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.'"

Comments

15" Golf Holes

[Tokolosh]

Google employment interview: "Do you think increasing the hole size is good for golf?"

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

  John F. Kennedy

Re:15" Golf Holes

[Anonymous Coward]

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

FYI, "the other things", and the cause of all of the cheering, was not from this awesome moon thing, but from the line just before... "Why does Rice play Texas?"

Re:15" Golf Holes

[loufoque]

I would share my google interview questions (some of them were pretty original and interesting), but unlike you I happen to remember they're confidential.

Re:15" Golf Holes

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That makes them very suitable for confiding them to us,doesn't it?

Re:15" Golf Holes

[Anonymous Coward]

but isn't it Google that thinks everything about everyone should be public?

it keeps everyone honest.

Re:15" Golf Holes

[plopez]

Larger hole sizes are handy in a number of places. But those web sites are NSFW.

Re:15" Golf Holes

[Anonymous Coward]

I would share my google interview questions (some of them were pretty original and interesting), but unlike you I happen to remember they're confidential.

I would tell you woosh!!, but I suspect the situation would become recursive.

Re:15" Golf Holes

[Z00L00K]

Who is Rice?

Re:15" Golf Holes

[CadentOrange]

Surely the size of a hole only matters up to a certain point? After that you're into negative returns territory.

Re:15" Golf Holes

[jedidiah]

You really don't want some random schmuck trying to interpret your MRI scan. The idea that you can be a help desk schlub one day and be responsible for the health of people's spine the next just smacks of utter cluelesssness and contempt for other technical specialities.

Everyone seems to think that what everyone else does is trivial.

No one respects anyone else's education, skill, or experience.

Re:15" Golf Holes

[nabsltd]

What are the chances of pulling four-of-a-kind from a deck of cards in five tries?

It depends on what you mean by "five tries".

Do I shuffle and pull four cards, check to see if they are all the same number, and if not, repeat up to 4 more times? Or, do you mean "what are the chances that you have four-of-a-kind when dealt 5 cards?"

Re:15" Golf Holes

[repetty]

Rice plays Texas because there's good money in it. That's how amateur sports work.

Re:15" Golf Holes

[rockout]

You're making a gross exaggeration. The focus of that part of the speech was about going to the moon. The line "Why does Rice play Texas" was just one example out of several offered up as "hard things":

But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

Re:15" Golf Holes

[rockout]

FYI, "the other things", and the cause of all of the cheering, was not from this awesome moon thing, but from the line just before... "Why does Rice play Texas?"

AC makes completely made-up claim, film at 11.

But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

The Rice-Texas throwaway line was merely one humorous insertion while Kennedy was making a larger point. The continuation of this urban legend about people cheering for the football team should annoy you.

Re:15" Golf Holes

[sfcat]

From...http://www.math.hawaii.edu/~ramsey/Probability/PokerHands.html

This hand has the pattern AAAAB where A and B are from distinct kinds. The number of such hands is (13-choose-1)(4-choose-4)(12-choose-1)(4-choose-1). The probability is 0.000240.

Re:15" Golf Holes

[LifesABeach]

Maybe this intern should consider Economics. One need only look around for those in their 20's, 30's, 40's and 50's; is there an even distribution? Look around at the H1B types, and make a comparison of work titles. Then this intern could the ask question, "Could I make a career working here?"

One can see the effect of a business on a community by applying John Nash's formula.

Re:15" Golf Holes

[davydagger]

no, its assholes who study English tend to think they can do everyone elses job, or that everyone is a fucking idiot.

Re:15" Golf Holes

[the phantom]

People who work hard to become expert in one field tend to believe that they are more qualified than others to speak to other fields, as well. There are numerous examples of physicians supporting creationism as science, engineers claiming expertise on mental illness, and (yes) English majors pontificating on mathematics. These people tend to speak up, despite their complete lack of relevant experience or knowledge, and over the objections and corrections of people who are actually experts in the relevant fields. In essence, as jedidiah said, "No one respects anyone else's education, skill, or experience." Thank you for so masterfully making the point by singling out a particular expertise that you dislike.

Re:15" Golf Holes

[swillden]

What are the chances of pulling four-of-a-kind from a deck of cards in five tries?

It depends on what you mean by "five tries".

Do I shuffle and pull four cards, check to see if they are all the same number, and if not, repeat up to 4 more times? Or, do you mean "what are the chances that you have four-of-a-kind when dealt 5 cards?"

That would be a perfect first response, BTW. Many good interview questions are intentionally vague, precisely to see if the candidate will recognize the ambiguity and ask appropriate questions to clarify it, because that's a critically important skill/habit for the real world.

(I am a Google interviewer.)

Re:15" Golf Holes

[nabsltd]

That would be a perfect first response, BTW. Many good interview questions are intentionally vague, precisely to see if the candidate will recognize the ambiguity and ask appropriate questions to clarify it, because that's a critically important skill/habit for the real world.

Getting a specification that you can work with is very often like pulling teeth. Likewise, when communicating back to non-technical types, I have often been called "long-winded", and that comes from making sure that they understand exactly what I am saying, and so won't make any assumptions that will come back to haunt me later.

Double A

[OffTheLip]

I earned mostly A-B grades in CS and English because I saw value in each. I may have worked harder in some of the liberal arts courses but, as a returning student with a lot to prove, I demanded excellence.

Re:Double A

[lbmouse]

Doesn't Google have on campus coffee shops? If so they need English majors to bolster their barista ranks.

Re:Double A

[Anonymous Coward]

I earned mostly A-B grades in CS and English because I saw value in each. I may have worked harder in some of the liberal arts courses but, as a returning student with a lot to prove, I demanded excellence.

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.'"

WTF? The personality types necessary to be successful as a call centre operator and an MRI image diagnostician are not even in the realm of cross-over aptitude.

Re:Double A

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Google have on campus coffee shops? If so they need English majors to bolster their barista ranks.

Sorry you need a Doctorate in Coffee (DCaf) pronounced "dee-calf" to work as a Coffee Barista on the campus of Google.

Re:Double A

[Lumpy]

They prefer Political Science Masters Degree holders for the Coffee Shop jobs.

Re:Double A

[DanielOom]

English is hard and constitutes a valuable skill.

Re:Double A

[Darinbob]

I agree, high grades in several subject far exceeds having good grades in just one subject. I'd be worried about someone with merely a B average, and extremely worried about someone with a B average from a school that had few breadth of education requirements. For a B average person, what were their minors in, was their writing as sucky as their knowledge of computing theory, do they understand physics or economics, can they do math or cryptography, or are they just another computer support grunt wondering why their one and only skill keeps getting outsourced?

*sigh*

[jythie]

Big surprise.. tech hirer not valuing fields they do not hire from.

Though given how laborious and difficult an actual english degree is and how high the failure rate is, saying that CS has more 'rigor in thinking' and 'challenging' is laughable. Those upper level english courses require a lot of rigors thinking and are quite challenging, even if they do not get the same respect as the more profitable CS degree.

And this is coming from someone with a Computer Engineering degree. However I wish there were more english majors in tech since they can bring some pretty useful skills and thought patterns to the table and can provide, esp if your department is aspie-culture heavy.

Re:*sigh*

[0xdeadbeef]

Those upper level english courses require a lot of rigors thinking

I'm sure they did.

Re:*sigh*

[ebno-10db]

I wish there were more english majors in tech since they can bring some pretty useful skills and thought patterns to the table

Which of those would be useful to Google or another company that writes a lot of software?

Re:*sigh*

[Nidi62]

Which of those would be useful to Google or another company that writes a lot of software?

A different point of view? If you have a company full of programers with CS degrees and someone shows up with a Lit degree but still knows how to code and program and meet the qualifications, why not hire them? They might look at a situation differently than everyone else due to a different education and might come up with a solution no one else would have thought of. It never hurts to hire people of different backgrounds as long as they are qualified for the job.

Re:*sigh*

[nitehawk214]

As someone that makes tech hiring decisions, I do value people with good English skills. (or is it well?...)

To be serious, though, while I value communication skills. I value engineering skills more. However, if someone failed English class, they probably lack the communication skills to get reach me in an interview.

Re:*sigh*

[evilviper]

given how laborious and difficult an actual english degree is and how high the failure rate is, saying that CS has more 'rigor in thinking' and 'challenging' is laughable.

Swinging a sledge hammer is laborious.

Community colleges have astronomically high failure rates. That doesn't mean their courses are harder than 4-year colleges.

Those upper level english courses require a lot of rigors thinking and are quite challenging,

Art and philosophy require lots of "thinking", too... just not the exacting, logical, process-oriented type needed for engineering.

Re:*sigh*

[sribe]

Though given how laborious and difficult an actual english degree is and how high the failure rate is, saying that CS has more 'rigor in thinking' and 'challenging' is laughable. Those upper level english courses require a lot of rigors thinking and are quite challenging, even if they do not get the same respect as the more profitable CS degree.

Oh, bullshit. Do not confuse laborious with learning to think rigorously. Do not confuse sophistry with rigor.

Re:*sigh*

[DoofusOfDeath]

Big surprise.. tech hirer not valuing fields they do not hire from.

Big surprise.. tech hirer not valuing fields from which they don't hire.

Stupid non-English majors...

Re:*sigh*

[Sarten-X]

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.

Re:*sigh*

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Given what I've seen of Engrish in help files- tech writing?

Re:*sigh*

[Jawnn]

Oh, bullshit. Do not confuse laborious with learning to think rigorously. Do not confuse sophistry with rigor.

I don't. Neither do you, apparently, but in a much different way.

Re:*sigh*

[sandytaru]

We're here. We're just invisible.

Re:*sigh*

[sandytaru]

There absolutely is. Otherwise software documentation would not be in such a sorry state at most organizations.

Re:*sigh*

[ebno-10db]

It was better back when such things were written by people who spoke English as their primary language. Some understanding of the subject matter you're writing about doesn't hurt either, but such people have been deemed too expensive.

Re:*sigh*

[oh_my_080980980]

I don't think saying "More people fail to get English degrees, so it takes more critical thinking skills to get one!" or some such, is valid. Although, most programmers and CS grads have no clue what they're doing, so it's not like I hold these people in high esteem.

However, that's what the Google guy was saying about an English degree.

Re:*sigh*

[oh_my_080980980]

Critical thinking skills. Analytical ability. Comparative analysis. Language skills....you know things that would be very helpful for a company that makes a search engine....

