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Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments

67 points by tchalla 6y ago

blackbear_ 6y ago
This is all wrong. The purpose of Universities is to uphold, expand and disseminate human culture, not to prepare people for a career in the industry. Big tech should not be allowed to piggyback on the reputation of educational institutions to push their products and the latest fads at the expense of the fundamentals.
- jmnicolas 6y ago
  Big tech is already choosing most of what you watch on your screens. For example if Google decides that something doesn't exist, 90+% of connected people won't see it. This is scary.
- gambiting 6y ago
  >>The purpose of Universities is to uphold, expand and disseminate human culture, not to prepare people for a career in the industry. Like, I personally agree with you, but then I also think that we don't have the right to define it as such. There's plenty of people who think that the main goal of a university(at least in scientific/engineering fields) should be to prepare people for working in the industry. Equally, I see nothing wrong with courses which are specifically designed for this. I myself have finished a "Games Engineering" masters which boasted about close links to the industry, and over 90% hire rate in the industry after - and I got exactly what was promised. I don't see any issue with that personally. I also have friends who had their entire PhDs funded by companies like Red Hat, because they were researching things done in collaboration with them. Also don't have any issue here, and that made sure that my friends not only paid nothing for their PhDs, they were actually pretty well compensated throughout. I think the perspective changes when you have to pay for university. My sister has a degree in film making from a British university, which she paid nealy £60k(!!!!) for, and her chances of employment in the industry are nearly zero. Where I'm from(Poland)_all higher education is free, and then I have no problem with degrees not correlating with employment(but then maybe on the other hand, as a Polish tax payer, maybe I would prefer that they did, otherwise why are we paying these people to study with no employment prospects afterwards. Again, I don't really think that but I know many people do).
  - djhworld 6y ago
    > should be to prepare people for working in the industry. There used to be a system of education here in the UK called vocational colleges (or sometimes courses) where you would do exactly this, prepare for work in the industry - and industry would be involved in helping shape the curriculum, giving students work experience etc. This has fallen out of favour a lot, it still exists for trades activities like plumbing, electrician, bricklaying/building etc. but you won't find a software engineering course
    - Mauricebranagh 6y ago
      The entire vocational system in the UK was gutted by Thatcher 40 years ago - the employers did not want to pay the levy Recently the government tried to bring back "apprenticeships" but this was abused very hard by retailers to pay shelf stackers 1/2 the minimum wage.
  - greenkey 6y ago
    Students today have become quite reliant on Google Docs essentially putting almost all of their classwork out on the web. What if it were to fail? That’s different than it used to be when each student needed to handwrite or type up a paper without SAAS that could break, and those students aren’t prepping to work for Google.
    - asutekku 6y ago
      And I’m pretty happy that students use nowadays google docs. Sure, it’s propiertary and can break at any point, but man if it does not make collaboration easier.
      - greenkey 6y ago
        So: total reliance on someone giving something away for free that could break or be taken away at any time and you have no privacy- that’s ok, even if they’re not going to hire you later?
- the-dude 6y ago
  Uhh, this has been happening for over 25 years now. One of the reasons is there are just too many students. How this came to be is another rabbithole though.
  - bregma 6y ago
    Too many students than can be supported in the educational commons from interested society. It is in the interest of society as a whole to have a better-educated population. That means support for individuals being educated must come from all members of society -- in other words, it's a government domain funded through taxes. Absent common support, the interests of specific groups, mostly corporate shareholders expecting fat quarterly results, will come to dominate.
    - the-dude 6y ago
      That is your opinion, not a fact. Meanwhile in NL we have to import carpenter/plumber/drywall laborers, because ... we discourage choosing such a career for our own population and don't provide the education anymore. In the not so distant past, we did. What a lot of software 'engineers' in NL rather don't see is that you can make a very very healthy living as a 'drywaller' ( not a native speaker, can't find the word ). You can easily make more than as a software dev. The general population just is not as malleable ( Dutch: maakbaar? ) as boomers would like to believe. So at the bottom we have an entire cohort who used to work in factories or the building industry, who rely on financial support. The first 'food bank' in NL was started in 2000. Why?
      - oblio 6y ago
        People tend to run away from physical, backbreaking work. It's hard to do this kind of job when you're 50 or 60 and with physical work the risk of death or injury is also higher. Plus it's harder to move up the financial and social ladder.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
