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Google: Better To Be a 'B' CS Grad Than an 'A+' English Grad
theodp (442580) writes "In a NY Times interview on How to Get a Job at Google with Laszlo Bock, who is in charge of all hiring at Google, the subject of grit-based hiring came up. Bock explained: 'I was on campus speaking to a student who was a computer science and math double major, who was thinking of shifting to an economics major because the computer science courses were too difficult. I told that student they are much better off being a B student in computer science than an A+ student in English because it signals a rigor in your thinking and a more challenging course load. That student will be one of our interns this summer.' Bock also advised, 'You need to be very adaptable, so that you have a baseline skill set that allows you to be a call center operator today and tomorrow be able to interpret MRI scans.'"
Art and philosophy do actually require rigorous thinking, for much the same reason as engineering.
When designing, the engineer must consider all possible scenarios in which his design will be used. Some scenarios may be assumed from the start, and others may be accounted for in the design. Regardless of how careful the engineer is, there are always people who will use the design in an unintended manner, perhaps better or worse than the original goal.
An artist, when creating a work, must consider the environment the work will be viewed in. Some aspects may be controlled through framing or instructions to curators, but there will always be different interpretations for different people. Philosophers, too, must consider every implication of their theory, and must understand the universe of discourse in which their theory holds. Another person may interpret a particular situation differently, so a comprehensive philosophical theory must account for that.
Consider, for example, Michelangelo's statue of David. Michelangelo designed the work to be placed high on a cathedral, so the hands and head are enlarged so they'll be noticeable from the ground. A modern viewer ignorant of David's history would see the statue as grotesque, obscuring the quality of the work.
I took some art and philosophy courses as electives while getting my CS degree. The faculty did, indeed, try to explain the social and historical backgrounds in which the various works were conceived.
From a perspective of rigor, they were absolute hacks. Nothing was falsifiable. Maybe Prof. Smith would argue that David was carved the way to compensate for the viewers' perspective; Professor Jones would say that it was done that way to show off Michelangelo's detailed study of human anatomy. (I'm making that one up, but it doesn't matter. Hell, just doing that probably qualifies me for a PhD in art.) So long as it was plausible, it was all great. If you were and undergrad, all you had to do was parrot back Professor Smith's opinion on exams in her class, and Professor Jones' opinions in his class, and you'd be fine. Exact same deal in Philosophy; take the professor's pet theory as Gospel, rearrange and regurgitate, pass the course.
Fuck it up and substitute one learned academic's preferred paradigm with another's, and you'd get a B-, obviously you put some thought into it but didn't quite grasp the subtleties of the assignment, try again next time.
I'm sure it gets better at the higher levels of the discipline, but it's still just an exercise in group masturbation. I have an opinion, you have an opinion, we may disagree but neither of us is wrong.
Math, science, and engineering don't work that way. There are actual, verifiable answers, which absolutely must be correct, or the whole goddamn bridge collapses and people die.