Re:*sigh*

[ebno-10db]

someone shows up with a Lit degree but still knows how to code and program

Now you're adding additional qualifications. I've known some excellent programmers who had degrees that weren't in CS or a related field. In that case though their degree is irrelevant. Why not hire people who have on HS diplomas? I've know some excellent people like that too.

Re:*sigh*

[oh_my_080980980]

Really? Because most people I know in the field did not come from a CS background. Swing and a miss.

Re:*sigh*

[CRCulver]

If Google wanted to hire non-CS-degree people that show critical thinking about language skills, they would more likely turn to people with a linguistics or maths degree who have at least some familiarity with computational linguistics. Indeed, as a Iinguist, though working in a different part of the field, I have a number of colleagues who swiftly found gainful employment at IT companies because they could demonstrate interest in the computational side of the field.

However, as much as I respect the scholarship involved in an English degree, and read quite a bit of literary criticism as a hobby, I don't think that that field really prepares students in a way that makes them desirable to specialist IT teams.

Re:*sigh*

[plopez]

The ability to communicate. The ability to review, parse, and deconstruct requirements documents. The ability to shift points of view from that of the developer to that of the customer. Those are three things developers get low marks for and which I can think of off the top of my head.

One thing they are not good at are solving happy little interview puzzles with no real world application.

Re:*sigh*

[plopez]

Yo dude. I'm down with helpin and stuff.

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not hire them?

Because you're Google, and nothing matters past being the institution that only hires based on degrees, blinders on everything else. By all rights, they'd never hire Bill Gates (I understand his coding skills are not particularly great today, but any sane company would hire him to handle money).

Re:*sigh*

[plopez]

"Community colleges have astronomically high failure rates. That doesn't mean their courses are harder than 4-year colleges."

1) What is the failure rate of Community Colleges (CCs). Or did you mean students at CCs.

2) If you meant the students, what are their rates of failure (ROF) compared to those of all 4 year universities, which is what I assume you meant?

3) What are the FORs of students at CCs vs universities controlled for socio-economic levels and high school performance?

4) What is the definition of "hard"?

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. You need to develop more rigorous thinking.

Re:*sigh*

[Megane]

I think there's a bit of a difference between having "good English skills" and spending four or more years of your life taking classes about it, instead of taking classes to learn an actual trade.

Re:*sigh*

[ebno-10db]

I was referring to Standard American English, or even the British variety if you must scrape the bottom of the barrel :)

Re:*sigh*

[ebno-10db]

computer programs. most are cut and paste, formulaic

Then why are some great, and others complete garbage?

Re:*sigh*

[ColdWetDog]

Totally untrue. Check out your local Starbucks.

Re:*sigh*

[ebno-10db]

Math is a branch of philosophy.

It was only considered such historically, largely because anything that didn't fit into some conveniently defined classical subject (e.g. rhetoric, law, medicine) was dumped into the philosophy category (e.g. science was called "natural philosophy"). Categorizations that were abandoned centuries ago are of little contemporary import.

Try writing a research paper in a Liberal Arts program without faultless logic and you won't do well.

How can you tell if the logic is "faultless" if you don't start with the sort of rigorous and objective definitions that you have in math? Treating math differently started with Euclid, and I think the guy was on to something.

Re:*sigh*

[doggo]

Yup. Many of the early Unix folks were liberal arts majors who fell into computer administration, then learned to code.

A well-rounded education leads to looking at problems from different perspectives. Who wants to be blinkered by specialization?

Those who choose specialization, typically, are in it for the money.

Re:*sigh*

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

It meant he could think, in the concrete and the abstract.

The degree itself doesn't guarantee anything about his level of intelligence.

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Critical thinking skills. Analytical ability. Comparative analysis. Language skills....you know things that would be very helpful for a company that makes a search engine....

It's amusing how frequently liberal arts types, including tenured professors who should know better, attempt to imply that STEM workers don't learn critical thinking skills.

To my mind, it's the surest proof that the liberal arts don't teach any critical thinking skills worth mentioning.

Re:*sigh*

[ottothecow]

His English comment doesn't even make sense. The kid wanted to switch to economics.

I know that there are some pretty lackluster econ programs out there (I have heard of some that will grant a degree in econ without requiring even single variable calculus), but I went to a school with a fairly rigorous econ program. I'm not going to say it was the most rigorous program in the school, but there were plenty of people who thought they would rather get better grades in an "easier" major than tough it out in econ once multivariable calculus and econometrics rolled around.

I'd still say that, in terms of general employability (without further education), a B econ grad is also better than an A english grad. Anyone looking to study english or history or similar, should honestly think about their choices. I don't think people shouldn't study them--but they need to seek some wisdom about their elective choices. Even if you are studying english, you should know some calculus, take some basic statistics, microeconomics and CS (intro-to-programming type stuff). You don't need an econ degree to go into the business world--and 95% of econ majors never use the upper-level coursework again--but having some evidence of qualitative skills on your resume is extremely important.

Re:*sigh*

[plopez]

You must be new to software development then. Over the years I have found that any gap or assumption can create huge problems at the last minute when the customer responds to a demo by saying, "Well why didn't you know it was supposed to do that? It's obvious!"

Re:*sigh*

[plopez]

No one speaks Standard American English without instruction. It is not native. In Britain it is referred to as "Received English" in that you receive instruction in it.

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. I work at a law school, and liberal arts graduates get skewered in 'Intro to Legal Writing' on a regular basis. The engineers, scientists, and math folks do uniformly better across the board, and then graduate to go on to become IP lawyers and make major bank, while the rest of the kids fight for the remaining scraps.

Re:*sigh*

[jader3rd]

they probably lack the communication skills to get reach me in an interview.

Doesn't everybody?

Re:*sigh*

[arfonrg]

"Big surprise.. tech hirer not valuing fields they do not hire from" - that would sound +1 Insightful if the title to the article wasn't "How to Get a Job at Google". Now you just sound angry.

Re:*sigh*

[schnell]

I think there's a bit of a difference between having "good English skills" and spending four or more years of your life taking classes about it

I think there is (unsurprisingly) a lot of misunderstanding among the CS crowd about what an English major actually studies. I was not one myself (journalism and Russian language double-major), but from what I understood from my English major friends in college, it's not poring over obscure grammar rules for four years. It's actually more of a degree in writing and communications, learning how to structure and present information in essay form. It's also studying the various kinds of writing out there for different purposes - ranging from artistic to practical - and learning about how other writers have communicated in the past (literature) and what can be learned from them and applied to written communications today.

You can find an example of typical English 300-level courses here or 400-level courses here. English gets a bad name because there are many unfocused students who pick it as a major because they can't think of anything else to do, but for someone who's serious about it, it can be very intellectually engaging and useful.

Re:*sigh*

[buddyglass]

I personally didn't find college English classes that challenging, as a CS person, but then I'm somewhat of an outlier among CS people. I know plenty of folks who did decently well in their CS classes would would have had trouble performing in an upper-division English class. And I'm not even talking about the ones for whom English was a second language.

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:*sigh*

[HornWumpus]

Try writing a research paper in a Liberal Arts program without faultless logic and you won't do well.

Bullshit. One name: Alan Sokal.

Write a research paper in a liberal arts program with faultless logic and you will be run out of the program while being told that logic is socially constructed.

Re:*sigh*

[mantm]

... if your department is aspie-culture heavy
Wow, that's mean! I had to look up "aspie". When did it go from a disability to a culture? Only when you didn't feel like you fit in?

Re:*sigh*

[awrc]

Like tech hirers really value the fields they hire from that much. They may consider a 'B' in CS better than an 'A+' in English, but maybe the 'A+' in English will be more useful when they declare you obsolete after two or three years because it's cheaper to get a fresh college grad who they can pay less and who was taught the latest and greatest software development fad at college, than to continue to pay you.

Yeah, file me under bitter. I'm good at what I do, but at 47 I'm over 20 years past my sell-by date as far as most tech companies are concerned. OK, so it doesn't help that I live in a town where unless you want to be a Java code monkey or a Microsoft sysadmin, you're screwed. Even if there were jobs around, I've been backstabbed and screwed around by almost every employer I've ever had, and frankly don't trust *anyone* now. In fact, after the last experience I had, I don't even trust friends who recommend me for jobs. That was the one that made me completely give up. I'm now resigned to being out of work basically for the rest of my life (while hoping a terminal disease comes along to shorten it). Next step is to sell the computer.

I could have taken either path after high school - had no trouble getting on a good CS degree course, and came out with a 2.1 (OK, so I'm not an A+ in CS, maybe an A- or a B+) but would just as easily have done an English degree and gotten that A+. I suspect the English degree would have been better in the long run. I steer people away from CS-oriented stuff as a career when I can unless they're considering something that'll give them dual-purpose skills they can apply in other fields, or they can specialize in fields that seem to be more secure in the long-term. For example, a degree in CS with a strong focus on databases - the theory, the implementation, administration - seems like a very safe option even now, and if they offered degrees in systems administration, I suspect those'd be very safe too. Both do require a CS core, but throwing out a lot of stuff that's of little use in practice in favor of more relevant stuff aimed at the specialization would be very useful.

I used to think that the degree course I did, which was broad and deep (British university system - bugger all about being "well-rounded", it's CS all the way through) but while I still think it's better than the US approach. It didn't do a damn bit of good in the end, because so many places couldn't care less about any of it (didn't even know what half of it was, and when they did it was sometimes worse (*)), they just want somebody who can do what they're using this week and doesn't mind a career path that places "lay him off and hire somebody cheap straight out of college" ahead of career advancement.

(*) "How do you know functional programming, that's after your time? So you can code in *F?" "No, you stupid bastard, I learned ML before you were born, on a course taught by a very nice man called Robin Milner. You probably haven't heard of him because he wasn't a Silicon Valley billionaire".

Re:*sigh*

[lgw]

What does tech writing have to do with deconstructing the racism and sexism and transphobia inherent in any given literary classic? You don't imagine and English degree is about writing well, do you?

Re:*sigh*

[ebno-10db]

No one speaks Standard American English without instruction. It is not native.

That shouldn't be a problem. Here in the US we teach it from a young age. I presume most other countries do likewise. There is also instruction available for people learning English as a second language.

In Britain it is referred to as "Received English" in that you receive instruction in it.

No, it's called United Kingdom Standard English. You're confusing it with Received Pronunciation.

Re:*sigh*

[narcc]

In that case though their degree is irrelevant. Why not hire people who have on HS diplomas?

Because they want educated people?

