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Comment by pfschell | Hacker News Reader

This article treats "CS graduates" as interchangeable cogs, where the only variables are race, parents' income, and where they grew up. The reality is that particular tech companies have very specific needs around the kind of training someone has. CS curricula vary widely in terms of technologies and depths covered, and applicability to real world problems.

A company like Apple has litte use for someone who has only ever worked on IT-focused Java development. A company seeking the latest AI talent will never find it at a school that trains students on the latest web middleware. And once companies realize they're getting a lot of well-prepared candidates from a particular program, of course they're going to focus on those schools. It would be a waste of time and scarce resources to do otherwise.

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Im sorry, but this is where you need to check your own biases at the door.

For example, your statement "A company like Apple has little use for someone who has only ever worked on IT-focused Java development.".

Actually, Apple has a need for people like these. Their whole web/it/retail infrastructure is a Java backend ( i believe webobjects moved to Java, then was deprecated as an outside project, but kept for internal use, my knowledge is dated on this). Take a look at their jobs site[1]

Now my point wasn't about apple and java. But our own biases that we bring, at every level. We all have biases, but most direct way to effect biases in hiring, is to close your pool down. You need a really wide opening at the beginning of your sourcing funnel to have diversity ( and i mean diversity at every level ).

I work at one of the "big 4" and went to an ivy, but guess what, some of the smartest people I have ever met, had to go to schools based on what their parents could afford. Thats a HUGE selection bias.

So yes, widen your funnel, and recognize your biases ( that we all have, and that basically boil down to having less knowledge ).

[1] https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?job=112907897&openJobId=112...

Bias also comes from having knowledge. Statistical racial profiling and stereotyping based on facts are examples of this.

Morally I still haven't figured out what to think about this. Generally stereotyping people is considered okay unless its about something outside of their control (race, etc). e.g. its okay to stereotype about rednecks or Californians, because they could choose to move, etc.

But generally I don't believe in free will - nothing is a choice when you consider all the circumstances. You'll find plenty of articles on Washington post that follow this line of reasoning about the circle of poverty, etc.

So if you don't believe in free will, you're not allowed to judge anyone for any reason - which sounds ridiculous.

So in short, I have not figured out how the morality of stereotyping works, and that bugs me. Has anyone figured it out?

> Actually, Apple has a need for people like these. Their whole web/it/retail infrastructure is a Java backend

Not only this, but most new grads are hired in a pool and not for specific skills.

And even if they didn't have so much Java, they'd quite possibly still be interested—plenty of major places are more interested in your problem solving skills than your knowledge of any given language.

Firstly, for the most part CS schools don't train students on "IT-focused Java" or "web middleware", whatever that is. Most schools try to teach the fundamentals.

Secondly, a developer that masters and shows proficiency in any complex software ecosystem, including Java and web middleware, is going to have transferable skills valuable to any software company.

Especially for an entry-level position, where a large amount of training is almost always required.

>Most schools try to teach the fundamentals.

No, they don't. Read as many thousands of resumes from across the planet as I have, then get back to me.

You're making an assumption that graduates only know what the curriculum teaches.

In an industry where 60% of the workforce hasn't learned the field through a traditional degree[1], and where a nontrivial fraction of these are self taught, I think that's a pretty bad assumption.

Besides, this argument would hold more water if companies actually tested for this stuff. Most companies seem to be interested in testing algorithms and puzzles, which ultimately aren't actually that useful (sure, algorithms are useful, but not the culture of hyperoptimizing-by-big-O; when n is rarely huge O(f(n)) doesn't matter). Yeah, for an AI job they'll test AI as well, but large companies continue to test with an overwhelming bias for this. I don't think they get to say they want to choose the skillset of their pool by choosing colleges if they do that.

Also, all the large companies (Google, MS, Facebook, etc) hire-first-ask-questions-later; they don't hire college grads for a specific position, they just hire them and work out the position later.

[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/12/unlocking-trapped-engineer...

I'm pretty sure that there is almost no difference in terms of talent between someone who graduated from MIT vs someone who graduated from any other decent university around the world. They share more or less the same curriculum. The main difference is that MIT has more reputable professors and the children have richer parents.

