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Students want the diploma because it has value. It has value because a student can only get it by learning and problem-solving. If students find a way to get a

Students want the diploma because it has value. It has value because a student can only get it by learning and problem-solving. If students find a way to get a diploma without doing the work, it will soon be worth less than the paper on which it is printed.

SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
Soon? I hire people now and where they went to school means little to me. The first priority is “can they do the work?” which is a niche programming. After that is established, I barely take note of school. I don’t personally count a CS degree as an indication the person is a good programmer, or thinks logically, or has good work ethic.
- ozim 1y ago
  Problem is you most likely don’t have that big operation. For company I work for we hire 1 dev per year and I believe last year we did not even hire a single person. So I do have time to check up the candidate do 3 rounds each 1 hr so that candidates can see what company are we and what person is the candidate. We also are small company so we don’t get that many applicants anyway. I cannot imagine how it goes when someone needs to hire 20 devs in one quarter. Especially for a company that is any way known and they can get 1000CVs for a single position. They need to filter somehow.
  - betterThanTexas 1y ago
    You could just as easily filter by having a github repo. It doesn't even need to be active or very full. Hell, that would also filter out a lot of people with college degrees! Might even save you time. In my experience, only very large and bureaucratic institutions (governments, schools) really demand degrees and certifications.
- 6510 1y ago
  HR seems a lot like real estate appraisal as~in appraisers know nothing about construction. One could in theory establish the value of a thing or person by comparing it with similar things but if everyone does that the process becomes senseless. If a working car is worth 5000, the same car from the same year with a defect that costs 1000 to fix should be worth 4000. If the repair costs 6000 there is no car.
animal_spirits 1y ago
Further, if a student can get a diploma without work, then the diploma does not have value anymore. If diplomas are no longer valuable, the signal they provide in the labor market will turn into noise. If employers no longer look for the diploma-signal in an employee, what will be the reason an employer will hire an employee? I think this story will become true, and society will radically shift into one where critical thinking skills will actually be the only skills employers look for in employees, since the grunt work can be automated. What becomes the signal then? Will we shift back into apprenticeship based employment? How do potential laborers display their critical thinking skills apart from displaying them in person?
- nine_k 1y ago
  In a medieval guild, to be admitted as a master, an apprentice had to create a chef d'oevre, or masterpiece, so called for this reason. In the computer engineering industry, you increasingly have to demonstrate the same: either as a part of your prior work for hire, or a side project, or a contribution to something open-source. A diploma is still a useful signal, but not sufficient, except maybe for very junior positions straight from college. These are exactly the positions most under pressure by the automation.
  - Mbwagava 1y ago
    Apprentices were supported, tho. We just chuck kids out in the cold with college debt and hope they survive with little reason to think they will.
    - zharknado 1y ago
      And they were supported because they were useful labor. Even an unskilled, brand-new apprentice could pump the bellows, sweep the forge, haul wood and water, deliver messages. If it frees up the master to produce more valuable output, that’s a win-win. Then they can grow into increasingly valuable tasks as they gain awareness and skill. IMO one of the big problems is that we’ve gone too far with the assumption that learners can’t be valuable until after they’re done learning. Partly a cultural shift around the role of children and partly the reality that knowledge work doesn’t require much unskilled labor compared to physical industries.
7bit 1y ago
> It has value because a student can only get it by learning and problem-solving. No. It has value, because companies value it. It sets the starting point for your first salary and then for every salary negotiation moving forward. As someone who did not go to university, but has the same knowledge self-taught I can tell you that this piece of paper would have opened so many doors and made life so much easier. It took me 15 years to get a salary, that people get with the piece of paper after graduating. And not because it took me 15 years to reach that level of knowledge. I had that by the time the other graduated. I had a friend who always cheated in school, and now he works for a big car company and earned a fuck ton of money. Life is unfair and companies only care about the paper your diploma is printed on. If students would ask me for advice, I would tell them to cheat whenever possible.
- Ma8ee 1y ago
  And companies value it because it signals that the holder of that paper can do the work and isn’t completely stupid.
  - samplatt 1y ago
