| Well part of why I upvoted this is because it would have been useful information to me 15 years ago. Certainly school can be used for any purpose (perhaps that's a truism). But the author's point also includes the fact that the market (and society) is largely indifferent to what you learn at school. In order to "Hack" school we need to be real with ourselves about what the world after school looks like. - I've never been asked GPA once (one data point) - Most technical questions I get asked are basic and solvable with a hash map - I've never been asked to write a proof as part of an interview - My degrees (business/psychology) have never been useful in my career. - Many many people have asked my wear I went to college, and I can tell they care about the name of the school first and foremost. - Regardless of intellect, positions at the level director and above seem to be assigned very unpredictably (luck/politics/privilege?) |
* Most technical questions are basic because most "technical" jobs are very basic. However, there are people out there building operating systems kernels, secured software, and life-critical systems; I'm reasonably assured that you would have to demonstrate more than competence with a hash map.
* I too have never been asked to write a proof. But, thanks to my education, the techniques needed to write a proof are rather ingrained with how I understand writing code.
* I, too, ask people where they went to college, because if they went to the U. of Washington or Carnegie Mellon or someplace like that, I can't assume they'll know Kantian ethics but I can assume they'll have learned something; I can't make that assumption if they went to the U. of Phoenix, ITT Tech, or EPRI.
* Positions at the level of director do seem to be assigned by luck/politics/privilege. Positions at the level of internal medicine specialist, structural engineer, and the like tend not to be.