I think what we need are apprenticeships. I.e. a prominent research group hires kids after the remedial first two years of traditional college curriculum (or something like it plus a couple of years in an entry level job), and has them work on the actual problems at hand, filling the knowledge gaps as needed. It is no longer possible to know much of anything, so we should specialize and diversify at the same time, meaning that these students should be working at the seams between the fields: EE/CS, CS/Statistics, CS/Genetics, CS/Mechanical engineering etc. Further specialization should occur along the lines of whether the student would like to be a researcher, or have a more employable and practical set of skills. I never got much value out of lectures: few people can sustain rapt attention for hours a day. Most of what I know comes from the books. What I did get a lot of value from is working with people who know what they're doing, and from doing things myself, perhaps with their guidance and help. If this is heavily emphasized in this new model, I'm all for it.
I could not possibly agree with you more, having basically lived through this. When I look at the current tuition rates for my alma mater, Northeastern University, it makes me cringe. However, the fact that the default experience at Northeastern requires a student to undergo multiple "co-ops", 6 month paid internships, is genuinely a smart thing in my mind.
By the time I had graduated, I had work experience in embedded systems, a criminal justice stats analysis lab, the Red Sox, and a counter terrorism research center in DC. And that's all well and good, but the most important thing I took from it was that it taught me very quickly which sectors I did not want to work in.
You often come out of high school with this idealized version of what it would be like to work in X field. To learn what that field is really like, and to learn if it's something you truly want to pursue, is a huge win in my mind for an undergraduate.
Another thing that could be helpful is not forcing kids to go to school when they're 18. They have no clue whatsoever what they want to do with their lives and by and large motivation to truly learn something is very much lacking. Or at least I lacked it. My MSc with honors is a feat of willpower more than anything else, I ended up using maybe 10% of the knowledge I acquired in those years. Now if my career started in some kind of an apprenticeship situation, you can bet I'd have plenty of motivation to master the field. That's more or less what happened after college, except it's completely backwards from what it should be, and it's extremely wasteful: I ended up learning (and then, of course, forgetting) a ton of not even remotely useful stuff in hopes that I'd need it when I actually have a proper job. Some might say this is well rounded education, but I'd rather do it by choice, and not arbitrarily. The meta point is, traditional education is really broken, and it has been for decades. It's good that someone has the guts to go against the flow and do even a modicum of rethinking. Academic community is extremely clique-y and conservative, so it takes non-trivial courage to pursue something like this.
At 18 most kids have extremely strong passion about what they want to do. I know I did. I was wrong (maths vs computer science). But persuading them to take a break from that is going to be hard.
In my experience, there are three groups of kids in high school, at least concerning future studies/employment.
One group maybe wants to do something because it pays well, with no motivation because they aren't passionate.
The next group is very passionate about one or two things, and have lots of motivation. However, they seem to view that as the only option, even though more likely than not it will change and shift.
The third group has motivation to do work that is interesting, but they have know idea what to specialize in and have a few things they don't want to do. They aren't necessarily good at it all, and it's overwhelming to think about plans for the future because of the open-ended nature of that question to them.
This is what I've observed. And of course, people change between these groups all the time.
The first group are mercenaries. They usually end up in finance, management, law, sales or some other (mostly) boring job, then politics.
The second group are crusaders. They begin a quest for fulfillment of their working potential, usually despite their parent's advice, in anything they deem challenging (even in the same management or law as the first group, but for different reasons).
The last group are peasants. These will either be stepping on their parent's footsteps (or following anything they are being sold by their entourage actually), or will feel themselves lost and helpless.
...and I noticed that people change between these groups too.
That's been my observation too. I don't remember one kid out of high school, or college who knew exactly what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives. (Actually one wanted to be a cop, and another wanted to be Maverick.)
As you age, you will find your interests, and passion will ebb, and flow. When I was in college, I was all about learning anything, and everything about medicine. Now, I don't even like disgusting lipid levels with family members.
In college I hated computing, and pretty much everything related to technology. I just didn't find much invented by man interesting. I felt like Programming was a waste of a life. I couldn't begin to comprehend how someone could stare into a screen for more than a few minutes. Now--I can't put this stuff down.