    In reality, holding a piece of paper has nothing in common with relevant ability. Some graduates will exit university as competent people, some won't. This isn't exactly news, or even a recent phenomenon. My peers who finished their CS degree circa 2004 ish were a broad mix of utter idiots who shouldn't get a job in that field, or damn sharp (if green) technically-minded people, or somewhere in between. The industry will sort them out; the ones that can, do, the ones that can't, will do something else of use, or find another job.
    - Jensson 1y ago
      There is a correlation, that is all you need for it to be valuable. Remove the correlation and value isn't there any more, see US masters in computer science for example that one doesn't correlate with skill so it isn't valued, but the bachelor is. In countries where a masters is correlated with skill they are values though.
Mengkudulangsat 1y ago
> If students find a way to get a diploma without doing the work, it will soon be worth less than the paper on which it is printed. Amen. I look forward to the era where we train professionals the old fashion way: apprenticeships. It sure worked for blacksmiths and artisans for hundreds of years.
- smcg 1y ago
  Companies don't want to retain anyone longer than 2 years. They would never go for this unless forced to. By collective action.
  - renewiltord 1y ago
    It’s not that they can’t. It’s that I can always pay more by freeloading on their training.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      Sure, then they complain that "nobody wants to work abymore". They can't have it both ways
- melagonster 1y ago
  Teenagers and children were treated as a free servant for several years, and probably cannot learn anything.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  That is how many professionals are training in many European countries, and they still want a diploma to go with it. In many countries, regardless of how learning it was achieved, you still need a paper to prove that you actually did it. And in countries like Germany, better keep all those job evaluations close at heart because they get asked for as part of many job interview processes, additionally have them reviewed by lawyers, as they legally can't say anything negative, there is an hidden language on how to express negativity which to the reader sound positive on first read.
PKop 1y ago
And that won't be their problem, they'll be long gone having achieved what they wanted when they were cheating. It is a societal problem or institutional and industry problem. If the market and these universities want these degrees to mean anything as signaling mechanism they must stop these students from cheating some way somehow...the students are never going to stop themselves.
smcg 1y ago
But it will always be worth more than not having it, so companies will still require it.
johnisgood 1y ago
> If students find a way to get a diploma without doing the work, it will soon be worth less than the paper on which it is printed. I think this is already the case.
mordae 1y ago
Good. It's about time.
klibertp 1y ago
> It has value because a student can only get it by learning and problem-solving. No. That's how it should be, but the reality looks different: it has value because it shows that someone spent 3+ years doing what they were told to do, enduring all the absurdities they were subjected to in the meantime. Whatever means they used to cheat don't matter, since they still worked on what someone told them to and produced results satisfying the expectations. There are, perhaps, institutions where learning and problem-solving are seen as the most important while "following orders" and "staying in line" are deemphasized. For the students of all the others, putting up with an utterly absurd environment is often one of the biggest barriers to learning. Yet, it's a requirement without fulfilling which you can forget about graduating. Hence my conclusion: the diploma from most learning institutions certifies you as a good corporate drone - and that's enough of a signal in many situations, so why bother trying to fix it?
- alexvitkov 1y ago
  This is a very bold statement, you should consider substantiating it at least a little, maybe give just one example on what those absurdities collee students have to endure are, that prove they're good corporate drones? From what I remember it was 4 years of learning stuff I signed up to learn, occasionally being quizzed on said stuff, and then they gave me a paper that claims I know the stuff.
  - klibertp 1y ago
    You might live in another country where the situation is different, or maybe my experiences are outdated (20 years later, they might be). What I remember is unfairness and corruption, feudal-like relationships, tons of wasted time on things I didn't sign up for and things I already knew but couldn't say I know for fear of retaliation. I was still better than people going to private institutions: on top of all that, they were also extorted for money at every turn. ...thinking about it, yeah, I really hope my experience is outdated.
  - betterThanTexas 1y ago
    I'm not saying a college CAN'T provide an education, but it IS a little ridiculous you can't just test pass four years of regurgitating textbooks. Ideally for a fraction of the cost.
betterThanTexas 1y ago
> It has value because a student can only get it by learning and problem-solving. No, it has value because it gatekeeps class mobility. Degrees haven't signified learning or problem solving longer than I've been alive. The attitude is that if you pay for an education, you're entitled to a degree. The education aspect is optional.
TiredOfLife 1y ago
You can also get it by cheating and bribing.