Re:*sigh*

[Darinbob]

The problem that leads to stereotyping the art history or English major comes about because often students pick those majors in order to avoid the math or because it seems like an easy degree to get. However there are very very smart people in those fields as well. The same thing is true for engineering as well, there are people who choose computer science as the "easy" degree that doesn't require hard stuff like writing term papers or advanced mathematics (if the school allows skipping such basic graduation requirements). Lots of dumb people with CS degrees too.

Re:*sigh*

[Darinbob]

And so a lot of engineering is cut and paste and formulaic.

Computer Science if you will remember, is more than merely programming, and engineering is very much a part of CS (such as the design of a computer or chip).

Re:*sigh*

[Sarten-X]

For historical art, yes. You'd need to approach that from an historic perspective, providing primary and secondary sources for your conclusions. Fail to do that, and you're just regurgitating the professor's work: B-grade (or worse) work in any class.

As a modern artist, you are free to express whatever you like, however you like... but you need to be aware of the existing theories to understand how your expression will likely be interpreted. If you make a sculpture today with enlarged hands, what does it mean? Are you indulging a head-and-hand fetish? If so, why even bother with the rest of the sculpture? Are you demonstrating a mastery of anatomy? If that's the case, then why did you not also master proportion?

As others have noted, that's the role of documentation. A modern artist has the ability to write about what a particular work is intended to mean. Much of what we know (and can verify) about older works comes from contemporary correspondence and explanations from the artists themselves.

Re:*sigh*

[siriuskase]

There was a time when IBM preferred to hire Liberal Arts majors and teach them to code than to hire CS majors. Not sure how IBM hires now, but coding doesn't require a CS degree. All it needs is someone who doesn't mind spending lots of time writing detailed instructions and can tease unambiguous specifications out of the managers. If anything, it should be easier for someone without a CS degree to code now that the languages are becoming more idiot proof. Not that Liberal Arts people are idiots. But, hiring managers are if all they know how to do is hire CS majors for every job that involves using a computer.

Re:*sigh*

[nitehawk214]

they probably lack the communication skills to get reach me in an interview.

Doesn't everybody?

Typical... Anyhow, I think I would probably reject myself if I had to interview myself. Either way I would want to have someone film it since we would probably get into a fight or something.

Re:*sigh*

[reiserifick]

Not only are you a pedant, but you are also wrong. The rule against ending a sentence with a preposition in english is bullshit. It's a "rule" invented by Latinists who wanted to impose latin rules on english. Unsurprisingly, since english is a germanic language, this "romanticizing" didn't stick.

From the Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition): “The ‘rule’ prohibiting terminal prepositions was an ill-founded superstition. Today many grammarians use the dismissive term pied-piping for this phenomenon.” (Page 249.)

Re:*sigh*

[DoofusOfDeath]

Your understanding of the evolution of American English grammar is impressive.

Your capacity for recognizing a pithy jab is lacking :)

Re:*sigh*

[luis_a_espinal]

His English comment doesn't even make sense. The kid wanted to switch to economics.

Maybe he sucks at English comprehension (and the whole comment was some type of projection)?

Re:*sigh*

[khellendros1984]

"Received" is used in one of the older senses of the word, roughly synonymous with "accepted" or "approved".

Re:*sigh*

[sillybilly]

English is like a pre-med for law, as that's all lawyers do, set up wrestling matches in language, and invent their own jargon that's intentionally confusing - as in "these presents", meaning "these documents", not "these gifts", as usually contracts are about exchange of consideration, of equity, and not gift giving. When I first saw that term I was like wow, hold on a minute, we're not talking about gift giving here, I'm expecting something in return for my money. They are guilty of intentionally obfuscating legal terminology to mean very different things from plain English, and somebody, like the FBI, should police them and ban certain phrases and practices. But are you saying that this kind of English is sophistry not rigor? Ideally legalese should be rigorous, and unambiguous, but the wrestling matches and hours clocked in court are due to being bogged down discussing the ambiguities in terminology, ambiguity is job security. Just because they don't speak and write rigorously does not mean they can't think that way, to the contrary, they know exactly what rigor is, and how to avoid it with laborious sophistry. Laborious sophistry is how they put the daily bread on the table, people come for legal help simply because they are not skilled in English, at least not in the legal mumbo jumbo jargon.

Re:*sigh*

[michaelggreer]

I completely agree. So much of engineering is actually about understanding the problem, so adding more people from the same background will not improve this. I always hire a diverse set of people, and help them work together as a team. While it is crucial to have some solid CS people there, having humanities (especially Library Science, my favorite degree to hire from) helps cut through the groupthink and improves the solution pool, same as hiring both young and old programmers etc. Also, its more fun.

Re:*sigh*

[rk]

I'm good at what I do, but at 47 I'm over 20 years past my sell-by date as far as most tech companies are concerned.

I turn 47 this year, and I am conditionally calling bullshit, with the caveat on location. Yeah, there are the hipster post-social media tech startup places that might not be interested in you, but if you look behind the covers, you find they're not doing anything that interesting to someone with your seniority anyway. You mention your area, and yeah, if it's all Java monkeys and Windows admins, you might be right. The really cool tech jobs are out there, and they're not found in the same channels you found them in when we were in our 20s or even in our 30s. What technologies do you know? What technologies are you interested in? Find a meetup group or look for the user groups in your area for those technologies. Learn and network. These groups are where the cool jobs are found now. If they're not out there, start some, and if they don't take off, then consider relocating. It sucks, I know. I'm in love with where I live, and I'd hate to leave it. But it's not being 47 holding you back, unless you're going to argue that there's a big difference between being 46 and 47. :-)

Re:*sigh*

[Mr. Slippery]

Which of those would be useful to Google or another company that writes a lot of software?

If you're writing software, you ought to be writing technical documentation. I think English majors would have some useful skills there. I greatly appreciated having tech writers around to clean up my muddied prose (and also to worry about what should be boldface, what should be italic, and the like.)

Re:*sigh*

[swillden]

someone shows up with a Lit degree but still knows how to code and program

Now you're adding additional qualifications. I've known some excellent programmers who had degrees that weren't in CS or a related field. In that case though their degree is irrelevant. Why not hire people who have on HS diplomas? I've know some excellent people like that too.

I know a couple of Google employees without bachelor's degrees. One has an associate's degree and the other didn't even complete high school. Both are brilliant people and outstanding engineers. Google doesn't really pay attention to credentials in the interview and hiring process. Bock's point wasn't that the CS graduate was more likely to get hired because of what would be written on the diploma, but because the more challenging coursework would be a better preparation.

This presumes, of course, that the CS degree program really is more challenging and requires more critical thinking ability than the English program. I'd generally expect that to be true, but there are counterexamples. My university, for example, had such a weak CS program that the English degree probably was harder.

I should point out, though, that most Google engineers do have BS or MS degrees, along with a substantial leavening of PhDs, and most of them are in CS, math or other engineering fields, but far from all.

Re:*sigh*

[Mr. Slippery]

A modern artist has the ability to write about what a particular work is intended to mean.

If you can write what a work of art is intended to mean, then you don't need art to say it, you can use ordinary prose. (Taking poetry and literary writing to be art rather than ordinary prose.)

Re:*sigh*

[Mr. Slippery]

How can you tell if the logic is "faultless" if you don't start with the sort of rigorous and objective definitions that you have in math?

There is nothing objective about mathematics. Trace a mathematical proposition down, and it rest on axioms and definitions -- social and linguistic conventions. Those conventions have historically proven to have pragmatic value, but the question of what's pragmatically valuable is a subjective one; you cannot objectively demonstrate the value of going to the moon, or building a bridge, or even developing a new life-saving medical treatment.

The idea that math is some pure realm of eternal verities is Platonic bullshit.

Re:*sigh*

[Pseudonym Authority]

I've seen documentation that could have passed for postmodern Marxist criticism before.

Re:*sigh*

[reiserifick]

Ah, my apologies, good sire. Sarcasm travels well over text!

Re:*sigh*

[StingRay02]

I think there is (unsurprisingly) a lot of misunderstanding among the CS crowd about what an English major actually studies. I was not one myself (journalism and Russian language double-major), but from what I understood from my English major friends in college, it's not poring over obscure grammar rules for four years. It's actually more of a degree in writing and communications, learning how to structure and present information in essay form. It's also studying the various kinds of writing out there for different purposes - ranging from artistic to practical - and learning about how other writers have communicated in the past (literature) and what can be learned from them and applied to written communications today.

I graduated as a double major: English with a writing concentration, and Philosophy with a religious concentration. I know, the McDonalds track, right?

It's not that hard to understand how someone can look at an MFA student writing poetry for their degree and scoff. However, "English" covers a ridiculously broad spectrum, especially as the definition of a "text" has been broadened to include any context where meaning is being communicated. Ethnographies focus on culture and the spoken and unspoken messages inherent in both our interactions and our environments. The fundamentals of literary criticism can be used to deconstruct and examine everything from works of art to advertising campaigns.

I picked up Philosophy as a second major because I needed a better grounding in where English-as-a-degree is currently grounded. I learned more grammar from my Philosophy classes, because in the upper-level English classes it's just assumed you know how to write. If you don't, how'd you make it that far?

No, an English major is not immediately useful for developing a piece of software, but an English major is useful if you're having a hard time understanding why releasing a decapitated and bloody bikinied torso might offend a significant segment of humanity. Recognizing that connotations are as important as denotations might help bridge certain contentious issues of race and gender that are making more and more frequent headlines. Skill at reading environmental and interpersonal dynamics can lead to subtle changes with dramatic improvements for development teams.

English majors aren't flashy. Chances are slim we'll create for you the next billion-dollar software idea. We're a long-haul sort of investment, which I can understand is distressing for fast-paced companies like Google. We can make what you do and how you do it better, but not always in easily quantifiable ways. Worse, when those ways are quantifiable, they tend to seem blindingly obvious, never mind that you couldn't see the forest for the trees before we came along.

I don't begrudge anyone dissing on English majors. I do it myself because I think it's fun. But I pursued the degree I loved, knowing full well that it wasn't going to earn me six figures anytime soon, or maybe even at all. I'm still happy where I am and with the education I have. Moreover, someone like Bock who dismisses the skills of an English degree gives me a good idea of where their head's at and what's really important to them. Namely, not aligned with what's important to me, so it's not really an opportunity lost.

Re:*sigh*

[Sarten-X]

If you can look at a picture taken from a mountain's summit, then you don't need to climb it.