        Then maybe we, as a culture, should work harder on not looking down on people who do the actual labor of keeping civilization afloat.
- dutchmartin 6y ago
  I would argue that universities have two tasks: 1. Do research to expand knowledge. 2. Educate new researchers. Big tech just wants highly skilled researchers in their workforce, but there only N students graduating every year. So it is only logical for them to "help" (can be good or bad) the university so n+m students graduate. But the bad thing is that the push for more education can negativly impact the available research time professors have.
  - q-big 6y ago
    > Big tech just wants highly skilled researchers in their workforce Are you really sure that big tech wants these people in their workforce? At least the typical tech job interview process tests for quite different skills.
- mdorazio 6y ago
  That was the purpose of universities when the student populations were smaller, wealthier, and more focused on actually learning about the world. But decades ago the US culture shifted to "everyone must go to college as a prerequisite for getting a job", so now the focus of most programs had damn well better be preparing students to actually get a job or else the absurd cost and student debt incurred is simply not worth it.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  My universities tech department had strong contacts to large industry players (not for software, but military applications for example). Advantage was that we had very modern equipment (electrics, robotics, measuring instruments, ...) that would otherwise have crashed the budget of the university. It wasn't a secret that industry tried to influence the curriculum to get students to be trained in technologies and tools they themselves use. It is clear they tried to poach students. I understand the objection though and other departments constantly berated this closeness and they certainly had a point because the generality of education was endangered. With big-tech in software there are some additional risks in my opinion. That said, there is merit of feedback from industry to university. It is especially helpful to not let students learn about outdated approaches and tech and keep academia in the know. But that has to be a transparent forum without some maybe not so moral gifts from industries.
- Mauricebranagh 6y ago
  Originally it was to train the Clergy :-) You are right your supposed to learn the theory at UNI Tech companies want to avoid the cost of training / career development - to many MBA/Accountants.
- mbit8 6y ago
  >> The purpose of Universities is to uphold, expand and disseminate human culture, not to prepare people for a career in the industry. Well, speak for yourself. The majority of people in my classes absolutely had in mind going to industry after their studies. There's nothing wrong with that. Those two goals, being prepared for industry AND science aren't mutually exclusive.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Respectfully, you can't tell universities what their purpose is unless you're prepared to fund it. When these places got the majority of their funding from the state, the state could expect high minded ideals and social outcomes. But now their not, universities need to cater to their customers. Their customers are students, they expect a degree, an "experience" and a job at the end. Universities either need to provide that, or close.
  - blackbear_ 6y ago
    That's because money is king in the US, but in many other countries universities are affordable for everybody. And I am indeed very happy that my taxes go to universities after I myself benefited from it.
    - colejohnson66 6y ago
      The big problem in the US is the older population who paid $20k and up for their college tends to get upset at the idea of free college because they had to “work for that $20k.” This, of course, ignores the ridiculous inflation rate of college tuition. It’s also why many people are upset at the idea of forgiving student loans. “I spent $20k for my degree, but Person X got into med school and is $250k in debt on their own will. Make them pay for it!” There’s some parallels between making college/university free and the free K-12 education mandates decades ago. (Yes, it’s not “free free” but “taxed to be free”, but that’s beside the point) Also, people don’t want their taxes raised when there’s no benefit to them. If one’s kids have all graduated, you see no reason to pay more money and get nothing in return.
  - SamuelAdams 6y ago
    >Their customers are students Don't forget about all the big whale donors too. Universities really enjoy receiving millions of dollars for endowments, scholarships, and capital projects. So they may cater to the needs and desires of those constituents.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  Pretty much all schooling in the modern world is basically a means by which corporations externalize job training. The general public is not blameless either, having equated schooling with job prospects for a long, long time. Consequently, almost no actual education occurs at school. I have a friend who tells a story about meeting a 4.0 student from one of the highest rated high schools in the country who honestly wasn't sure which side the US fought on in WWII.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Did the 4.0 student cheat?
bitcharmer 6y ago
Given the hiring practices in FAANG where you are expected to present academic background rather than practical engineering skills, I'd say this is not a new phenomenon.
- anthony_r 6y ago
