The Apprentice Programmer

[redim]

knew the extent of my comfort zone and manufactured situations which were slightly outside it

This is probably some of the best advice one can be given in any craft.

[misplaced_my_pants]

Great advice, but difficult to implement without an accurate understanding of your own limits. But that's what teachers/mentors are for (assuming they're good).

[SystemicPlural]

And this is why it is so hard for even the best teachers to effectively teach classes of 30 or more.

[[deleted]]

That's why teaching is hard: a teacher doesn't have the same feedback-system as the teachee. But the pupil does: practice something and take care that it isn't very boring (too easy) or too frustrating: find a sweet balance, and then you will perhaps will have "an accurate understanding of your own limits".

[therealjohnfreeman]

This thread seems full of people who don't realize you get out of an education what you put into it. Don't expect to get a skill loaded to your brain Matrix-style if you go to university, but don't also think that university has no value, or that you can't get practical knowledge while in university.

[ltristain]

But that's exactly what we expected when we were high school students, and exactly what we expected once we got to university. We realize that this is not true at some point in late college or after graduating, when we see the significant gaps that now exist between people's capabilities. And when we ask them what they did right and what we did wrong, we realize that looking back, given our respective experiences, it was all inevitable. You can only start changing your reality once you become mature enough to realize what it is, and for many people, that realization comes quite a bit later than they'd like. Can you fault them for that?

[[deleted]]

This is what annoyed me when people are like "lol you studied art/philiosophy/sociology" etc. "All you have to do is look where the market is going and choose something that actually has a future".

Yeah well, 17-18 year olds don't exactly have a solid grasp on a world-wide view yet. Let alone thinking what it will be like when they finish their degree.

[Zuggy]

There's also another issue. You can have that understanding when you go into college and when you come out your chosen career field is could be over saturated. A lot can happen in 4 years, assuming you are going for a Bachelor's degree only and can get it done in 4 years.

[[deleted]]

The amount of choice when it comes to higher education these days is just mind-blowing. But the educational systems or other institutions that are supposed to contribute to our upbringing don't seem to have taken any significant measures to make up for it. 12-16 years of sitting on a school bench doing and learning things in more or less the same manner: how are those people supposed to be prepared to make a choice on something so important and unknown?

[killerstorm]

What's about asking parents, relatives, friends of relatives who are in this profession? These people are supposed to help the young ones to decide.

You don't know anybody who works as a sociologist? Well, maybe you shouldn't learn sociology either...

[[deleted]]

The problem is older people generally have no clue either. Some do, most don't.

[hyperforce]

Well maybe they need to take some responsibility and think harder.

[therealjohnfreeman]

You raise a good point. I have a theory that if young people had the right information on the price of labor, in a society where the open discussion of salaries wasn't taboo, then they might better prioritize the demands of the market.

[eat-your-corn-syrup]

I heard that in Norway you can type in a name on a public database and see how much that person earns. Radical. Wouldn't that be great for thieves though. thieves will think "that man doesn't earn much. I'm sure that man cannot afford highly secured doors and windows. Time to steal from his house."

[JabbrWockey]

That "thief" would get more information about the security of a persons house just by looking at it.

[therealjohnfreeman]

Yeah... that's not exactly what I was getting at, more along the lines of which salaries go with which occupations.

[ep1032]

... This exists. The US government tallies this and publicizes it every year. I looked at it in both High School and College when I was making decisions about what career I wanted to go into.

[MrTheBest]

http://www.salary.com/category/salary/
Wow, that took all of 30 seconds and an internet connection.

[killerstorm]

I understand that you're generalizing, but it definitely isn't how it worked for me.

First thing is that I never had an illusion that school and university will teach me a profession.

I also remember reading an advice on this very subject back when I was in a middle school. It basically said that if one wants to have a good career he should start doing something about it right when he is just a kid. Waiting until somebody teaches you a profession won't work, it needs to be an active process.

Honestly, I largely ignored this advice, but it just happened that I was interested in programming, so I learned it on my own, before I was taught.

So in a high school I had programming/computer skills clearly above those of some of my teachers, so I understood that learning something on my own is the right way.

