-intensive field like English or Philosophy. And then not just take the course, but also use what they learned to write about things free time they way they (should be) writing code outside of their CS courses. I think a lot of the strong disagreement in HN re: the value of college basically boils down to the huge amount of variety in the college experience. Surprisingly, this variety has less to do with the quality of the institution and more to do with the quality/preparedness of the student. A good litmus test for whether someone is wasting college might be to ask the question: what did you read/build/do this semester outside of your courses that used stuff you learned in your curses during the last year or so? The less impressive the answer to that question, the more likely it is the student should maybe think about leaving college until they're ready to fully engage. (Obviously, that litmus test only makes sense for full-time undergraduate students... for working students, it might be something more like "how are you using what you're learning in your day job".)
- mcguire 7y ago
  "Surprisingly, this variety has less to do with the quality of the institution and more to do with the quality/preparedness of the student." Possibly. But there is an enormous range of institutional quality, from diverse, not necessarily elite or even large, schools to the ones existing almost entirely to absorb GI bill and scholarship funding and maybe provide job training.

by ksdale 7y ago

sandworm101 7y ago

Much depends on which degrees and knowledge we are talking about. Anyone with a STEM degree knows the metric system. Anyone with a law degree can string sentences together into something useful. But a political science undergrad...a few years doing coding bootcamps .... these are not assurances of anything.

networkimprov 7y ago

Great writers and orators are born, not made. In just the same sense as musicians and artists. Naturally all of the above hone their skills with practice, but the great ones started from a different baseline.

throwawayjava 7y ago
Yeah, but I don't need great writers. I need people who I can trust to given presentations to clients, executives, or directors of other divisions of the business. I need people who can communicate clearly in writing with clients/stakeholders. I need people who can write good commit logs, comments, and technical documentation for other engineers. In the extremely limit, I need people who can write a white paper or research paper. I'm not looking for the next Dickens or Fitzgerald.
strken 7y ago
How can we tell the difference between great writers who are born, great writers who end up on the edge of the Bell curve through random decisions during childhood, and great writers who are deliberately raised to greatness? Taking you literally, I can't see any reason why greatness should be determined solely at birth.
pm90 7y ago
Did those Great writers learn writing in the womb? Which language are they good at writing in and how did they learn that?

throwawayjava 7y ago

> I think grads are much more likely to possess these skills for sure, but I would guess that a large percentage of grads don't possess these skills either (at least in my experience). I agree with this assessment. Even some top-tier CS programs seem to routinely graduate students with poor writing skills and sub-par cultural awareness. I always recommend to interns that they take some writing-intensive courses, and possibly even pick up a minor in a writing-intensive field like English or Philosophy. And then not just take the course, but also use what they learned to write about things free time they way they (should be) writing code outside of their CS courses. I think a lot of the strong disagreement in HN re: the value of college basically boils down to the huge amount of variety in the college experience. Surprisingly, this variety has less to do with the quality of the institution and more to do with the quality/preparedness of the student. A good litmus test for whether someone is wasting college might be to ask the question: what did you read/build/do this semester outside of your courses that used stuff you learned in your curses during the last year or so? The less impressive the answer to that question, the more likely it is the student should maybe think about leaving college until they're ready to fully engage. (Obviously, that litmus test only makes sense for full-time undergraduate students... for working students, it might be something more like "how are you using what you're learning in your day job".)

mcguire 7y ago
"Surprisingly, this variety has less to do with the quality of the institution and more to do with the quality/preparedness of the student." Possibly. But there is an enormous range of institutional quality, from diverse, not necessarily elite or even large, schools to the ones existing almost entirely to absorb GI bill and scholarship funding and maybe provide job training.