SV_BubbleTime 1y ago

Soon? I hire people now and where they went to school means little to me. The first priority is “can they do the work?” which is a niche programming. After that is established, I barely take note of school. I don’t personally count a CS degree as an indication the person is a good programmer, or thinks logically, or has good work ethic.

ozim 1y ago
Problem is you most likely don’t have that big operation. For company I work for we hire 1 dev per year and I believe last year we did not even hire a single person. So I do have time to check up the candidate do 3 rounds each 1 hr so that candidates can see what company are we and what person is the candidate. We also are small company so we don’t get that many applicants anyway. I cannot imagine how it goes when someone needs to hire 20 devs in one quarter. Especially for a company that is any way known and they can get 1000CVs for a single position. They need to filter somehow.
- betterThanTexas 1y ago
  You could just as easily filter by having a github repo. It doesn't even need to be active or very full. Hell, that would also filter out a lot of people with college degrees! Might even save you time. In my experience, only very large and bureaucratic institutions (governments, schools) really demand degrees and certifications.
6510 1y ago
HR seems a lot like real estate appraisal as~in appraisers know nothing about construction. One could in theory establish the value of a thing or person by comparing it with similar things but if everyone does that the process becomes senseless. If a working car is worth 5000, the same car from the same year with a defect that costs 1000 to fix should be worth 4000. If the repair costs 6000 there is no car.

animal_spirits 1y ago

Further, if a student can get a diploma without work, then the diploma does not have value anymore. If diplomas are no longer valuable, the signal they provide in the labor market will turn into noise. If employers no longer look for the diploma-signal in an employee, what will be the reason an employer will hire an employee? I think this story will become true, and society will radically shift into one where critical thinking skills will actually be the only skills employers look for in employees, since the grunt work can be automated. What becomes the signal then? Will we shift back into apprenticeship based employment? How do potential laborers display their critical thinking skills apart from displaying them in person?

nine_k 1y ago
In a medieval guild, to be admitted as a master, an apprentice had to create a chef d'oevre, or masterpiece, so called for this reason. In the computer engineering industry, you increasingly have to demonstrate the same: either as a part of your prior work for hire, or a side project, or a contribution to something open-source. A diploma is still a useful signal, but not sufficient, except maybe for very junior positions straight from college. These are exactly the positions most under pressure by the automation.
- Mbwagava 1y ago
  Apprentices were supported, tho. We just chuck kids out in the cold with college debt and hope they survive with little reason to think they will.
  - zharknado 1y ago
    And they were supported because they were useful labor. Even an unskilled, brand-new apprentice could pump the bellows, sweep the forge, haul wood and water, deliver messages. If it frees up the master to produce more valuable output, that’s a win-win. Then they can grow into increasingly valuable tasks as they gain awareness and skill. IMO one of the big problems is that we’ve gone too far with the assumption that learners can’t be valuable until after they’re done learning. Partly a cultural shift around the role of children and partly the reality that knowledge work doesn’t require much unskilled labor compared to physical industries.

7bit 1y ago

> It has value because a student can only get it by learning and problem-solving. No. It has value, because companies value it. It sets the starting point for your first salary and then for every salary negotiation moving forward. As someone who did not go to university, but has the same knowledge self-taught I can tell you that this piece of paper would have opened so many doors and made life so much easier. It took me 15 years to get a salary, that people get with the piece of paper after graduating. And not because it took me 15 years to reach that level of knowledge. I had that by the time the other graduated. I had a friend who always cheated in school, and now he works for a big car company and earned a fuck ton of money. Life is unfair and companies only care about the paper your diploma is printed on. If students would ask me for advice, I would tell them to cheat whenever possible.