And to be completely honest, I still don't know how I want to spend my remaining days.
Not really. I would argue that today college is little more than a weeding out process that weeds out far too many. You sit in classes and solve bullshit problems with known answers that will have very little bearing on the realities of your professional life once you graduate. For the most part people go to college to have a piece of paper that says they went to college and had enough stamina to tolerate this bullshit and not drop out.
What we should be cultivating instead is the capacity for self-directed learning and deep motivation.
> You sit in classes and solve bullshit problems with known answers that will have very little bearing on the realities of your professional life once you graduate.
Gonna argue with this one from the standpoint of Electrical Engineering.
I would argue that almost everything up through junior year gets used every day. Basic circuits and basic digital never quits being relevant (I have pulled out a Karnaugh map every now and then to demonstrate to some programming folks that their conditionals were wrong). Basic electronics and op-amps similarly.
Once you hit junior year, the courses get specialized and don't get so much daily use--electromagnetics, digital signal processing, control systems theory, communications system theory.
The problem is that you don't know which one you like until after you take it. And before you take it, you're not useful to a company, either, so intern/apprenticeship doesn't help.
Karnaugh maps are taught to programmers (on college/university courses) too :) at least in my country, I'd be very surprised if they aren't in the U.S.
I only pull K maps out once or twice a year when some programmer absolutely insists that a conditional is correct when I can see that it isn't.
When I teach the class to programmers, state machines are the far more important concept I try to drive home. I use state machines all the time when programming.
...and state machines are hard to represent in most languages! That is a real pity. Its part of the one-dimensional nature of text-based programming. While state machines are two or three-dimensional ideas.
Stamina to tolerate bullshit and get things done despite thinking they're totally idiotic is valuable skill set in many industries. The piece of paper is also proof that you can follow directions well.
A failure of many youngsters is that they think everything annoying or boring is "bullshit".
For example, I have to practically threaten employees in their 20's to actually fscking pick up the phone and actually TALK to a customer rep. Yes, it can be annoying--they're going to try to sell you something as that's their job. But some of them also know what they're selling better than anybody on the planet. The only way you will figure that out is if you talk to them.
Don't threaten. Get them engaged, get them to set their own team goals (with your guidance) and get them to agree to the goals. Divide pleasant and unpleasant tasks visibly and fairly. Get rid of people with poisonous attitudes who sabotage this white glove treatment.
Threatening only works in the short term, right up until your best people pick up their shit and leave. In the long term it does not yield the kind of workforce you actually want to have.
> Get them engaged, get them to set their own team goals (with your guidance) and get them to agree to the goals.
And how many times am I supposed to let them order the wrong thing (at company expense) because they won't PICK UP THE DAMN PHONE AND CALL SOMEBODY? I've been mentoring interns and co-ops in engineering for almost 25 years and this set of 20-somethings is just like any other--except with respect to their absolute avoidance of using the bloody phone.
Making a genuine mistake is acceptable. Talk to the rep, order some stuff and see if it works. If it doesn't, no big deal. With the rep in the loop, it'll take one or two iterations, and you'll get what you need. After the third time I asked: "Did you call the rep?" "No." "Do it." After the fourth time: "Call the rep.". "Okay." "No, NOW. While I'm standing here. On conference." <rolls eyes> After 10 minutes of talking to the rep, he's got an order for the right stuff, the rep comped it, and sent it overnight.
The worst part--even after examples like this--THEY STILL WON'T PICK UP THE PHONE. It's absolutely infuriating. This isn't just one person getting old and complaining. It also isn't just my observation--I have heard the same complaint from different people from ages 35 to 55.
I've reached a point where I almost don't want to hire anybody in their 20's.
"Tolerating bullshit is absolutely not (valuable)."
I agree with this bottom line, but I sense a lot of politics in there around what is/isn't called bullshit. Getting opinions when you ask for them is valuable, having to fight your way against your employees (for them to do something you are paying them for) is absolutely not.
I've had a hand in hiring no less than three people from Northeastern University, and every single one of them has hit the ground running in their role. I can't speak highly enough of their program's co-op requirement. It's one of the smartest curriculum moves I can cite.