  You're spot on. My alma mater has had Google and the likes come to the campus for over a decade now. Also, I see nothing wrong with that, at the same time there was plenty of room for "pure research" into even the most obscure corners of theoretical CS and maths.
vmception 6y ago
This is the preferred way to fix the “pipeline problem” for more inclusion Recruit directly at a broader range of schools and make the curriculum more relevant Big Tech largely ignores Tier 2 and Tier 3 schools for on campus recruiting, while imagining that the intelligence community has better developers (which does recruit from tier 2 and tier 3 schools on campus) Since neither of them have figured out how to screen for competent or trainable developers better its clear big tech should be expanding how they recruit. Desirable because big tech is the one with the inclusion problem and pays better.
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  > Big Tech largely ignores Tier 2 and Tier 3 schools for on campus recruiting, while imagining that the intelligence community has better developers I don't think the general consensus is that intelligence organizations have better developers than big tech. I think the rule of thumb is the better the pay, the better the quality.
  - vmception 6y ago
    There is a pervasive view that they have scifi technology that someone had to program I think after various leaks that idea did evaporate a lot
    - kodoque2 6y ago
      Frankly the ANT catalog had some amazing stuff, but I think all the really cool tools are developed bespoke at small boutique company.
      - vmception 6y ago
        defense contractors recruit the same way as intelligence does
    - alisonkisk 6y ago
      Because they had infinite budget, not a few high paid geniuses.
noodles_nomore 6y ago
'Cozy'? They're snugging it under the table during meetings. They eat lunch together in Big Tech's office and lock the door. This relationship is like a 30 year nonstop honeymoon in the interstices of decency.
- greenkey 6y ago
  It’s probably not just universities either. A company I work for spent the majority of their budget and then some on things that they didn’t need, much without any forethought or planning. It’s either because of kickbacks or because it seemed enterprise-y; there’s no rational explanation other than incompetence or corruption. An adequate IT director / CTO would be able to make their case for use of better and cheaper ToC of best-of-class open-source solutions. Whether it’s kickbacks or just enjoying bragging about the Ferrari of webscalers we just bought or brandname IAAS we use, it’s wrong.
sgt101 6y ago
My uni had deals with Silicon Graphics, Sun and Apollo... I am showing my age here, but there is nothing new in this. Or unhealthy really.
readingnews 6y ago
As a professor in a computer science department at a state run university (that has one of the oldest CS departments in the nation), I actually am far more afraid of the book publishers than "big tech". They are going down the road of "who needs uni, just use our text, our online learning aids, our online _courses_"... With each new ad from the textbook publishing company, I see a push to have learners just use their material... the large problem is the university expects you to use books from well known publishers, so they have leverage to get you to use the book+material. Big tech giving software and courses is one thing, but those come and go... it is like learning to use any tool, hey do you use a DeWalt or Milwaukee? Each are the same but different. In 10 years, you might use a completely different tool, but the tool was just that, it is the ideas and concepts that you are supposed to learn in (and outside of) the classroom. It is my job to teach you _how_ to solve problems, perhaps using the DeWalt or the Milwaukee or both. Eh, as others have noted, companies have been donating for years, we could argue that grants shape our research too, but as long as professors keep the goal in mind (how do I get students to effectively and efficiently solve problems using available tools of the day), I think our future will be alright.
- throwaway7281 6y ago
  Maybe it is a better way to learn independently, with regular, e.g. monthly or quarterly check-ins with an experienced mentor? Would solve quite a few problems altogether - people getting more independent and following their interests. You would still have competition, but that would be moderated by actual needs, both in the private and public sector. Not sure an end to the classic higher-ed system would be a bad thing.
- impendia 6y ago
  > the large problem is the university expects you to use books from well known publishers Interesting, and disturbing. I am a math professor at a US state university, and thankfully I haven't observed any of this at all. For lower-level classes such as calculus we all use the same book, decided upon by the department as a whole, but when teaching upper-level classes I generally choose as I see fit. I am curious, what form does this expectation/pressure take? At my university, if administrators tried to do this, my colleagues (at least the tenure-track/tenured ones) would briefly chuckle, delete the email, and not remember it five minutes later.
fumblebee 6y ago
My CS department formed an "industry partnership" with Microsoft (circa 2015). All of a sudden, we were made to spend time learning Azure, we were given Surface Tablets for building apps, there were guest lectures by Microsoft employees, we were prompted to apply for MS internships, etc. What the department intended to be a harmless collaboration, turned out to be an aggressive marketing push by Microsoft for hearts and minds of the students. Thankfully, a backlash from the student body prompted a dampening of the relationship, but the experience showed that barriers to entry for corporations pushing their own agenda into academia can be low. Managed properly, these sorts of relationships can be win-win, but there's a clear limit and universities should be conscious and forthright of where the line is.