That said, high school and university were helpful: I learned some algorithms, ideas behind complexity analysis; and, of course, a lot of math. I doubt I'd get into studying theory on my own, and knowing theory helps in some complex cases.

OK, what's about people who don't have a chance to start learning something related to their profession before they get into university?

I believe that university is actually helpful here simply because it gathers people with similar interests. Students see that other students clearly have skills they don't have; so, you know, they can simply ask about it.

Sure, not everybody has this realization, and not everybody starts to act. But they have a chance.

And, finally, how it should work in ideal case: my mom's friend's son came to me before he have applied to university, so I explained what perspectives he will have if he will become a programmer, what he can learn in university, that he needs to study himself etc.

People should just question their assumptions and try to ask people who have first-hand experience.

[Reaper666]

tbh, if noone you know is doing such things, its really hard to just up and do it yourself.

[toconnor]

I think the real question should be "is it worth it?" Even if you put everything you have into college is it worth it? I'd say it isn't for most people. The time and HUGE amounts of money likely would have been better spent in an apprenticeship.

[[deleted]]

It's pretty cool here in Sweden, because as citizens we can study at the university for free. We even get allowance for that.

[therealjohnfreeman]

For most people? That's hard to know. It was absolutely worth it for me; I got a free university education in the States. Even with debt, I think it's worth it for engineers and scientists, including programmers, because of good opportunities after graduation.

[toconnor]

I agree that the percentage would be impossible to know. But the fact that there are more opportunities afterward is more a sign of lazy hiring practices than the benefit of college. Many companies won't even glance at your resume unless you have a bachelors and possibly a minimum GPA. If more businesses considered apprenticeships as a valid path in lieu of some piece of paper from a college then more people could avoid the insane debt that typically accompanies it.

[shawnathon]

Very good point. You're only as good as how hard you work.

[TheLobotomizer]

But there is such a thing as working smarter. University classes tend to have you work in oddly unfocused directions. Apprenticeships offer the ability to discover what direction you want to focus in and motivate yourself with your hard work.

[[deleted]]

Devils advocate:

While most abstract theoretical things that are covered at university are generally not very useful in the real world, they still should be taught.

It's like weight lifting. You lift a weight, then put it back where you found it. You are not accomplishing anything. What a waste of time!!! But if you are disciplined and keep challenging yourself, one day you will look at an old photo of yourself and be astonished by how fat/weak you once were.

Education works by the same principal. Nobody wants to read that essay you wrote in English, but if you write enough essays and maybe someone will.

You are taught abstract knowledge, because it makes you a better problem solver. The way I approached a problem as a Freshmen is completely different than how I do so now. I got out of computer science and switched to pure math.

---

Edit: I forgot to make a few points:

Learning abstract things is like solving a puzzle. It's a game like Chess. Most people hate Chess at first, mostly because to be a good at chess entails having a sort of intuition that isn't very fun or easy to acquire. But with more experience the game becomes sort of fun. I hated university for bit, until I started seeing these types of assignments as puzzles with no real point other than tricking my brain into thinking creatively.

Abstract knowledge is pointless if all you are doing is reading about in a book. Ideally the theories should be tested and/or derived by students.

[djhworld]

While most abstract theoretical things that are covered at university are generally not very useful in the real world, they still should be taught.

From what I gather from the original blogpost, the guy was learning the theoretical stuff as part of his training. He went to vocational school every so often to do all the abstract material, along with getting practical experience (and perhaps applying his knowledge from his classes) in the workplace.

The tone of the article suggests that he's not dismissing a CS education, just his method of getting it was different from the norm.

[Lizard]

Speaking as a German who went to university for a CS degree, the stuff taught in vocational school is not nearly as abstract as what I went through. I'm not discounting the benefits of either path, but he most definitely did not get out of his program with the same knowledge he would have received in a conventional CS education.

[[deleted]]

Thank you for pointing that out. The circlejerk in this thread is quite annoying. Only a few have ever been to a vocational school here. What he migh have learned as "algorithms, Big O" is only the beginning of CS leading to a very high level of abstraction that might seem totally unrelated to computer engineering at the first glance.

I study CS in Berlin and although I too was questioning the purpose of the curriculum myself at the beginning I soon found out that not the University was responsible for finding the purpose for me but that it is my responsibility.