Reputable professors are not necessarily the best teachers... Especially at the undergrad level.

Having attended an average-at-best school for my undergraduate degree and a name-widely-recognized-as-one-of-the-best school for my graduate degree, and teaching several classes at both:

The top students at both schools were quite close in ability, drive, motivation and talent. There may have been a couple a very little smarter at the name school, but not many, and not enough to make a material difference.

But the mid and bottom students at the average school were quite a bit worse than the mid and bottom students at the name school. And it wasn't even close.

So, in my experience at least, there are definitely students worth hiring at both places, but you have to sift through quite a bit more students at the average schools.

I went to a state school. Most of my professors also taught at a larger name school across town. My classes were half the cost with half the number of students. I believe I got the same education for less and probably got a lot more face to face time with my professors in the process.

The name of the school means very little to me as a result of my experiences. Especially now that I interview a lot of people and have a really hard time seeing any differences between them based on education.

Hats off to the folks who got the great education at a discount. In a way they may have made the smarter decision.

> The main difference is that MIT has more reputable professors and the children have richer parents.

Harvard, maybe. MIT? Their undergrads are great — of the interns we get, MIT and Cal Tech undergrads are leaps and bounds above those from other schools.

A good CS education teaches common core concepts, and more importantly how to learn and adapt to new frameworks/environments quickly.

Apple just doesn't want to deal with 2-4 months of ramp-up when they can have someone with expertise in a specific subject. Wealthy institutions see that, and teach certain frameworks as part of their graduates' education. Why else would you see core courses in languages like Objective C?

Any graduate can learn it fairly quickly, but a common theme among employers these days is that they will invest nothing in employees.

>"A company like Apple has litte use for someone who has only ever worked on IT-focused Java development."

I find it odd that you have chosen to respond to an article on diversity with comments that display a knee-jerk bias. Also "IT-focused Java development" is not even a real term. I can only imagine you mean Enterprise Java Development.

I can assure you a quality engineer with great problem solving skills, CS fundamentals and real-world experience working on large important projects with real deadlines and bottom line impact can be of great use to a company like Apple.

New grads are never hired for a particular skillset. No one is an expert on the unix kernel or hardware design or iOS internals out of college. Apple hires smart people and teaches them these skills. Same with Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and every other large tech company.

The things you mentioned (besides possibly AI) are not CS, a common misconception. CS is data structures, algorithms, compilers, logic, etc.

"CS curricula vary widely in terms of technologies and depths covered, and applicability to real world problems."

No, they don't. At least, not at the undergraduate level.

I went to an unknown undergraduate CS program. Later, I did a PhD at one of the top schools in the country. For my career, I have worked with graduates from all of the elite programs. There's no difference in training. The big-name schools may attract "better" high-school students, but even that advantage is overrated.

Undergraduate programs are largely identical. It's only when you get to graduate school that the resources of a top-tier program start to become relevant.

How did you get from unknown undergrad to top PhD? I was considering grad school, but I'm concerned my profile isn't good enough.

General advice: get good grades, do well on the GRE, and do research as an undergrad.

I have decent grades (3.9 rounded down) and have a coauthored paper (not sure what tier the conference was...). Somehow I doubt that's enough.

> CS curricula vary widely in terms of technologies and depths covered, and applicability to real world problems.

This might be true for graduate level programs, but between decent state schools and Ivies, the difference, so I have found having been in both "types" of universities, in the curriculum is far, far less than you would lead us to believe. From having met and interviewed a number of people from both, the talent of the individual seems to shine through regardless of the school they attended (if it was at least reasonably decent, i.e. most research-oriented state schools).

Most CS courses aren’t really vocational courses; graduates don’t come out experts in a particular area, normally. Which is just as well, really; most of the technologies are transient.

lol

If you are "someone who has only ever worked on IT-focused Java development" that apparently we don't want at Apple, my email is in my profile.

FYI, it isn't. If you are referring to the "email" field, that isn't public.

Huh, never knew. Ok it’s fixed.

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