I wrote this comment to illustrate how shortsighted my contemporary's statement was. The opening sentence is a clear reworking of his own first sentence, highlighting the similarities between the underlying rationales. However, my choice of subjects is culturally identified as a personal triumph, where one's effort in the undertaking is valued more than the conclusion. With that brief and sarcastic introduction, I intend that the reader will experience a moment of mild awe at its wit, which is quickly lost in the following paragraph dissecting and deconstructing the comment in self-referential verbosity. There is a reference to explaining one's joke ruining the punchline. By the conclusion, the reader will hopefully understand that the sentiment of the entire comment was contained in that opening sentence, but the potential intensity was diluted by the explanation.

Re:*sigh*

[dcw3]

So, you're arguing for diversity, and I'm not talking about how the word is flung around these days (meaning racial diversity), but about a diversity of ideas. And, while I'm in favor of some of that, there's a time and place to brainstorm, and then there's often much more time when you go about the business of doing what your work using "best practices". I'd argue that the time for diversity is a relatively small portion of that time, and that you also wouldn't hire equal numbers of CS grads and others to get a mix. You'd more likely look for some out-of-the-box thinker, and then as time went on, look to see what kind of ROI you got on that investment.

Re:*sigh*

[dcw3]

Yup, and why was that? The company I work for even hired housewives as part time coders back in the 70s-80s. One went on the be an engineering director. Was that the ideal path? No. And if there had been enough CS majors around back then, she probably would never have had the opportunity. I'm all for a well rounded education (as in, everyone should get one), but there's precious little that's going to be directly applicable to the job you do later.

Re:*sigh*

[dcw3]

So, I've also read more resumes, and interviewed more people than I can count. When you see a poorly written resume, but it contains all of the qualifications you require, what do you do? In our case, it depends on what we're looking for. If it's heavy design work, we'll want someone who's a good communicator, and I might not give the resume a second look. But, we do have a place for the occasional geeky savant, who doesn't play well with others. As long as they can meet the milestones they're given, without annoying anyone else, I'm for giving them a place too.

Re:*sigh*

[nitehawk214]

Well I was mostly talking about actual conversation with a person. Most of the resumes I see are butchered beyond belief by the headhunters that are sending them in. And at any rate, the decision to put an interviewee to a level 2 or 3 person like me is already made before I even see the resume, so I have no control over it.

That being said, if I did have a choice, I guess it would depend on how badly it was written. As far as the "geek savant", I would currently have to reject that one outright. I work at a very small company, and the ability to work and communicate with others is far more important than at a big company where you can give a person a desk in the corner and a pile of work without interacting with others.

Re:*sigh*

[ananthap]

I've known some excellent programmers ..
Do you CS=programming?

Re:*sigh*

[Guppy06]

His English comment doesn't even make sense. The kid wanted to switch to economics.

I suspect it's a deliberate misdirection. Google wants to keep people in CS degrees to keep wages down, rather than lose them to degree programs with higher earning potential. Arguing against an economics degree was too inconvenient so he made it about English instead.

Riiiiight

[GrumpySteen]

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.'

So, basically, you should be ridiculously highly skilled in multiple specialized fields so that we can hire you and make you take on the work of three to five people for the pay of a single position (or maybe just for the glory of being an intern so that we can pay you even less!).

Re:Riiiiight

[daremonai]

True. It's just that, judging by the average presentation I've seen / paper I've read, you're probably doing those jobs poorly.

Re:Riiiiight

[AmiMoJo]

Exactly. If you want skills party for them, don't offer shitty internships.

Re:Riiiiight

[Opportunist]

Erh... yes? Of course?

How long have you been on this planet that you come to the realization just now?

Re:Riiiiight

[K. S. Kyosuke]

How is that example even relevant? Were those people hired for a full-time book unpacker position? Obviously many people do the occasional odd job in at their workplace but how is that supposed to be comparable to the issue at hand eludes me.

Re:Riiiiight

[Opportunist]

Yes, but you also get the necessary tool to do it yourself. More and more sophisticated tools make it possible to us now to do things that required lots of training before. I can make phone calls, a century ago that needed an operator who had to be trained to know where to plug what cable to get me connected. I can navigate while driving because my navigation tool and GPS not only tell me where I am but also how I get where I want to go without having someone next to me reading maps.

What we don't get, though, is more time. When you eliminate that secretary position and I have to write my own letters, of course i can do it and format them sensibly, even do serial letters without needing dozens of typists, but I have to do it on my own time instead of handing it over and being done with it.

So yes, we don't need professional skills anymore because we have tools taking over the skill requirements. What that means, though, is that we still need to take the time to do it, and that time comes out of my "time pocket" now, so to speak.

Re:Riiiiight

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a radiologist. I interpret MRI scans. Doing so requires 4 year undergraduate training, followed by 4 years of medical school, an internship year, and 4 years of residency training. I've had to pass numerous national boards exams to get where I am today. What training does it require to staff a call center?

The analogy is preposterous. There is an absolutely enormous amount of anatomy and pathology required to properly interpret MRI scans. One cannot go from being a call center operator to a radiologist overnight.

Re:Riiiiight

[Sarten-X]

we can hire you and make you take on the work of three to five people for the pay of a single position

Do you mean to say the work, or the roles?

If you're actually being as productive as several people, as though they had been working productively 100% of the time, then you should be paid more.

On the other hand, if you're just doing the same amount of productive work, but able to help with other tasks outside your primary discipline when you otherwise would be waiting on something, then you're doing exactly the work you're being paid for.

Re:Riiiiight

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a systems administrator who works for a radiology department. First, I would like to say that I wouldn't want a call center tech reading my MRI no matter how adaptable he or she is.

It is a poor analogy, but I think I understand what the recruiter was trying to explain. Working with computers, you may need to understand how to capture counts and calculate glucose metabolism from a PET study, then how to write customized drivers for a robotic platform, then how to set up a network of unix and Windows PCs using a shared authentication mechanism. It can be frustrating to see so many recruiters that fail to recognize the value of someone who has a proven ability to adapt and learn as required for the task at hand. All job postings seem to be trying to hire the guy who just left. It's nice to see that this guy seems to get that even if his analogy took the concept to a ridiculous extreme.

Of course, I also wouldn't want someone who was reading MRI's one day to be staffing a call center the next.

Re:Riiiiight

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a temp who worked as a call center tech for a day. First, I would like to say that I wouldn't want a systems admin making my calls (largely because the systems administrator where I'm currently working tried that one day, and their horrible screeching voice penetrated right through my headphones) no matter how adaptable they are.

It takes thousands of hours of training to be able to pretend to work while actually doing very little to earn the $10 an hour I make. My generic warrior just hit level 9999 in the PS Vita version of Disgaea 3 I play under my desk. Could you honestly say you have the unbridled OCD and/or boredom to make it past five minutes of a badly-written JRPG with shallow characters that even bills itself as one of the worst games ever made? I think not.

By the way, I read your MRI. Your spleen appears to be migrating into your shoulder, and we'll need to operate immediately. Or maybe I was holding it upside-down. Either way, we'll need to operate.

Re:Riiiiight

[Krishnoid]

What training does it require to staff a call center?

Well, it requires a strong command of the English lan-- uh, never mind.

Re:Riiiiight

[jedidiah]

Not really. He clearly doesn't value his time very much. He's content to do relatively low value work instead whatever work he's actually supposed to be doing.

Re:Riiiiight

[luis_a_espinal]

I am a systems administrator who works for a radiology department. First, I would like to say that I wouldn't want a call center tech reading my MRI no matter how adaptable he or she is.

It is a poor analogy, but I think I understand what the recruiter was trying to explain

And maybe he needs the help of a A+ English major so that he knows how to explain himself better </rimshot>

Re:Riiiiight

[AmiMoJo]

You have to understand the mind of the HR recruiter. Skills like "Microsoft Windows XP" and "good communicator" are useful for interpreting MRI scans and working in a call centre, so they are basically the same job.

Re:Riiiiight

[jrumney]

I'm a radiologist. I interpret MRI scans.

Show us your 'B' CS degree and call center employment history to prove it.

Re:Riiiiight

[Opportunist]

I sometimes wonder whether some people actively try to nitpick about details that don't matter at all...

Well .... duh.

[Mr_Silver]

In other news, industries where command and use of the English language is the priority will state that it's better to be a 'B' English Grad than an 'A+' CS Grad.

Google's comments don't prove anything new about the value of the degrees of either course - short of the fact that it's generally better to have a degree in the industry you intend on working in.

Re:Well .... duh.

[houghi]

What? Now you tell me? I have an arts major. Hey, perhaps I can make images in milk foam or something like that.

Re:Well .... duh.

[david_thornley]

I have a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in math. Perhaps I can mediate here.

Yes, study CS to be a call center operator

[Anonymous Coward]

Was that supposed to be a pitch for or against CS?

Re:Yes, study CS to be a call center operator

[jrumney]

It is what Google thinks of 'B' CS degrees. They also seem to undervalue the skill involved in reading MRI scans by rating it as a similar job that 'B' CS grads should be capable of. Basically Google's hiring department is completely out of touch with reality.

Or win the lottery

[Rob the Bold]

'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.'

Sure, that's a good idea. If you were able to do every job, then there would always be something useful to do if your job or industry disappeared. But since we're talking magic here, why not win the lottery of inherit a fortune instead? Provided you've got a good finance guy, that's an even better plan for long-term economic stability in your household.

It's still about $

[Anonymous Coward]

Graduated CS program with a 2.089 GPA, makes six figure salary in small-mid size city.

Re:It's still about $

[Anonymous Coward]

Right there with ya. Took me 9 years to get my CS degree, and it was worth every penny. 2.1 gpa, 6 figure salary.

Re:It's still about $

[Sanhedran]

How in the world do you have three CS degrees?

Re:It's still about $

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I agree with you, $000,075 a year isn't something to be proud of.

Re:It's still about $

[drainbramage]

Maybe you should change your name?

Re:It's still about $

[jedidiah]

What? Conflating the vernacular with something that isn't even proper jargon but just kind of sounds like the jargon of some other tech specialty but not really?

You offend my OCD.

Re:It's still about $

[lgw]

Coward is a bit off-putting.

Re:It's still about $

[Darinbob]

I have two sort of. One is a BS in Computer Engineering and the other an BS in Computer Science (and I'm a college dropout for the third CS degree).

Actually the first one really is CS except that the university at the time called it Computer Science for BA degrees and Computer Engineering for BS degrees.

Re:It's still about $

[unixisc]

2 & 3 sound more like EE or ECE, rather than CS degrees. Or have colleges merged the 2 nowadays?

