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The point of a college degree is that you have a document, form an accredited university, that represents that you have completed a course of study in a satisfa

The point of a college degree is that you have a document, form an accredited university, that represents that you have completed a course of study in a satisfactory way. As an employer hiring a new grad, you know, at a minimum "This person showed up to class for four years. They are capable of following instructions, of learning new material, and doing so above a baseline level of competency." What does an employer get in your scenario? Four years of 'projects' to sift through? How do they know what a good deliverable looks like for a CS 61A class at Southeastern Louisiana State University? No grades works great at Yale Law, when you're dealing with a group of the most talented and motivated young people on the planet. That will not work in a mass education system, where the need to make the grade is the only thing getting half of the kids out of bed in the morning.

echelon 6y ago
> What does an employer get in your scenario? Four years of 'projects' to sift through? How do they know what a good deliverable looks like for a CS 61A class at Southeastern Louisiana State University? As someone who participates in interviewing undergraduate candidates, I prefer those that have projects to talk about over those who tout their GPA. Project work correlates very well with aptitude and initiative. Projects require deep understanding, research, trial and error, and fully integrative thinking. There's no better way to learn and grow.
- ericmay 6y ago
  Yes but that’s because the current education system is geared toward GPA. If all of the students you interview have years worth or projects, how would you differentiate? Better yet, if they go through a university or trade school and they all complete the same projects, how do you know who is actually good? I’ve run into this when interviewing or going through resumes of entry-level engineers. A lot of them will have a similar senior capstone project, so now I’m back to looking at GPA or some other signal. “Yes yes you worked on CMU’s autonomous vehicles program. So did the other 10 candidates, but tell me what makes you truly unique? “ etc.
  - echelon 6y ago
    > Yes yes you worked on CMU’s autonomous vehicles program. So did the other 10 candidates, but tell me what makes you truly unique? We might be looking for different things. I'm just looking to hire self-driven folks that know how to program, problem solve, and communicate. I'm not looking for pedigree, elite status, or anything of that sort. In fact, I don't even care if candidates went to college. If they can demonstrate that they know what they're doing, then that's fine by me. I predict cookie cutter projects won't be an issue. If a candidate can talk in depth about their project, the choices they made, the things they learned - that's good signal. It doesn't matter if everyone performs the same exercise, because not everyone will come away with the same experience.
    - chosenbreed37 6y ago
      That seems like a reasonable approach. Do you recruit directly or do candidates get vetted before they get to you? I get the sense that in many hiring flows, the candidate would have to go through some gatekeepers first. They may be the ones screening for pedigree, elite status, etc.
    - ericmay 6y ago
      > I predict cookie cutter projects won't be an issue. If a candidate can talk in depth about their project, the choices they made, the things they learned - that's good signal. I'd argue most capable people will come away with largely the same experience. Like you, I have a bias toward projects and self-motivated individuals. What I'm saying here is that right now you filter toward that, because everybody has a good GPA, so it's not as strong of a signal. If you change the education system so that everybody has great project experience, you're going to swing back to some other metric to filter people out (like GPA/prestige of university/training program/etc.). I don't think you can ever really escape it. In my example, everybody has great project experience and a great GPA. So how do I decide? Well, I start looking at other things like maybe they're the captain of the volleyball team. (speaking for university hires here at least).
  - watwut 6y ago
    Related question is, did you considered that most of them actually can be good for the job position in question? It is possible that majority of them would do reasonably well. In which case you are maybe wasting the time chasing for something special that you cant define. And if they are not good, what it is exactly that they are missing? Then it makes sense to look for the specific thing most are missing. But it makes less sense to look for some special person without being able to define what special you look for and chasing random signals instead.
pharke 6y ago
This is exactly the type of thing universities should not be for. We should create a separate institution that serves these needs without pretending to be a university. We literally need a trade school for people who just want a piece of paper that proves they can do what management tells them to. That isn't a university, it's just grades 13 through 16.
Mirioron 6y ago
>As an employer hiring a new grad, you know, at a minimum "This person showed up to class for four years. They are capable of following instructions, of learning new material, and doing so above a baseline level of competency." I was thinking about this point the other day. What made me question it is that everyone that goes to college went through 12 years of education that wasn't too dissimilar to that. But for whatever reason that is not considered.
- bradleyjg 6y ago
  A high school degree used to signal exactly that and enabled holders to get a “good job”. We mistook the map for the territory and insisted that everyone get a high school diploma, reasoning that this would enable everyone to get a good job. In doing so we destroyed the signal and the good job gatekeeper was moved to an undergrad degree. We are now in the process of doing the same thing again, and employers are starting to look for master’s degrees.
  - ADent 6y ago
    Only 6.4% of Americans got a high school diploma in 1900.
abdullahkhalids 6y ago
I don't know what GP wants, but projects can still be graded. And the project supervisor can assign a rough percentage breakdown of each project into subfields: 30% DLC, 40% programming, 30% technical writing. At the end of the program, you can collate these in a table to say things like 7 months spent on DLC across 5 projects with average grade of A-.
dunefox 6y ago
A university should not focus on 'what an employer wants'...