Ma8ee 1y ago
And companies value it because it signals that the holder of that paper can do the work and isn’t completely stupid.
- samplatt 1y ago
  In reality, holding a piece of paper has nothing in common with relevant ability. Some graduates will exit university as competent people, some won't. This isn't exactly news, or even a recent phenomenon. My peers who finished their CS degree circa 2004 ish were a broad mix of utter idiots who shouldn't get a job in that field, or damn sharp (if green) technically-minded people, or somewhere in between. The industry will sort them out; the ones that can, do, the ones that can't, will do something else of use, or find another job.
  - Jensson 1y ago
    There is a correlation, that is all you need for it to be valuable. Remove the correlation and value isn't there any more, see US masters in computer science for example that one doesn't correlate with skill so it isn't valued, but the bachelor is. In countries where a masters is correlated with skill they are values though.

Mengkudulangsat 1y ago

> If students find a way to get a diploma without doing the work, it will soon be worth less than the paper on which it is printed. Amen. I look forward to the era where we train professionals the old fashion way: apprenticeships. It sure worked for blacksmiths and artisans for hundreds of years.

smcg 1y ago
Companies don't want to retain anyone longer than 2 years. They would never go for this unless forced to. By collective action.
- renewiltord 1y ago
  It’s not that they can’t. It’s that I can always pay more by freeloading on their training.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    Sure, then they complain that "nobody wants to work abymore". They can't have it both ways
melagonster 1y ago
Teenagers and children were treated as a free servant for several years, and probably cannot learn anything.
pjmlp 1y ago
That is how many professionals are training in many European countries, and they still want a diploma to go with it. In many countries, regardless of how learning it was achieved, you still need a paper to prove that you actually did it. And in countries like Germany, better keep all those job evaluations close at heart because they get asked for as part of many job interview processes, additionally have them reviewed by lawyers, as they legally can't say anything negative, there is an hidden language on how to express negativity which to the reader sound positive on first read.

PKop 1y ago

And that won't be their problem, they'll be long gone having achieved what they wanted when they were cheating. It is a societal problem or institutional and industry problem. If the market and these universities want these degrees to mean anything as signaling mechanism they must stop these students from cheating some way somehow...the students are never going to stop themselves.

smcg 1y ago

But it will always be worth more than not having it, so companies will still require it.

johnisgood 1y ago

> If students find a way to get a diploma without doing the work, it will soon be worth less than the paper on which it is printed. I think this is already the case.

mordae 1y ago

Good. It's about time.

klibertp 1y ago

> It has value because a student can only get it by learning and problem-solving. No. That's how it should be, but the reality looks different: it has value because it shows that someone spent 3+ years doing what they were told to do, enduring all the absurdities they were subjected to in the meantime. Whatever means they used to cheat don't matter, since they still worked on what someone told them to and produced results satisfying the expectations. There are, perhaps, institutions where learning and problem-solving are seen as the most important while "following orders" and "staying in line" are deemphasized. For the students of all the others, putting up with an utterly absurd environment is often one of the biggest barriers to learning. Yet, it's a requirement without fulfilling which you can forget about graduating. Hence my conclusion: the diploma from most learning institutions certifies you as a good corporate drone - and that's enough of a signal in many situations, so why bother trying to fix it?

alexvitkov 1y ago
This is a very bold statement, you should consider substantiating it at least a little, maybe give just one example on what those absurdities collee students have to endure are, that prove they're good corporate drones? From what I remember it was 4 years of learning stuff I signed up to learn, occasionally being quizzed on said stuff, and then they gave me a paper that claims I know the stuff.
- klibertp 1y ago
  You might live in another country where the situation is different, or maybe my experiences are outdated (20 years later, they might be). What I remember is unfairness and corruption, feudal-like relationships, tons of wasted time on things I didn't sign up for and things I already knew but couldn't say I know for fear of retaliation. I was still better than people going to private institutions: on top of all that, they were also extorted for money at every turn. ...thinking about it, yeah, I really hope my experience is outdated.
- betterThanTexas 1y ago
  I'm not saying a college CAN'T provide an education, but it IS a little ridiculous you can't just test pass four years of regurgitating textbooks. Ideally for a fraction of the cost.

betterThanTexas 1y ago

> It has value because a student can only get it by learning and problem-solving. No, it has value because it gatekeeps class mobility. Degrees haven't signified learning or problem solving longer than I've been alive. The attitude is that if you pay for an education, you're entitled to a degree. The education aspect is optional.

TiredOfLife 1y ago

You can also get it by cheating and bribing.