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Google: Better To Be a 'B' CS Grad Than an 'A+' English Grad
theodp (442580) writes "In a NY Times interview on How to Get a Job at Google with Laszlo Bock, who is in charge of all hiring at Google, the subject of grit-based hiring came up. Bock explained: 'I was on campus speaking to a student who was a computer science and math double major, who was thinking of shifting to an economics major because the computer science courses were too difficult. I told that student they are much better off being a B student in computer science than an A+ student in English because it signals a rigor in your thinking and a more challenging course load. That student will be one of our interns this summer.' Bock also advised, 'You need to be very adaptable, so that you have a baseline skill set that allows you to be a call center operator today and tomorrow be able to interpret MRI scans.'"
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!).
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.
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Was that supposed to be a pitch for or against CS?
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.
Doesn't Google have on campus coffee shops? If so they need English majors to bolster their barista ranks.
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.
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.
but isn't it Google that thinks everything about everyone should be public?
it keeps everyone honest.
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.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
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.