echelon 6y ago

> What does an employer get in your scenario? Four years of 'projects' to sift through? How do they know what a good deliverable looks like for a CS 61A class at Southeastern Louisiana State University? As someone who participates in interviewing undergraduate candidates, I prefer those that have projects to talk about over those who tout their GPA. Project work correlates very well with aptitude and initiative. Projects require deep understanding, research, trial and error, and fully integrative thinking. There's no better way to learn and grow.

ericmay 6y ago
Yes but that’s because the current education system is geared toward GPA. If all of the students you interview have years worth or projects, how would you differentiate? Better yet, if they go through a university or trade school and they all complete the same projects, how do you know who is actually good? I’ve run into this when interviewing or going through resumes of entry-level engineers. A lot of them will have a similar senior capstone project, so now I’m back to looking at GPA or some other signal. “Yes yes you worked on CMU’s autonomous vehicles program. So did the other 10 candidates, but tell me what makes you truly unique? “ etc.
- echelon 6y ago
  > Yes yes you worked on CMU’s autonomous vehicles program. So did the other 10 candidates, but tell me what makes you truly unique? We might be looking for different things. I'm just looking to hire self-driven folks that know how to program, problem solve, and communicate. I'm not looking for pedigree, elite status, or anything of that sort. In fact, I don't even care if candidates went to college. If they can demonstrate that they know what they're doing, then that's fine by me. I predict cookie cutter projects won't be an issue. If a candidate can talk in depth about their project, the choices they made, the things they learned - that's good signal. It doesn't matter if everyone performs the same exercise, because not everyone will come away with the same experience.
  - chosenbreed37 6y ago
    That seems like a reasonable approach. Do you recruit directly or do candidates get vetted before they get to you? I get the sense that in many hiring flows, the candidate would have to go through some gatekeepers first. They may be the ones screening for pedigree, elite status, etc.
  - ericmay 6y ago
    > I predict cookie cutter projects won't be an issue. If a candidate can talk in depth about their project, the choices they made, the things they learned - that's good signal. I'd argue most capable people will come away with largely the same experience. Like you, I have a bias toward projects and self-motivated individuals. What I'm saying here is that right now you filter toward that, because everybody has a good GPA, so it's not as strong of a signal. If you change the education system so that everybody has great project experience, you're going to swing back to some other metric to filter people out (like GPA/prestige of university/training program/etc.). I don't think you can ever really escape it. In my example, everybody has great project experience and a great GPA. So how do I decide? Well, I start looking at other things like maybe they're the captain of the volleyball team. (speaking for university hires here at least).
- watwut 6y ago
  Related question is, did you considered that most of them actually can be good for the job position in question? It is possible that majority of them would do reasonably well. In which case you are maybe wasting the time chasing for something special that you cant define. And if they are not good, what it is exactly that they are missing? Then it makes sense to look for the specific thing most are missing. But it makes less sense to look for some special person without being able to define what special you look for and chasing random signals instead.

pharke 6y ago

This is exactly the type of thing universities should not be for. We should create a separate institution that serves these needs without pretending to be a university. We literally need a trade school for people who just want a piece of paper that proves they can do what management tells them to. That isn't a university, it's just grades 13 through 16.

Mirioron 6y ago

>As an employer hiring a new grad, you know, at a minimum "This person showed up to class for four years. They are capable of following instructions, of learning new material, and doing so above a baseline level of competency." I was thinking about this point the other day. What made me question it is that everyone that goes to college went through 12 years of education that wasn't too dissimilar to that. But for whatever reason that is not considered.

bradleyjg 6y ago
A high school degree used to signal exactly that and enabled holders to get a “good job”. We mistook the map for the territory and insisted that everyone get a high school diploma, reasoning that this would enable everyone to get a good job. In doing so we destroyed the signal and the good job gatekeeper was moved to an undergrad degree. We are now in the process of doing the same thing again, and employers are starting to look for master’s degrees.
- ADent 6y ago
  Only 6.4% of Americans got a high school diploma in 1900.

abdullahkhalids 6y ago

I don't know what GP wants, but projects can still be graded. And the project supervisor can assign a rough percentage breakdown of each project into subfields: 30% DLC, 40% programming, 30% technical writing. At the end of the program, you can collate these in a table to say things like 7 months spent on DLC across 5 projects with average grade of A-.

dunefox 6y ago

A university should not focus on 'what an employer wants'...