- esyir 6y ago
  Hardware, training and bloody faang internships offered and the student body revolted? Jesus, if they did that where I was a student I would have celebrated.
  - fumblebee 6y ago
    My main grumble was the distinct lack of choice; we were _made_ to use Microsoft products and services. I didn't pay however much money to be wrapped up in an MS marketing/recruiting campaign that I couldn't opt out of.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > there were guest lectures by Microsoft employees Given that MS employs some seriously world-leading computer science academics, isn't this a great thing? I wish I got lectures from people like this!
  - rmrfstar 6y ago
    That's well and good for you. The academy is supposed to be its own free-standing institution with its own values and its own agenda. There are intelligent people who don't want to work with people who build mass surveillance systems, provide IT services to scary government agencies, crush competition, etc. Having Microsoft at a university should be like having ROTC at a university. You can opt in if you want, or avoid it if you want. Didn't Hinton go to Canada so he didn't have to take DoD money?
LockAndLol 6y ago
Very interesting to read how so many people are OK with corporations dictating what to learn, when to learn it, how to learn it and with what it should be learned, but go on to talk about rights and freedoms or even academic integrity. Isn't that a little contradicting? And where do you draw the line? How are you going to judge the company influencing education? By its public image? Do you think companies will just provide everything for education and nothing more? No agenda will be followed and the situation will not be taken advantage of for more? Have proponents of this really thought of the likely or possible outcomes?
tubularhells 6y ago
This is nothing new. Oracle has been giving away licences to universities for decades to get students familiar with oracle products, so that when they move to workplaces they will lean towards the familiar.
Raed667 6y ago
6 or 7 years ago my university did a partnership with Samsung. Students had to work on projects where they develop apps for Tizen OS[0] and even publish it to the samsung store. (And waiving the rights/revenue of their apps to the university) I still cringe thinking about all those wasted student effort/time.. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen
fock 6y ago
And meanwhile, the law governing the good, state-funded and controlled university system in Bavaria, Germany is modernized: "removing all the shackles from universities in their way of expenditure and earning money" (state guarantees any debt though). Some bon-mots: - Universities can change themselves to be governed like a foundation - no limit on pay of professors and administrator - no limit on fees, though they have to take in EU-students for free (but I guess, a suitable "test" can change that easily) - no more political student bodies allowed. If you want to have a say, please be apolitical or shut up and be happy that corporations and corruptions need you educated. Nice, how politicians are selling out this public good, while every press outlet covers people's stupidity in handling the coronavirus.
- oblio 6y ago
  So, US solutions :-(
kodoque2 6y ago
They should just open their own vocational school (or open up their own internal training center if they have one), you could say that they risk losing the students to other companies but if they focus on their own need and technology, inertia will go a long way keeping the student. For the student that just want the training for a good paying job (no shame in that, there is still the internet and the various edx-like program to supplement teaching) a highly-focused, low cost and fast degree could be a perfect solution. Another advantage for the company, we all know that while CS are good to teach strong theoretical background, all the tooling is usually learned on the go. Take microsoft for example, imagine how efficient it would be to have a student learn in a completely integrated environnement and perfectly use microsoft tools (mastering visual studio is an art in itself) at the end of the training.
DannyBee 6y ago
I have no idea why anyone thinks this is new, it's been done forever, because it's effective. The article tries to make it seem like only altruistic donations existed in the past, but that's very wrong. Back when I was in college 20 years ago, Microsoft had a program to do this. Part of it was doing things like : 1. Hiring students as liaisons to represent and advocate for MS stuff at the school. 2. Giving away free copies of software away to CS departments and students in exchange. 3. Try to help get these things on the curriculum/etc (often in conjunction with #2) 4. Find opportunities for MS to donate computer labs and other meaningful things in exchange for people being taught visual studio/etc. (How far they would go depended on where in the top-N programs it was, etc) This is the genesis of a number of the Microsoft-named computer labs in US universities.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dang 6y ago
Url changed from https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/11/27/this-computer-science-degree-is-brought-to-you-by-big-tech/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/11/27/this-computer-science-..., which points to this.