Re:It's still about $

[unixisc]

Like Noel Coward?

Re:It's still about $

[khellendros1984]

Are they non-standard degree names, or something like Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering? Did you get any job experience, or just plow through a bunch of degrees? Are you looking for jobs in an area with a high demand for your specialties? Experience in academic programming is worlds apart from experience in corporate software engineering. Beyond 4 years of school, if you don't have any work experience, your CV makes you look like an academic (or worse yet, a "professional student").

Re:It's still about $

[Citizen of Earth]

I have three of them: B.Sc.(CS), M.Sc.(CS), Ph.D.

Context

[nine-times]

Note the context:

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.

I think it's important not to drop out the first part of that sentence. The message here is not really about the superiority of CS over English (at least I hope it wasn't), but the idea that "If you're worried about your post-graduate future, worry less about grades and more about what you're studying." There may be very rigorous, interesting, challenging English programs out there. From my experience talking to some CS majors, it seems that not all CS programs are very good. Making a strict comparison between different subjects isn't easy.

Re:Context

[petes_PoV]

It seems to me that the Google guy either wasn't listening or doesn't know the difference between English as a subject and economics.

As it is, in other parts of the world, the quality of degree is more of a door-opener than the subject - or the university. So you're sometimes better off getting a 2-one from a less rigourous college than a 2-two from a more prestigious establishment. As so many places only ask for an upper second or better and care little about the subject or where you studied.

Re:Context

[Algae_94]

Yeah, totally awesome of that guy to dissuade the student from switching to an Economics degree because getting an English degree is problematic!? Sounds to me like the guy doesn't know anything except he wants CS degrees. Nothing wrong with getting an Econ degree. There're certainly plenty of good paying jobs for them.

Re:Context

[nine-times]

Yeah, I *hope* my interpretation is correct and he's saying, "If you're into CS, then don't change to another major because you think it'll be easier and you think getting good grades will set you up better for the future. A more challenging course load with mediocre grades is more impressive in the real world than getting great grades while studying something you're less interested in, but that you think is easier." I would certainly agree with that advice. Your grades might possibly come up on your first interviews fresh out of college, but they very well might not. Over the span of your career, your college transcripts quickly become irrelevant.

If you're a CS major taking "Advanced Basket Weaving" in college because you're interested in that and you like that kind of thing, then good for you. Go do that. It may even be interesting and difficult, and someone might be impressed that you have diverse skills and interests. If you're taking it for an easy A+, then you're probably making a bad decision, because nobody will be impressed that you did well while taking the easy road.

Re:What passes for rigorous thinking apparently

[daremonai]

C'mon. English and economics both start with the letter 'e' so they're pretty much the same thing.

Re:Vocational school

[ebno-10db]

well educated, successful business person who thinks for themselves and has a well rounded education?

1. What sort of university education do you think is important to be a successful business person?

2. Does it depend on what type of business you're in, or is there just some sort of generic education that's equally useful in all businesses?

3. w/r/t the above, please distinguish between education that's genuinely useful, and that which is merely ticket punching (i.e. a bachelor's is the new HS diploma).

GPA does not show much. also grade inflation mixes

[Joe_Dragon]

GPA does not show much. also grade inflation mixes stuff up.

grade inflation also can very school to school so a B at one can be just as good as A at an other one.

there should be a split GPA or some classes that are just pass / fail.

Like have an GPA for core classes one for general education classes and one for the filler / fluff classes.

MRI ?????

[Anonymous Coward]

This Bock dude is full of it.

Quote:" 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"

I've been looking at MRI's for over 15 years professionally, as a medical specialist, though i'm not a radiologist. I still don't think that i can " interpret an MRI". Sure i see a lot. Sure i know what to look for in my field. But i will never be able to " interpret an MRI"

He/she doesn't know what he/she is talking about.

Re:MRI ?????

[ebno-10db]

I still don't think that i can " interpret an MRI"

You're playing word games unless you define what you mean by "interpreting an MRI".

BTW, who can do it?

Re:MRI ?????

[ebno-10db]

That still doesn't define what "interpreting an MRI" means.

Re:Open contempt for the humanities

[Anonymous Coward]

An A in English can be just as difficult to receive as an A in Computer Science.

And an A in English can be just as valuable to employers as the ability to lift 20 pounds. i.e. it's nice to have, but won't guarantee you a job anywhere.

Re:Open contempt for the humanities

[0xdeadbeef]

The difference being, the A in CS will usually be an objective measurement, whereas the A in English will be dependent on adopting the grader's ideological hobbyhorse and imitating the style of whatever postmodernist gobbledygook is currently popular.

Google wants good tools, not tools with good taste

[Anonymous Coward]

Google wants to use you during your productive years and then
discard you.

You've been warned.

                                                                          - Former Google Employee who left for greener pastures

Incorrect reasoning.

[EmagGeek]

It is also better to be a "B" economics major than an "A+" English major.

Laszlo Bock needs to take a course in paying attention to what is said.

Re:No Shit

[rossdee]

"A english major has very limited problem solving training and have little use in a environment such as Google."

Even someone who has passed High School level English knows it should be An English major.

Surpise: To work at Google, major in CS

[sirwired]

You cannot predict how "fluffy" a major is simply by looking at the name. There are killer CS programs out there, and killer English or Economics programs. And I am sure there are schools where one or more of those programs are "fluff" instead.

Your best bet in picking a major is to, obviously, pick one related to the field you'd like to go in. That doesn't mean that an English major can't be a successful developer, or that a CS major cannot write literature. But if you have to pick something to major in, why would you pick something completely unrelated?

(And as a side-note Google: In the US anyway, you better not be taking on a career in reading MRI's unless you have a medical degree, unless you want to get thrown in prison for practicing medicine without a license.)

Self selection

[Primate Pete]

"I told that student they are much better off being a B student in computer science than an A+ student in English

-might be re-phrased-

"I hire people that I think are like me."

I'll grant that there are a lot of unskilled liberal arts majors out there, but I've also interviewed hundreds of people with technical degrees and no skills, sense, or insight. Degree is just not an accurate enough heuristic to use as a filter. Unfortunately, there's not degree available in Generalized Problem Solving.

So sick of Google This Google That

[mlwmohawk]

In 1999 Fast Search and Transfer was neck and neck with google for speed, volume, and accuracy. The board at FAST were idiots and said there was no money in search and basically stopped trying and let google win.

What I learned in this time is that Google was no better than FAST, and is no better than any other company. They won because viable competition walked away. Google's only real innovation was thier revenue model. Right now, Google has BILLIONS to toss at projects. We hear about a LOT of successful or nearly successful projects, but how many failures are there that we never hear about? Its easy to be innovative when you are grossly profitable.

For any "hiring practice" to be better than any other, you need to *prove* that the cost of labor compared to productivity (innovation, etc.) that is directly related to revenue has a better ratio than that in other companies. Frankly, I don't see it. Google sells ads, nothing else even comes close on their books.

Google is just the Microsoft of the late '80 and early '90s. A pundit's darling, a fictional yardstick by which the ignorant measure what they don't understand.

Re:So sick of Google This Google That

[DerekLyons]

In 1999 Fast Search and Transfer was neck and neck with google for speed, volume, and accuracy. The board at FAST were idiots and said there was no money in search and basically stopped trying and let google win.

From the fate of other 'search' companies (some of which were very good), I'd say the board at FAST were correct - and that you're the idiot.

Google isn't a multi-billion dollar company because they're exceedingly good at search - they're a multi-billion dollar company that's exceedingly good at delivering advertisements (only a fraction of which are on their search pages).

Re:So sick of Google This Google That

[gweihir]

Indeed. A few years ago I did a survey of research papers that came out of Google. Really pathetic. No science, and the engineering sucked badly on all of them. (And yes, I have the hands on-experience to judge that.) Google is not nearly as great as most people believe. They can throw a lot of money and bright (but usually inexperienced) people at problems, but that is it. Calling what they do with that potential as "underperforming" would be exceedingly benevolent. It also explains why Google still does not do anything worthwhile or better than the competition besides search, a.k.a. advertising: Because they cannot and all their "hip" image and "innovation" is basically a PR scam.

Re:So sick of Google This Google That

[mlwmohawk]

From the fate of other 'search' companies (some of which were very good), I'd say the board at FAST were correct - and that you're the idiot.

So, you are saying, two competing companies doing about the same thing. One quits the business, the other goes on to be HUGELY successful, and I'm the idiot for calling the quitting company's manegement idiots? Sorry Bjorn and Larvik screwed the pooch and killed a potentially golden goose.

Google isn't a multi-billion dollar company because they're exceedingly good at search - they're a multi-billion dollar company that's exceedingly good at delivering advertisements (only a fraction of which are on their search pages).

You may have missed what I wrote: "Google sells ads, nothing else even comes close on their books."

Re:So sick of Google This Google That

[Algae_94]

They also treat their investors like crap. Absolutely no return of capital to investors in the form of a dividend, and few actual stock buy backs. They just recently split the shares of the company, but did so in a way to give out new shares with absolutely 0 voting rights. Then they did some ticker symbol trickery so that people that buy GOOG are now buying the shares with no voting rights.

Re:So sick of Google This Google That

[DerekLyons]

So, you are saying, two competing companies doing about the same thing. One quits the business, the other goes on to be HUGELY successful, and I'm the idiot for calling the quitting company's manegement idiots?

Yes, you're an idiot. Because you have completely failed to grasp that while the two companies 'were' doing 'about the same thing' at one point - that didn't last long. The hugely successful one ended up finding success by doing something entirely different.
 

You may have missed what I wrote: "Google sells ads, nothing else even comes close on their books."

I didn't miss it all, I merely explained what you were too stupid to grasp.

Re:So sick of Google This Google That

[swillden]

From the fate of other 'search' companies (some of which were very good), I'd say the board at FAST were correct - and that you're the idiot.

So, you are saying, two competing companies doing about the same thing. One quits the business, the other goes on to be HUGELY successful, and I'm the idiot for calling the quitting company's manegement idiots?

No, he's saying that there were lots of competing companies doing about the same thing. You say one of them (who I'd never even heard of) walked away. Fine. Several others didn't walk away, and instead got trounced. Perhaps FAST could have competed and perhaps not. Apparently they didn't think they could.

You may have missed what I wrote: "Google sells ads, nothing else even comes close on their books."