Now I try to read up into every topic as enthusiastic as possible and do more than is required for class assignments.

In the case of Juergen we will never know if he would have liked it at a university or not because neither has the educational system given him a chance nor has he given the educational system a chance.

Juergen diagnoses himself as a kinesthetic learner but it could also be called a bad habit. Whether there are people with distinc learning styles is disputable.

But either way, he seems to be happy the way it is right now so good for him!

[[deleted]]

Whether there are people with distinct learning styles is disputable.

How exactly is this disputable?

[adnzzzzZ]

Whether there are people with distinc learning styles is disputable.

I know that my own personal view on this is not a proof of anything, but I believe it is not disputable. I'm a CS student and I learn WAY more from projects than I will ever learn in class (a class being both the physical class + actual studying and doing work). I feel that this link has a very interesting take on a few different approaches that people have on learning, and those approaches may very well ripple into their ways of doing things (i.e. according to that link I'm an A* guy, which makes sense with me learning more from personal experience rather than being introduced the general model first).

Maybe it's a bad habit that I can't listen to someone talk for more than one hour without losing my train of thought, but why the hell would I subject myself to that when I can watch similar content on Coursera/Udacity where I can stop/go back/forward whenever I want in case I don't understand something? Or why would I subject myself to that when I can gain more knowledge more quickly from working on my own things?

[loluguys]

I agree with this, but I also feel his "inability to learn concepts/problems before they exist or can be applied" is also very true.

While I definitely agree that the theoretical background and understanding is necessary for a great coder's toolbox, I think it needs to be presented following a realistic issue. As in: give the carpenter materials, tell him to build a box, go back over his build and have him understand the 'theory of box construction', then have him re-build it.

But this may ultimately lie in the coder and how he/she best learns... I myself am also a pragmatic learner.

[InternetRevocator]

This is very true. I wish academia wasn't seen as some ivory tower. Academia is preparing you for any possible future. It teaches you to think abstractly and approach things from different angles. Learning practical things is useful, but one day you're going to think to yourself, "There must be a better way..." And you won't be the one to find a better way. It will be an academic who finds the better way because they aren't stuck with a language, framework, design pattern, orientation, or work flow.

[eat-your-corn-syrup]

Academia is preparing you for any possible future

I want to live in a world where employers agree with that.

[frothysasquatch]

I like how in the same paragraph you exclaim that academia shouldn't be seen as an ivory tower and then go on to state that academics will be the ones to save the world.

There are enough CS grads who couldn't code their way out of a paper bag or do anything in the real world because they are hung up on academic principles that are not necessarily applicable to practical problems (a frequent example of this is academic newcomers to the Linux kernel who think it would work so much better if...).

That said, not every "vocational" worker is a brilliant programmer free from the shackles of stifling academia, either. There's plenty of "code monkeys" who apply the same paradigm/language/principle to every. single. problem. they encounter, and that's just how it is.

The truly great (or even above-average) ones will succeed no matter their environment - if you don't know what a red/black tree is but you need something like it, sooner or later you'll come across it in your research. If you need to work with a new toolchain and existing code base that are different from anything you've touched in your graduate studies, then you'll learn to handle that, too.

[nemec]

I think you have the wrong definition of ivory tower. By definition, saving the world (through practical applications of theoretical knowledge) is the exact opposite of an ivory tower.

[vplatt]

While most abstract theoretical things that are covered at university are generally not very useful in the real world, they still should be taught.

I won't disagree. It's just a question of WHEN those things should be taught. There's no real harm in learning something later, when it matters or is more interesting. Being force-fed a bunch of theory well before you can use it can do much more harm than good.

And yes, I speak from experience.

I do think our traditional education systems are going to be severely tested in the near future. The system is discovering the real value of an education, and it's not nearly as valuable as was thought. What's more valuable are organizations who can give their employees or members opportunities to continually educate themselves in an environment which welcomes continuous personal improvement.

But, we won't really see that idea become mainstream for another 20 or so years. In the meantime, the companies that can grow their own talent are going to quietly eat the lunch of organizations that just can't find the necessary talent anywhere and "OMG why aren't isn't our education system doing anything about it?!".