67 points by tchalla 6y ago

This is all wrong. The purpose of Universities is to uphold, expand and disseminate human culture, not to prepare people for a career in the industry. Big tech should not be allowed to piggyback on the reputation of educational institutions to push their products and the latest fads at the expense of the fundamentals.

jmnicolas 6y ago
Big tech is already choosing most of what you watch on your screens. For example if Google decides that something doesn't exist, 90+% of connected people won't see it. This is scary.
gambiting 6y ago
>>The purpose of Universities is to uphold, expand and disseminate human culture, not to prepare people for a career in the industry. Like, I personally agree with you, but then I also think that we don't have the right to define it as such. There's plenty of people who think that the main goal of a university(at least in scientific/engineering fields) should be to prepare people for working in the industry. Equally, I see nothing wrong with courses which are specifically designed for this. I myself have finished a "Games Engineering" masters which boasted about close links to the industry, and over 90% hire rate in the industry after - and I got exactly what was promised. I don't see any issue with that personally. I also have friends who had their entire PhDs funded by companies like Red Hat, because they were researching things done in collaboration with them. Also don't have any issue here, and that made sure that my friends not only paid nothing for their PhDs, they were actually pretty well compensated throughout. I think the perspective changes when you have to pay for university. My sister has a degree in film making from a British university, which she paid nealy £60k(!!!!) for, and her chances of employment in the industry are nearly zero. Where I'm from(Poland)_all higher education is free, and then I have no problem with degrees not correlating with employment(but then maybe on the other hand, as a Polish tax payer, maybe I would prefer that they did, otherwise why are we paying these people to study with no employment prospects afterwards. Again, I don't really think that but I know many people do).
- djhworld 6y ago
  > should be to prepare people for working in the industry. There used to be a system of education here in the UK called vocational colleges (or sometimes courses) where you would do exactly this, prepare for work in the industry - and industry would be involved in helping shape the curriculum, giving students work experience etc. This has fallen out of favour a lot, it still exists for trades activities like plumbing, electrician, bricklaying/building etc. but you won't find a software engineering course
  - Mauricebranagh 6y ago
    The entire vocational system in the UK was gutted by Thatcher 40 years ago - the employers did not want to pay the levy Recently the government tried to bring back "apprenticeships" but this was abused very hard by retailers to pay shelf stackers 1/2 the minimum wage.
- greenkey 6y ago
  Students today have become quite reliant on Google Docs essentially putting almost all of their classwork out on the web. What if it were to fail? That’s different than it used to be when each student needed to handwrite or type up a paper without SAAS that could break, and those students aren’t prepping to work for Google.
  - asutekku 6y ago
    And I’m pretty happy that students use nowadays google docs. Sure, it’s propiertary and can break at any point, but man if it does not make collaboration easier.
    - greenkey 6y ago
      So: total reliance on someone giving something away for free that could break or be taken away at any time and you have no privacy- that’s ok, even if they’re not going to hire you later?
the-dude 6y ago
Uhh, this has been happening for over 25 years now. One of the reasons is there are just too many students. How this came to be is another rabbithole though.
- bregma 6y ago
  Too many students than can be supported in the educational commons from interested society. It is in the interest of society as a whole to have a better-educated population. That means support for individuals being educated must come from all members of society -- in other words, it's a government domain funded through taxes. Absent common support, the interests of specific groups, mostly corporate shareholders expecting fat quarterly results, will come to dominate.
  - the-dude 6y ago
    That is your opinion, not a fact. Meanwhile in NL we have to import carpenter/plumber/drywall laborers, because ... we discourage choosing such a career for our own population and don't provide the education anymore. In the not so distant past, we did. What a lot of software 'engineers' in NL rather don't see is that you can make a very very healthy living as a 'drywaller' ( not a native speaker, can't find the word ). You can easily make more than as a software dev. The general population just is not as malleable ( Dutch: maakbaar? ) as boomers would like to believe. So at the bottom we have an entire cohort who used to work in factories or the building industry, who rely on financial support. The first 'food bank' in NL was started in 2000. Why?
    - oblio 6y ago
      People tend to run away from physical, backbreaking work. It's hard to do this kind of job when you're 50 or 60 and with physical work the risk of death or injury is also higher. Plus it's harder to move up the financial and social ladder.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