Not yet. Non-ad revenue has been climbing steadily, growing significantly faster than ad revenue, with the result that advertising's share of Google's revenues -- while still dominant -- is decreasing every year. It's still 90%, but that's down from 94% just two years ago. I expect it to drop to 80% within a couple of years and to be less than 50% in a decade or so, perhaps less. Nearly all of the company's big growth initiatives are in non-advertising businesses. Not that Google doesn't keep pushing the ad revenue numbers upward, and not that they aren't mind-boggling.

Or have a 300 IQ and 2 centuries Unix experience

[theodp]

Right, Catbert?

Better? For whom?

[petes_PoV]

It sounds like that Google guy already has a career mapped out for the B-grade students:

You need to be very adaptable, so that you have a baseline skill set that allows you to be a call center operator today

Google: Avoid

As a former B student (barely) in English...

[twocoasttb]

I've had a successful career in software development for more than twenty years, but do sometimes wonder if I'd be better off today had I worked harder in college and gotten a CS degree. No way to know, really. Maybe I'd be less annoyed by poor spelling and grammar in comment blocks.

Economics != English

[mwvdlee]

[...] who was thinking of shifting to an economics major [...]. I told that student they are much better off being a B student in computer science than an A+ student in English

Except being a B student in economics is probably better than being an A+ student in English as well.
But is being a B student in economics better than being a B student in English?

Also, wanting to not be rigorous is apparently better than wanting to be rigorous, seeing as this student has gotten an internship.

Re:Economics != English

[Tablizer]

Indeed. English is flooded with wannabe teachers and dreamy literature fanatics. Economics less so. The opening is comparing apples (English) to peaches (Economics) to oranges (CS). I guess it was written by an English major, eh?

Laszlo Bock, BA in International Relations, MBA

[Primate Pete]

...has strong opinions about HR issues, and wants you to know that CS majors make better peons than English majors.

Why would anyone listen to the HR director about what's good for you? He's looking out for the company.

Why you should not get a job at Google

[jonfr]

Google is the king of the new IT bubble. Last time there was an IT bubble Yahoo! was that same king. Guess what is going to happen, one day the bubble is going to explode and then implode and Google is not going to be king (monopoly) any more. There are many good reasons not to apply for an job at Google. But people have to find those reasons for them self.

Re:Why you should not get a job at Google

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Meh I don't think there is an IT bubble. A bubble usually implies rapid inflation of prices without any reason behind them, like the dot bomb was based on companies with no income and not really great ideas. Google has plenty of income.

Re:Open contempt for the humanities

[PrimaryConsult]

So, English Majors are good for documentation and middle management?

Re:GPA does not show much. also grade inflation mi

[sandytaru]

Actually, that's the case for some electives at the university I attended. PE classes were pure pass/fail, usually based on attendance.

Internship

[wiredlogic]

So now he's been anointed by the Goog and will be viewed as a golden child at every job he interviews for in the future.

Re:And he is wrong.

[ebno-10db]

I wouldn't ever hire a compsci or a mathematics graduate with only a first degree.

In which case you're rejecting quite a few highly qualified people.

It's also odd that you'd require an additional degree when you said that "[I] had not too much more trouble with an MSc". Are two easy degrees much better than one?

the most gifted person had a... biology degree

Last time I checked biology is a hard science, and definitely not one of the humanities.

Advertising Fodder

[Stephen Chadfield]

To be a Google employee you have to show a great love and respect for the honorable profession that is the advertising industry. That is, after all, what Google's business consists of.

I would not choose to work there myself.

A little out of touch with reality...

[rockmuelle]

"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."

I'm not sure if this is just naivete or Silicon Valley hubris, but this statement doesn't really make much sense. MRIs are interpreted by MDs (radiologists) with years of training. Call centers can be staffed by high-school drop outs. I have friends from both ends of the spectrum in exactly those jobs and I can tell you the starting point for each career and baseline skill set are not the same. Note that baseline intelligence may be the same - my call center friends are all phenomenal musicians who put their intellectual effort into music and use call center jobs to pay the bills, but there's no way they're interpreting MRIs in this lifetime.

I'm seeing the same high level of hubris in tech right now that I saw (and was guilty of) in 1999. There seems to be this feeling that good software skills are a proxy for any other discipline. After all, if I can write an MRI app for an iPhone (or, in the 90s, if I could write a Web 1.0 MRI viewer - which I did, fwiw), then I'm clearly qualified to take the next step and start diagnosing patients (or better yet, just write an app for that, too). Once you know the jargon and basic requirements, everything else is just implementation details, right? Of course, the reality is is that those implementation details are years of dedicated training, not a few weeks of hacking. You only get so many years in life - you can't do everything with them.

In Bock's comments, I see either ignorance or sleaziness. Maybe he really believes that anyone can and should be anything and everything. In that case, he's wasting his time in HR and should become a motivational speaker. But, it also seems like he's just using this as a way to get more call center operators to believe that there's a career path at Google that will allow everyone with a CS degree to be true renaissance people. Sure, every now and then one will pull it off, but people also win the lottery. That doesn't mean everyone will.

-Chris

Re:Google wants good tools, not tools with good ta

[ebno-10db]

Google wants to use you during your productive years and then discard you.

What are your "productive years"? Why do you stop being productive after that?

BTW, from what I've heard (third hand) Google likes to hire recent CS grads from top schools. Undoubtedly many such people are good, but it's limiting yourself to do so. There are rumors that they've even cut back on being so exclusive about it.

Re:What about C+ CS Student?

[ebno-10db]

My gpa was 2.88. Is there still hope?

Why was that rated down?

Flexibility is not exclusive to CS

[techsoldaten]

Well, I am an English major who learned programming and started a technology shop I have been running for the last 10 years.

During that time, I have had programmers working for me with CS degrees, but also with degrees in law, economics, theater, criminal justice, business, political science, and other pursuits.

We build websites and CRM systems using open source content management systems. To be honest, the people who have worked out best over the years came to programming from another background. The people that have really thrived have tended to be lawyers, they are able to apply logic on the fly.

Curiously, the two most offshored jobs...

[BonThomme]

'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.'"

Re:Curiously, the two most offshored jobs...

[PPH]

Meanwhile, an English major can always get a job at Starbucks.

Try outsourcing that.

Google interviews: Dehumanizing waste of time

[Theovon]

Usually double-blind is a good thing, like when doing a scientific study or reviewing one. But in the case of Google, the hiring method (for software engineers) involves a sequence of engineers asking you to solve toy problems and scribbling notes on a single sheet of paper. That single sheet of paper is mostly what the hiring committee sees, along with your resume (which nobody looks at any more than superficially) and maybe some comments from your recruiter. There is absolutely no consideration of things like personality, team work, cross-polination from other fields, or even CS disciplines outside of software engineering (they do 90% algorithms, 10% computational complexity, 0% operating systems, 0% computer architecture, 0% programming language theory, 0% anything else).

I have a PhD in computer engineering, and I currently I work as a CS professor at a major SUNY research center. Based on Google’s request (they called me!), I interviewed at Google's NYC office for a software engineering position (although my research area is computer architecture, which they didn’t quite seem to understand). I went there, I was friendly and didn’t stick my foot in my mouth, and I answered all of their algorithms questions (some I could have done better, but I think I did a good job). A few weeks later, I get a call from my recruiter. They were declining to make me an offer for two reasons. One was some vague statement about me not fitting with their culture. No idea why. The other was that I had appeared to have jumped around jobs too much. That last one made no sense. I worked one industry job for almost a decade, then I went to grad school (where I worked a research assistant and did a couple of internships), and then I got hired as a professor. How does that constitute jumping around too much?

I checked out Google’s hiring practices on glass door (before I interviewed, of course), and I see a similar trend. Google has no compunctions against wasting people’s time. They regularly cold call people to interview and then decline to make an offer, even for people with doctoral degrees and/or substantial industry experience. I have two good friends who work at Google, and they’re brilliant at computer science theory, but even so, I still really don’t know what Google is looking for.

Of course, maybe I just suck, and Google figured it out. I doubt it, though. I have a PhD for Ohio State, my dissertation is 120 pages (not including references), I currently have 13 major publications, three at top-tier conferences, first author on 9. I recently won an NSF CAREER award ($450,000 over 5 years). I started the Open Graphics project, which is basically dead right now but did produce real open source graphics hardware. And before all that, I worked in a small company where I had to do everything from tech support to IT to software development in a dozen languages to chip design. Among many other things, I designed a graphics accelerator ASIC that’s present in most air traffic control towers around the US (among so many other things I can’t keep track of). In the early 90’s I released ANSITerm for the Atari ST, which was very popular at the time and is still a very popular BBS terminal program among retro computing enthusiasts. I’m pretty sure I don’t suck.

Re:Google interviews: Dehumanizing waste of time

[gweihir]

I can confirm that Google is wasting people's time. I did interview with them, and I think I did pretty well (except that some interviewers did not understand the questions they were asking, and consequentially failed to understand the answers I gave, because some things I had a lot of experience with and was not giving them the "bright beginner"-level answers). They then told me that my application was "on hold" and did not actually hire many people that year, despite a dire need in my field. (I have insider-knowledge, I did apply because somebody really wanted me for their team.) Then they had a fat profit at the end of the year which pissed me off no end.

A year later they called me again, to interview me again. I just told them that they could very well do so, but it would cost them a $1600 consulting fee for that day, since all they get is one free interview-day. Took them 3 more years to finally get the message. And no, they did not go for it, unfortunately. I could have used that money. On the plus side, after the first interview I had decided that Google was of no interest as an employer to me, also in part because I had looked at some of the "research" that came out of that place. Pathetic, not even the engineering was any good. The public perception of what Google-people can do is vastly inaccurate.

Re:MRI? Why would you want to know biology for tha

[ebno-10db]

I'm more scared that they think an programming degree will somehow make you good at reading MRI's.

Nonsense. Any programmer in the 21st century knows all about offshoring, so they can help with having MRI's read in India.

Re:No Shit

[Mateo_LeFou]

"A english major has very limited problem solving training and have little use in a environment such as Google."

This is *exactly* equivalent to the following sentence:
"A CS major has limited creativity and have little use in an artistic environment such as Apple"

The *only* thing your major really tells people about you is what you felt like spending your time on between the ages of 18-22.

Signed,
English/Philosophy major, professional Software Developer

I usually worry about A students.

[jellomizer]

For all disciplines.
If you are an A Student then chances are you were not challenged in school.
The A Student is usually the following...
Took classes in topics that they already knew about.
Sacrificed a bit too much human skills just to get the grade.
Are well rehearsed in cheating/pay off people to do the work.
Weasel the professors to up their grade.