I think internships are extremely useful! I went through a lot in high school and college trying to figure out what exactly I wanted (or didn't want to do). Now, I have a number of interns and some of them have gone on to graduate school in physics. Others have decided that physics isn't for them and have decided to do computer science or math. I try to give them a chance to have a self contained meaningful project.
Do any of you have any suggestions for remote interns? I tried it once and though both the student and I were motivated, the time difference was a killer. Also, I rely a lot on random interactions with my interns. I think it would require a lot more structure to pull it off...
A YC apprenticeship program that combines internships with YC companies with trade classes from various resources including techshop, crucible, and others.
There are so many creative people in the world that simply need mentors and resources.
The Bay Area can really provide all of this!
There are likely tens of resources I am glossing over, but if the YCcommunity is to prove that we can solve this issue, we have everything we need to do so and just need a leadership umbrella; YC, to prove it and the gumption !!
Who's willing (other than me, and I will dog food this!!)
How do you gel the 'move fast and break things' ethos with an internship / mentorship role? The former requires existing domain knowledge to hit the ground running and achieve large things quickly, whereas the latter requires going more slowly, explaining the reasoning behind decisions, allowing mistakes as learning processes, etc.
edit: Unless you mean established former YC companies who are no longer in the startup mindset. I didn't consider that originally but then why limit yourself to YC companies if you can snag some sort of vetted supply to the Facebooks/Twitters/etc. of the world?
Agreed, and that's not even limited to tech. I'm in the commercial real estate world, which practically revolves around apprenticeships, and the system works amazingly well. It also rewards competence over credentials, commitment to improvement over connections.
Trying to make the world better (with initial guidance) and solving real life problems is the best teacher of all.
College training for me, or for all the apprentices I've had over the years, was of minimal importance beyond learning the discipline of a rigorous approach. I could have started after sophomore year, and arguably done better (without having to have spent 2 more years at school, and 2 more years at a tech startup as an employee, and with 1/2 the student debt and bad cafeteria food).
This would be similar to internships in research labs (for the academically inclined) or startups (for product inclined). This is not at all similar to an internship at a traditional company, where you're given some kind of a bullshit problem that no one else wants to touch. Doing research or building a product (or, preferably, a mix of both) should be central part of the curriculum, not an afterthought which you might or might not pursue.
Yes, part of it should be that the student gets academic credits that count towards graduation. Even establishing minimum and maximum quotas of which credits come from apprenticeships is healthy with moderation.
But a bigger part of it is that the University must provide for oversight so that the actual tasks assigned to the students is relevant to their academic goals, and that the complexity of the tasks increases progresively in order to present the students with renewed challenges according to their growing skillset.
Without this formal oversight, the whole thing could easily degenerate in a shady personal business where the school's officials "rent" their pupil's slave labor to the highest bidder.
I would argue even if they do rent "slave labor", if the tasks are appropriate to the chosen specialization, and the cost to the student is lower overall (ideally zero for tuition), it'd be an improvement over the status quo.
What I am hearing is that, as long as you do "something with computers" and it does not cost any extra money, you'd be happy to exchange 4 years of your time for a Bs in CS?
What about getting - gasps, the horror - and actual job as a data entry clerk? You know... something that pays you money instead of making the dean richer with your efforts?
Compared to what, though? To paying tens (up to over a hundred for top schools) of thousands of dollars for the same thing but without practical skills? Ideally, people would be leaving school with something to show for it: open source code, launched projects, co-authorship on research papers, stuff like that. Or better yet, leave as cohesive teams, ready to rip in the public sector. Or even better: leave as a part of a startup with their own product (accelerator model), while school would retain minority interest.
So, now you want to write open source code, launch projects, co-author papers,... not on my watch, kiddo.
Now go put your nose down on those damned spreadsheets. Copy from column A to column Q - no, no macros, thankyouverymuch - but convert everything to UPPERCASE, and fix typos please, unless that was not a typo, in which case don't.
And remember, the Dean already cashed the check I sent him, so you better hurry up. I want no less than 100 rows per hour. Otherwise you flunk the semester, and while you don't pay tution your parents are going to get tired of having to support your lame ass if you do not start to bring a wage home one of this years.