        Then maybe we, as a culture, should work harder on not looking down on people who do the actual labor of keeping civilization afloat.
dutchmartin 6y ago
I would argue that universities have two tasks: 1. Do research to expand knowledge. 2. Educate new researchers. Big tech just wants highly skilled researchers in their workforce, but there only N students graduating every year. So it is only logical for them to "help" (can be good or bad) the university so n+m students graduate. But the bad thing is that the push for more education can negativly impact the available research time professors have.
- q-big 6y ago
  > Big tech just wants highly skilled researchers in their workforce Are you really sure that big tech wants these people in their workforce? At least the typical tech job interview process tests for quite different skills.
mdorazio 6y ago
That was the purpose of universities when the student populations were smaller, wealthier, and more focused on actually learning about the world. But decades ago the US culture shifted to "everyone must go to college as a prerequisite for getting a job", so now the focus of most programs had damn well better be preparing students to actually get a job or else the absurd cost and student debt incurred is simply not worth it.
raxxorrax 6y ago
My universities tech department had strong contacts to large industry players (not for software, but military applications for example). Advantage was that we had very modern equipment (electrics, robotics, measuring instruments, ...) that would otherwise have crashed the budget of the university. It wasn't a secret that industry tried to influence the curriculum to get students to be trained in technologies and tools they themselves use. It is clear they tried to poach students. I understand the objection though and other departments constantly berated this closeness and they certainly had a point because the generality of education was endangered. With big-tech in software there are some additional risks in my opinion. That said, there is merit of feedback from industry to university. It is especially helpful to not let students learn about outdated approaches and tech and keep academia in the know. But that has to be a transparent forum without some maybe not so moral gifts from industries.
Mauricebranagh 6y ago
Originally it was to train the Clergy :-) You are right your supposed to learn the theory at UNI Tech companies want to avoid the cost of training / career development - to many MBA/Accountants.
mbit8 6y ago
>> The purpose of Universities is to uphold, expand and disseminate human culture, not to prepare people for a career in the industry. Well, speak for yourself. The majority of people in my classes absolutely had in mind going to industry after their studies. There's nothing wrong with that. Those two goals, being prepared for industry AND science aren't mutually exclusive.
LatteLazy 6y ago
Respectfully, you can't tell universities what their purpose is unless you're prepared to fund it. When these places got the majority of their funding from the state, the state could expect high minded ideals and social outcomes. But now their not, universities need to cater to their customers. Their customers are students, they expect a degree, an "experience" and a job at the end. Universities either need to provide that, or close.
- blackbear_ 6y ago
  That's because money is king in the US, but in many other countries universities are affordable for everybody. And I am indeed very happy that my taxes go to universities after I myself benefited from it.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    The big problem in the US is the older population who paid $20k and up for their college tends to get upset at the idea of free college because they had to “work for that $20k.” This, of course, ignores the ridiculous inflation rate of college tuition. It’s also why many people are upset at the idea of forgiving student loans. “I spent $20k for my degree, but Person X got into med school and is $250k in debt on their own will. Make them pay for it!” There’s some parallels between making college/university free and the free K-12 education mandates decades ago. (Yes, it’s not “free free” but “taxed to be free”, but that’s beside the point) Also, people don’t want their taxes raised when there’s no benefit to them. If one’s kids have all graduated, you see no reason to pay more money and get nothing in return.
- SamuelAdams 6y ago
  >Their customers are students Don't forget about all the big whale donors too. Universities really enjoy receiving millions of dollars for endowments, scholarships, and capital projects. So they may cater to the needs and desires of those constituents.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
Pretty much all schooling in the modern world is basically a means by which corporations externalize job training. The general public is not blameless either, having equated schooling with job prospects for a long, long time. Consequently, almost no actual education occurs at school. I have a friend who tells a story about meeting a 4.0 student from one of the highest rated high schools in the country who honestly wasn't sure which side the US fought on in WWII.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Did the 4.0 student cheat?