When I applied to Grad school, the Dean asked me about a couple of C+ on my transcripts, My response was those were the classes I learned the most in, because these were classes that covered topics that I never explored before, so every thing was new to me, and required me think about it differently. The classes that I got a B+ or better in, were classes I took because I needed the credits, they covered stuff that I knew 85% already and I just need to fill in a few gaps.

There are some majors that are very easy to get A's in. Because if they have strong Writing Skills, they just BS a paper with minimal logic.
While other majors Just as the Math and Science, BS will only go so far. And your grading is very mechanical.

The education system over values these grades, thus when you get into Grad School, grading actually curves upwards as not to have everyone dropout.
Because you need a 3.0 to stay in the program that means your D level work gets a C+, your C Level work gets a B-, Your B Level work gets a B and A level work gets an A. So a B- quality student will be staying above the 3.0.

But your grades very from different schools, different professors, different time lectures started... It really isn't fruitful to nitpick a student for a job if they were a 3.20 vs a 4.0 unless all other things were equal.

Re:why we need english majors

[ebno-10db]

Using "they" as a neuter singular pronoun goes back centuries. It only became discouraged because some idiots in the 18th century thought that English would be better off with Latin grammar. It's the same source as the "rule" against ending a sentence with a preposition. It's perfectly correct in English, but discouraged because it's incorrect in the dead language called Latin. From this source:

Meanwhile, many great writers — Byron, Austen, Thackeray, Eliot, Dickens, Trollope and more — continued to use they and company as singulars, never mind the grammarians. In fact, so many people now use they in the old singular way that dictionaries and usage guides are taking a critical look at the prohibition against it. R. W. Burchfield, editor of The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage, has written that it’s only a matter of time before this practice becomes standard English: “The process now seems irreversible.” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) already finds the singular they acceptable “even in literary and formal contexts,”

Re:why we need english majors

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

We need English majors to satisfy useless pedants? They're even more useless than I thought.

A "B" CS grad still sucks...

[gweihir]

CS is one of those fields that is so difficult that only the very best can master it. We have far to many people getting CS and CS related degrees. Most are not very good and, due to the high difficulty level, have negative productivity, i.e. they cause more problems than they solve. (Might take a little longer perspective though as the terminally incompetent "management" that is so common these days has.)

But that is not the only issue. I know straight-"A" graduates that are also a problem, because they have poor people skills and an over-inflated ego and have actually stopped learning after graduating. The problem these people suffer from is that their CS education was too easy. In a catastrophically misguided attempt to produce more CS graduates, CS programs have gotten progressively easier and shat messes with the heads of the people that do have the potential to be really good in the field. It also fails to tell the countless mediocre-to-bad students to get out of CS, fast.

Re:A "B" CS grad still sucks...

[gweihir]

Actually, that makes the problem worse: Those with real insight and potential then think very hard about avoiding the field in the future and many do.

Re:Which proves that hiring managers are stupid.

[gweihir]

What are you talking about? "Virtual" is also used in electronics, art, and other fields with much the same meaning. "Regular expression" is completely intuitive as soon as you have had a decent course in formal languages and grammars (before that, forget to try to understand what this is about). If you use terminology that gives a wrong impression, you just make things worse.

Re:Or have a 300 IQ and 2 centuries Unix experienc

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Then there is the follow up to that in the tech world.

On the other hand

[BenSchuarmer]

exactly the opposite is true when hiring a barista.

Tech company prefers engineers over linguists!

[Dorianny]

On behalf of sysadmins everywhere I would like to thank Larry Wall's linguistics professors instead!

just a guess

[Anonymous Coward]

He probably took one of those entry level jobs you are scoffing at, excelled at it and moved up or out to better things with some experience under his belt. Also, note the living in a small-mid size city. It's often better to be a big fish in a small pond than an average fish in a large pond.

Judging from their help files...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd wager that they should be hiring more English majors.

And judging from their software, they'd be better off hiring people that are capable of actually completing things. How long has it been that Google Calendar has been missing basic functionality like repeating todo list items? You still have to hack that in as a repeating event, even after all these years.

Bottom Line:

[Ralph Spoilsport]

MOST employers really don't give a flying fuck about your grades. You have a degree in CS? Cool - show me some code - show me an app you developed. Is it good?
Yes? Cool - you're hired. You got a C in (major subject in CS)? Who the fuck cares? Your code is good enough for our purposes.
No? Then you should have switched to English, and found some MEANING IN THIS CRUEL EXISTENCE other than being an entry level code monkey, which you clearly suck at anyway.

As a professor in a media dept, I always tell my students to have *exploitable skills*. I don't care what it is. Bicycle Repair. Programming. Editing. Whatevs. Because working in the arts is a crap shoot at best. Even the most determined and talented people don't necessarily make a living at it. So, sure - grind out a degree in something you dislike, get the job, and then get a Masters in English Lit or Comp or Painting or whatever. Then you will have the financial basis to do what keeps you sane (creativity) and the means to put food on the table (grinding out code for some bank to vertically extract billions off the backs of the taxpayers). Eventually, you will figure out what matters most to you: being true to your inner voice and convictions, or, finding out that your inner voice and conviction is being a slave and putting food on the table for your family. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH EITHER POSITION.

You are not a better person for going for the practical degree and being trained to do some skill for the mindless heartless maw of capitalism, any more than you are a better person for being that special snowflake and finding your purpose in life as a poet while you deliver letters as a postman, or as slinging coffee at Starbucks. Society needs all of it. I would much rather have the world's wittiest barrista serve me coffee and go home to attempt writing the Greatest Novel Ever than some mouth-breathing drone who goes home and watches TV and masturbates to re-runs of Baywatch. And if you're a mouth breathing drone, but have a knack for numbers - there's a place for you cranking code for some bank vertically extract billions off the backs of the taxpayers. Go for it. It pays really well.

In other words: there's room for everyone, and you need to find your place in things - just: Don't Be Stupid. It hurts to watch.

Re:Bottom Line:

[Mikawo]

Of all the companies that I've applied to (and I've applied to a lot), none really seemed to care about any work I've done. I have an application that has a couple hundred regular users (which I'd like to think is pretty damn good as far as obscure open source projects go) that I've been maintaining for the past year but this has not improved my prospects at all. I've also learned various technologies and started projects around them but all of it seems like an exercise in futility. The gross generalization that all you need is to have decent code samples to get a job seems like complete bullshit to me.

Re:Bottom Line:

[swillden]

Cool - show me some code - show me an app you developed. Is it good?

FWIW, Google doesn't really pay attention to what you've done. They pay attention to what you do during the interview.

Re:My personal experience

[gweihir]

If you do not have a good (!) formal education in CS, what you can do is quite limited. True, you run into those limits rarely, but often you do not even notice. Algorithmic complexity, security, competent use of crypto, advanced data-structures, etc. remain a mystery to those without that formal education with very, very few exceptions. And guess what? These people can get by mostly, they can even do very well on standard tasks. But when they try to do a design or an architecture that is a bit more than the standard-case, they suck badly and produce things that are best thrown away instead of being implemented. One problem is that they often do not even realize that they are missing skills and think stupid things like "crypto is easy", or "hashing is always constant time" and the like. And then things break and are often very hard or impossible to fix later. The Dunning-Kruger effect is very pronounced in IT folks, and far more than 50% are on the left side of the graph.

Re:Open contempt for the humanities

[gweihir]

You have an unrealistic appreciation of grading in CS. Depending on institution and professors, that "A" graduate in CS can still suck badly.

One thing about English majors

[GodfatherofSoul]

From what I've heard they have to do a TON of reading. So, if you're acing your classes odds are you have very good time management skills as well as the ability to read quickly and produce comprehensive writings just as fast.

Ridiculous Hiring Requirements

[hackus]

Mmmmm...

The argument practically makes no sense.

Considering that anyone working at a call center is no way going to pay for a CS degree from a major University.

Not unless you want to be a debt slave for the rest of your life.

I am highly skeptical about college grades and ability.

VERY skeptical because for 25 years in building software and systems, I do not see a correlation yet.

Going to retire in 10 years so sombody better pop up and tell me I am wrong.

I would be much more impressed if you don't have a degree or any degree work and had a contributed to any number of thousands of software projects on the internet, or created something yourself.

Re:What passes for rigorous thinking apparently

[gander666]

I know what you are trying to do, but I would like to shout out for economics. I have a degree in Physics, a minor in Maths (two classes more and I would have had a double major). While I was working on my undergrad degree, I tutored someone who was working on their advanced degree in economics. They were doing nasty, non-linear partial differential equations in their models, without the formal mathematics background. I was impressed with their methods, and how they solved these equations without 4 years of preparatory mathematics courses.

The truth is a lot of degree disciplines that seem like a waste to you turn out to have their own character building assets. One of the best AFM applications scientists I have ever worked with got his degree in History. He did an internship at a small company, and not only loved playing with Atomic Force Microscopes, he actually had a talent with it. In a field dominated by physicists and chemists, he is right up there.

A little narrowly focuses, no?

[erp_consultant]

It's not surprising that someone from Google would give a heavy emphasis towards CS degrees but consider for a moment the value of having people with degrees in different disciplines. Yes, Google is an engineering heavy company and they do lots and lots of software development. But at some point don't you need someone to manage all these Engineers? Won't you need Finance people? And Marketing people?

From my experience, almost all of the Engineering types I have worked with don't want to be Managers or Salespeople. Financials? That's someone else's problem. I want to code. Engineers tend to look down their collective noses at these people but they are necessary in a successful business. Google is clearly top heavy when it comes to Engineers. You can see it in their product designs.

Re:why we need english majors

[Myu]

GP is talking about the shift from 3rd person to 2nd person using "they" and "you".

Skeptical: Google B-Average Interns

[repetty]

Just curious, is anyone aware of a Google intern that has a B-average in college? I mean, was hired that way.

Re:Open contempt for the humanities

[Krishnoid]

Can we please have more English majors writing documentation?

Interpreting X-RAY and MRI

[Dareth]

I believe that is done by a Radiologist. That is a specialist position for a medical doctor, not something you pick up in trade school.

Re:Interpreting X-RAY and MRI

[ebno-10db]

That is a specialist position for a medical doctor, not something you pick up in trade school.

Residency is a fancy name for the trade school/apprenticeship that MD's get, just as education is a fancy name for the training that you got if you can put letters after your name.

Re:Indeed

[HornWumpus]

You obviously took calc for business majors, which is memorize and regurgitate just as you say.

