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> If I had the choice between a Caltech grad who had all A's and no experience or a student from some random state school who had interned every summer and cont

> If I had the choice between a Caltech grad who had all A's and no experience or a student from some random state school who had interned every summer and contributed to open source, I'd pick the latter. I really wish someone had explained this to me while I was in college.. I had ONE professor who'd actually worked in the real world who explained it, but all the other professors were lifetime academics who just parroted the same idiotic stuff about how important it is to get good grades. Getting my first engineering job after I graduated was a nightmare.. I ended up having to go with a crappy internship that barely paid enough for me to live in a bedroom in a shared house, with a terrible boss who constantly threatened me and stressed me out. And that's with a 3.8 GPA.. When I told prospective employers that, they were like "What is that? Out of 4? 5? Is that good?"

mettamage 5y ago
A lot of talent is wasted by young people doing their utmost best at uni only to find out that no one cared. I applied to FAANG after graduating CS and no one got back to me. A friend of mine in the HFT world told me “I know how hard some of your courses were. But you can’t highlight them on your cv because no one will believe you that they were that hard. And even if they did, they wouldn’t believe that those skills are transferable.” Going to yet another job interview, I spoke to my interviewer who had a similar CS specalization but from another uni. He told me “my master was of baaad quality.” I responded with: “mine wasn’t, and my classmates all feel the same because we’ve learned practical skills and our teachers prided themselves in giving difficult yet practical courses.” He looked at me with disbelief.
- trinovantes 5y ago
  This is partially why same alumni hire each other as they already have a priori knowledge of the education the other has received e.g. whether or not a course is difficult/easy etc. Back in undergrad, I was talking to a hiring manager who was an alumni from my school that said if he will hire anyone no questions asked if he sees anyone with X course on their transcript/resume (listing the project from the course)

mettamage 5y ago

A lot of talent is wasted by young people doing their utmost best at uni only to find out that no one cared. I applied to FAANG after graduating CS and no one got back to me. A friend of mine in the HFT world told me “I know how hard some of your courses were. But you can’t highlight them on your cv because no one will believe you that they were that hard. And even if they did, they wouldn’t believe that those skills are transferable.” Going to yet another job interview, I spoke to my interviewer who had a similar CS specalization but from another uni. He told me “my master was of baaad quality.” I responded with: “mine wasn’t, and my classmates all feel the same because we’ve learned practical skills and our teachers prided themselves in giving difficult yet practical courses.” He looked at me with disbelief.

trinovantes 5y ago
This is partially why same alumni hire each other as they already have a priori knowledge of the education the other has received e.g. whether or not a course is difficult/easy etc. Back in undergrad, I was talking to a hiring manager who was an alumni from my school that said if he will hire anyone no questions asked if he sees anyone with X course on their transcript/resume (listing the project from the course)