bitcharmer 6y ago

Given the hiring practices in FAANG where you are expected to present academic background rather than practical engineering skills, I'd say this is not a new phenomenon.

anthony_r 6y ago
You're spot on. My alma mater has had Google and the likes come to the campus for over a decade now. Also, I see nothing wrong with that, at the same time there was plenty of room for "pure research" into even the most obscure corners of theoretical CS and maths.

vmception 6y ago

This is the preferred way to fix the “pipeline problem” for more inclusion Recruit directly at a broader range of schools and make the curriculum more relevant Big Tech largely ignores Tier 2 and Tier 3 schools for on campus recruiting, while imagining that the intelligence community has better developers (which does recruit from tier 2 and tier 3 schools on campus) Since neither of them have figured out how to screen for competent or trainable developers better its clear big tech should be expanding how they recruit. Desirable because big tech is the one with the inclusion problem and pays better.

Judgmentality 6y ago
> Big Tech largely ignores Tier 2 and Tier 3 schools for on campus recruiting, while imagining that the intelligence community has better developers I don't think the general consensus is that intelligence organizations have better developers than big tech. I think the rule of thumb is the better the pay, the better the quality.
- vmception 6y ago
  There is a pervasive view that they have scifi technology that someone had to program I think after various leaks that idea did evaporate a lot
  - kodoque2 6y ago
    Frankly the ANT catalog had some amazing stuff, but I think all the really cool tools are developed bespoke at small boutique company.
    - vmception 6y ago
      defense contractors recruit the same way as intelligence does
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    Because they had infinite budget, not a few high paid geniuses.

noodles_nomore 6y ago

'Cozy'? They're snugging it under the table during meetings. They eat lunch together in Big Tech's office and lock the door. This relationship is like a 30 year nonstop honeymoon in the interstices of decency.

greenkey 6y ago
It’s probably not just universities either. A company I work for spent the majority of their budget and then some on things that they didn’t need, much without any forethought or planning. It’s either because of kickbacks or because it seemed enterprise-y; there’s no rational explanation other than incompetence or corruption. An adequate IT director / CTO would be able to make their case for use of better and cheaper ToC of best-of-class open-source solutions. Whether it’s kickbacks or just enjoying bragging about the Ferrari of webscalers we just bought or brandname IAAS we use, it’s wrong.

sgt101 6y ago

My uni had deals with Silicon Graphics, Sun and Apollo... I am showing my age here, but there is nothing new in this. Or unhealthy really.

readingnews 6y ago

As a professor in a computer science department at a state run university (that has one of the oldest CS departments in the nation), I actually am far more afraid of the book publishers than "big tech". They are going down the road of "who needs uni, just use our text, our online learning aids, our online _courses_"... With each new ad from the textbook publishing company, I see a push to have learners just use their material... the large problem is the university expects you to use books from well known publishers, so they have leverage to get you to use the book+material. Big tech giving software and courses is one thing, but those come and go... it is like learning to use any tool, hey do you use a DeWalt or Milwaukee? Each are the same but different. In 10 years, you might use a completely different tool, but the tool was just that, it is the ideas and concepts that you are supposed to learn in (and outside of) the classroom. It is my job to teach you _how_ to solve problems, perhaps using the DeWalt or the Milwaukee or both. Eh, as others have noted, companies have been donating for years, we could argue that grants shape our research too, but as long as professors keep the goal in mind (how do I get students to effectively and efficiently solve problems using available tools of the day), I think our future will be alright.

throwaway7281 6y ago
Maybe it is a better way to learn independently, with regular, e.g. monthly or quarterly check-ins with an experienced mentor? Would solve quite a few problems altogether - people getting more independent and following their interests. You would still have competition, but that would be moderated by actual needs, both in the private and public sector. Not sure an end to the classic higher-ed system would be a bad thing.
impendia 6y ago
> the large problem is the university expects you to use books from well known publishers Interesting, and disturbing. I am a math professor at a US state university, and thankfully I haven't observed any of this at all. For lower-level classes such as calculus we all use the same book, decided upon by the department as a whole, but when teaching upper-level classes I generally choose as I see fit. I am curious, what form does this expectation/pressure take? At my university, if administrators tried to do this, my colleagues (at least the tenure-track/tenured ones) would briefly chuckle, delete the email, and not remember it five minutes later.

fumblebee 6y ago

My CS department formed an "industry partnership" with Microsoft (circa 2015). All of a sudden, we were made to spend time learning Azure, we were given Surface Tablets for building apps, there were guest lectures by Microsoft employees, we were prompted to apply for MS internships, etc. What the department intended to be a harmless collaboration, turned out to be an aggressive marketing push by Microsoft for hearts and minds of the students. Thankfully, a backlash from the student body prompted a dampening of the relationship, but the experience showed that barriers to entry for corporations pushing their own agenda into academia can be low. Managed properly, these sorts of relationships can be win-win, but there's a clear limit and universities should be conscious and forthright of where the line is.