Go back and take the real sequence, then you will actually learn the subject.

Re:My personal experience

[Ash-Fox]

If you do not have a good (!) formal education in CS, what you can do is quite limited.

To be honest, my own experience with people whom have had 'good formal education' in CS has been very disappointing.

Algorithmic complexity, security, competent use of crypto, advanced data-structures, etc. remain a mystery to those without that formal education

And people with that education in my experience.

they suck badly and produce things that are best thrown away instead of being implemented.

And it becomes problematic when they have some qualification backing them, because they create a false sense of quality and security.

One problem is that they often do not even realize that they are missing skills and think stupid things like "crypto is easy", or "hashing is always constant time" and the like

My own experience with such people is the mentality is closer along the lines of "I did what I know, not my problem if there is an issue."

This is not saying all people that have a decent CS degree are like this, I just don't understand how some people have them to begin with and unfortunately, they tend to be the vast majority.

Re:Open contempt for the humanities

[HornWumpus]

Because there are no CS instructors that make you waste a semester on their ideological hobbyhorse (e.g. higher normal forms).

Re:My personal experience

[HornWumpus]

Those subjects remain a mystery to most with applicable formal education. Do you have a point?

Re:What about C+ CS Student?

[HornWumpus]

EDS loves to hire people with your qualifications. The fact you have few choices lets them abuse you more and they like people who write butt simple systems.

Of course your working life will be misery. EDS fucks their clients, unless you get a decent share of the graft all you will get is the bad attitude.

Re:What about C+ CS Student?

[ebno-10db]

The post doesn't have enough detail. 2.88 in what degree, from which college, and completed when?

Perhaps you wandered over to the wrong web site - this is Slashdot.

Re:My personal experience

[gweihir]

You are doing the implication the wrong way round, a common fallacy. (An affect of that lacking formal education? Maybe...). I am not saying that if you have that formal education, you are great. Not at all. From my experience, a formal education in CS is not an indicator of competence at all.

I am saying that if you do not have that formal education, there are important things you are missing. Of course, without talent, passion and dedication, that formal education does not help and the result is still somebody incompetent.

So I am saying that if you have talent, passion and dedication, but are missing that formal education, you are severely limited.

Re:My personal experience

[gweihir]

I have a point and you have the implication the wrong way round or have mistaken it for an equivalence. (Lacking that formal education, perhaps? A course in formal logic clears that problem right up...)

The point is that only somebody with talent, passion, dedication and good formal CS education can be really good at CS. If just one thing is missing, they will suck. Unfortunately, many people with that formal education lack one or more of talent, passion or dedication and hence they suck. That does not remove the high value of the formal education, but it does make it far harder to see to those without it.

Re:Mother Nature Cannot Be Fooled

[Darinbob]

You can bullshit a lot of engineering. Just look at most modern tech and try to rationalize that they were intelligently designed.

Re:My personal experience

[BreakBad]

If you do not have a good (!) formal education in CS, what you can do is quite limited.

Having a CS degree by no means makes your skill-set unlimited. It is possible for someone without a formal degree to be more qualified. Life is complicated, we don't have to put a stamp on everything. Degrees are great, it tells me someone made it through boot-camp....this accounts for something, not everything.

Re:My personal experience

[BreakBad]

e.g. I have CS degree and don't even know which fucking 'Reply to This' link to click on.

where have I heard this before?

[epyT-R]

Oh, it's an extension of that "22 year old, working 22 hours a day for 22k a year" mantra. Why would anyone half decent at what they do want to work for employers like that?

Re:My personal experience

[gweihir]

Just read the implication the right way round to understand what I am saying. You are doing it the wrong way round.

Does not eating cause you to die? Yes. Does eating prevent you from dying? No. See where you go wrong?

College degree != ability

[Anarchy24]

Funny that when I went to the slashdot 15th anniversary meetup in Brooklyn last year, two of the founders were there - one with a masters of fine arts, the other a PhD in divinity.

I'm a systems engineer / data scientist and I have a bachelor or arts degree in political science (and I totally love my job!). ^_-

Re:My personal experience

[BreakBad]

That makes the assumption that one could only learn the concepts taught in a CS degree by participating in the program. That if you do not participate, then you will never be able to open some of those doors. That is simply not true. A college degree is an expensive certification that usually comes with little to no working experience. That is all.

Formal Education != Eating

From my personal experience as a 'B' CS student.

[reiserifick]

When I interviewed with Google, they cared not how good I was at critical thinking, problem solving and architecting good software systems. They did however care A LOT about my Big O notation and CS1 skills. Additionally, the only reason I even got an interview with Google was because of my previous internship experience at two different companies that hire from the same pool Google hires from. I didn't make it past the first interview because I stumbled on my basic CS1 material - which was completely my own fault. Two weeks later I had offers from the two Google competitors I had interned with.

In summary, Google doesn't care at all about 'B' CS students. Maybe I'm just bitter though.

Well Duh

[wisnoskij]

Its English, there are no jobs for English grads. In many instances it would be better to be a CS drop out than an A+ English grad.

Re:Mother Nature Cannot Be Fooled

[Grishnakh]

The Windows 8 UI proves you wrong.

Re:My personal experience

[HornWumpus]

What is CS exactly? Many of us are actual engineers. Most CS people haven't a clue when it gets down to bits and bones. Competence is certainly not limited to CS graduates. In my experience about half the CS programs have no rigor. CS credentials, dime a dozen. I've seen Masters in CS who wrote their thesis on query optimization not even know what a query plan (or it's many synonyms) is. Not miss the word, not know what it was.

Everybody specializes. Not everybody should do embedded development. But everybody should write assembler, at least once in their lives.

A few really good engineers are informally trained and very good at what they do. Not what I'd call common.

Re:Breaking bad

[Pseudonym Authority]

Don't worry, the utterly worthless louts in the Humanities do this every once in a while. For instance, back in the nineties they published tonnes of garbage noting that E=mc^2 was a `sexed equation' or how various scientific theories were part of the patriarchy. They see have degrees in tinewasting and circlejerking subjects like Sociology and fancy themselves fit to comment on any of the real sciences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars for more info). They usually end up crushed under the inanity of their own drivel though.

Re:My personal experience

[gweihir]

Have you read what I wrote? You have certainly failed to understand it.

Re:My personal experience

[gweihir]

You really do not get it, do you?

I wrote: "No formal education => sucks at IT". You claim that I wrote "Formal education => good at IT." I did not. Formal education is necessary to be good at it, but not sufficient. Does nobody do elementary logic anymore?

Re:My personal experience

[Ash-Fox]

So I am saying that if you have talent, passion and dedication, but are missing that formal education, you are severely limited.

I can agree with this observation with rare exceptions to the rule.

Google's Eventual Collapse

[marksburgess]

In the end, if Laszlo Bock hires computer science majors exclusively, Google's inevitable eventual collapse will be hastened. Computer science is mostly about learning to regurgitate the current computer language and practices canon. Assembler gives way to C, C gives way to C++, then branches sprout of AI and neural networks and Java and microcircuit technology. His hiring philosophy supposes that liberal arts don't teach critical thinking. The fact is that critical thinking skills are better developed and more difficult, by far, in the Liberal Arts. You can't "compile" an essay to ensure it is well written, thoughtful, informed and effective.

I call BS

[rhyous]

This is what I did. I got an English degree AND I learned to code. 120 credits for English vs 190 credits for CS.

Learn to code on the side by reading free onlne tutorials and watching free online videos. CS classes in college, especially undergrad courses, are horribly slow paced, and don't teach you much. There is masses of repetition. And it is extremely expensive when the same learning is free on the internet.

So get an English Degree and get a certificate in development on the side. Now you have a degree and you can code.

Now due to your English degree you can communicate and write better.

Amen!

[rhalstead]

I hired in as a sys admin. In a year, I was a Developmental analyst ( fancy name for programmer), and after a total of less than 3 years I was a major project manager. (about 5 pay scales above programmer) As I understood the work flow, I never had to go the call center route, nor did I hire in at starting wage scale. So I was 3 years ahead on the pay scale when I started Most places want people who have a broad skill set and do not want someone who is a programmer and wants to stay a programmer. They want some one with the broad skill set, who is a fast learner, has the desire and ambition to move up the food chain as rapidly as possible. If you want to stay a programmer there are only a few locations where that is possible and in most industry, programmers are a long way from the top pay scale. Be careful of "burn 'em and turn 'em" companies. They milk you for all your ideas, then instead of a promotion, show you the door and hire some one new for more ideas...and repeat.

Google Sucks!

[bbsalem]

First of all, I live within a public transit route distance from Google in Mountain View and interviewed there about 8 years ago, and I wouldn't try again, being a second tier javascript or python programmer, or having a "B" in CS, might be less important than having an "A" in English, or knowing how to write given the damage technology being pushed by Google is doing to writing and communication generally.

I am not merely speaking against the privacy issue or the Big Data abuses; these are major threats pushed by Google on computer users, but I am being sharply critical of the idea that a blog is a standard for communication and that a javascript textarea widget is good enough to be the standard tool people need for on-line communication. The tools someone needs to get the "A" in English now seem more important to me as a user of the world wide web than those that interest s CS graduate.

Greed in the Social Media companies, led by Google, but also Facebook and Twitter and others, dictates that the blog is the standard because text blocks are easy to search for keywords for the Big Data application. Blogging interferes with the exchange of ideas between writers, does not support any collaboration and does not preserve context. Compare Slashdot and Redditt, which do have some of these features with Google+ and Facebook. Google+ is particularly bad. It is for a bunch of fanboys and self-promoters, like LinkedIn, fine for business types, but totally defeats writers and people with ideas to discuss, forget it.

Re:My personal experience

[HornWumpus]

You wrote that a CS education was a required thing for anyone to be truly good with computers. That's bullshit and you know it (an engineering education is superior, also some do very well with no formal education).

Now you want to say you said something else.

Why does anybody want to work at google?

[mtthwbrnd]

When it was starting out I can understand why people would want to work there but it has become soooooo cliched these days. Oh, google say this in their interviews, oh, google say that in their interviews... shove it where the sun don't shine google!

I studied English and I work at Google

[samdutton]

Getting a high mark for English (which I didn't!) was very hard work, and required rigorous thinking and incredible discipline: read, re-read, analyse, research, discuss, write about (and memorise passages from) thousands of pages from dozens of texts. Too bad some people still have odd, old-fashioned ideas about the humanities – I'd be very interested in a candidate for a software engineer job who had CS skills and a top English degree.