esyir 6y ago
Hardware, training and bloody faang internships offered and the student body revolted? Jesus, if they did that where I was a student I would have celebrated.
- fumblebee 6y ago
  My main grumble was the distinct lack of choice; we were _made_ to use Microsoft products and services. I didn't pay however much money to be wrapped up in an MS marketing/recruiting campaign that I couldn't opt out of.
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chrisseaton 6y ago
> there were guest lectures by Microsoft employees Given that MS employs some seriously world-leading computer science academics, isn't this a great thing? I wish I got lectures from people like this!
- rmrfstar 6y ago
  That's well and good for you. The academy is supposed to be its own free-standing institution with its own values and its own agenda. There are intelligent people who don't want to work with people who build mass surveillance systems, provide IT services to scary government agencies, crush competition, etc. Having Microsoft at a university should be like having ROTC at a university. You can opt in if you want, or avoid it if you want. Didn't Hinton go to Canada so he didn't have to take DoD money?

LockAndLol 6y ago

Very interesting to read how so many people are OK with corporations dictating what to learn, when to learn it, how to learn it and with what it should be learned, but go on to talk about rights and freedoms or even academic integrity. Isn't that a little contradicting? And where do you draw the line? How are you going to judge the company influencing education? By its public image? Do you think companies will just provide everything for education and nothing more? No agenda will be followed and the situation will not be taken advantage of for more? Have proponents of this really thought of the likely or possible outcomes?

tubularhells 6y ago

This is nothing new. Oracle has been giving away licences to universities for decades to get students familiar with oracle products, so that when they move to workplaces they will lean towards the familiar.

Raed667 6y ago

6 or 7 years ago my university did a partnership with Samsung. Students had to work on projects where they develop apps for Tizen OS[0] and even publish it to the samsung store. (And waiving the rights/revenue of their apps to the university) I still cringe thinking about all those wasted student effort/time.. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen

fock 6y ago

And meanwhile, the law governing the good, state-funded and controlled university system in Bavaria, Germany is modernized: "removing all the shackles from universities in their way of expenditure and earning money" (state guarantees any debt though). Some bon-mots: - Universities can change themselves to be governed like a foundation - no limit on pay of professors and administrator - no limit on fees, though they have to take in EU-students for free (but I guess, a suitable "test" can change that easily) - no more political student bodies allowed. If you want to have a say, please be apolitical or shut up and be happy that corporations and corruptions need you educated. Nice, how politicians are selling out this public good, while every press outlet covers people's stupidity in handling the coronavirus.

oblio 6y ago
So, US solutions :-(

kodoque2 6y ago

They should just open their own vocational school (or open up their own internal training center if they have one), you could say that they risk losing the students to other companies but if they focus on their own need and technology, inertia will go a long way keeping the student. For the student that just want the training for a good paying job (no shame in that, there is still the internet and the various edx-like program to supplement teaching) a highly-focused, low cost and fast degree could be a perfect solution. Another advantage for the company, we all know that while CS are good to teach strong theoretical background, all the tooling is usually learned on the go. Take microsoft for example, imagine how efficient it would be to have a student learn in a completely integrated environnement and perfectly use microsoft tools (mastering visual studio is an art in itself) at the end of the training.

DannyBee 6y ago

I have no idea why anyone thinks this is new, it's been done forever, because it's effective. The article tries to make it seem like only altruistic donations existed in the past, but that's very wrong. Back when I was in college 20 years ago, Microsoft had a program to do this. Part of it was doing things like : 1. Hiring students as liaisons to represent and advocate for MS stuff at the school. 2. Giving away free copies of software away to CS departments and students in exchange. 3. Try to help get these things on the curriculum/etc (often in conjunction with #2) 4. Find opportunities for MS to donate computer labs and other meaningful things in exchange for people being taught visual studio/etc. (How far they would go depended on where in the top-N programs it was, etc) This is the genesis of a number of the Microsoft-named computer labs in US universities.

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dang 6y ago

Url changed from https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/11/27/this-computer-science-degree-is-brought-to-you-by-big-tech/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/11/27/this-computer-science-..., which points to this.