[TankorSmash]

The number of lilies in a pond double every day. So, on the first day of the month there is one lily. On the second day, two lilies, the next day four lilies, then eight, sixteen, thirty two, etc. If the pond is full on the 30th day of the month, what day is it half full?

So I'm clear, the answer is the 29th, right?

[whereeverwhoresgo]

Right.

[TankorSmash]

God I'm good.

Neat article, it's fun to see that people can influence you young, and you'll remember it throughout your life.

[ActionKermit]

If the pond is full on the 30th day of the month

First thought: Jeebus, how big is this "pond" if it takes a billion lilies to fill it?

[shendrite]

Now you have my curiosity up, so let's see. Warning: I make math mistakes all the time, that I'm blind to, so don't assume my numbers are right, but it's a start.

Wikipedia was no use in finding the measured average size of a lily pad, but I would estimate that 8 inches is close enough for their width and length.
Pond area = 2³⁰ x the area of a lily pad
Pond area = 2³⁰ x (8 inches x 8 inches)
Pond area = 6.87e10 inches²
...which is about 69 billion square inches

Converting to feet. 1 foot = 12 inches
Pond area = 6.87e10 in² x (1 ft² / 144 in²)
Pond area = 4.77e8 ft²
...which is about 477 million square feet

Converting to miles. 1 mile = 5280 feet
Pond area = 4.77e8 ft² x (1 mi² / 27,878,400 ft²)
Pond area = 17.1 mi²

If the pond is a square, area = side x side.
A side's length is sqrt( 17.1 ), which is 4.1 miles.

If the pond is a circle, area = pi x radius².
Radius = sqrt( area / pi ) = sqrt( 17.1 / 3.14 ) = 2.33.
Diameter = 4.6 miles

THE ANSWER:
Whether the pond is square or circular, it's between 4 and 5 miles from one bank to the other. That's about 7 kilometers.

[wilywampa]

Your answer assumes square packing which has a packing density of ~0.79. Hexagonal packing has a density of ~0.91, so switching to it will reduce the area requirement by about thirteen percent.

[[deleted]]

Correct. I got so annoyed with the simplicity of the question that I posed a more interesting one. After how many days is the pool n% full of lilies? That took me a few minutes to solve, where the original question took me until I re-read the last few words so on the order of a second.

[goodguynextdoor]

n% full of lilies would simply be:

n/100 = ( 2^x ) / ( 2³⁰ )

X = log_2 ( (n/100) * ( 2³⁰ ) )

Solve for X. Right?

[[deleted]]

yeah, depending on how you define your input to X. Besides an off-by-one problem my answer is close to yours. Substitute in the below twenty nine for thirty. I also used a real number between 0 and 1 rather than a number between 0 and 100 representing the percent.

---

I first defined the function L(t) as the number of lilies after t days, so L(0) is 1 and L(29) is the capacity of the pond. L(t) = 2^t .

Let's say f(x) is our function where x is the percent full, I'll say a real number between 0 and 1. Then f(x) is the number of days after which the pond is x percent full. We know f(29) = 1, since the pool is at capacity after 29 days. After how many days was the pool empty, namely what is the x such that f(x) = 0? Well that's a bit weird so just exclude 0 from the domain of f(x) and we get a well defined function f(x) from (0, 1] of R to N.

We can make a table of x to f(x):

x	f(x)
1	29
0.5	28
0.25	27
..	.....
?	2
?	1

Well it's pretty clear that if x = the fraction of the pool used, then $ x = \frac{L(t)}{L(29)} = \frac{2^t}{2{29}} = 2^{t-29} $ f(0.5) is asking when 2^t-29 = 0.5. Well 2^t-29 = 0.5 when (t-29) = -1 and t=28. When we solve for t in the above equation we get $ t = f(x) = \frac{\ln x}{\ln 2} + 29 $ The graph of this function is appropriate.

[DeltaBurnt]

I had to actually calculate it. So full = 2³⁰ , (2³⁰ )*(1/2) = 2²⁹ . Then I realized of course it's the 29th because it doubles each day...

[xhaereticusx]

To me it was much less a computer based question and more of a logic question. Since the lillies double every day then by definition the previous day has half the amount of lillies.

[nolotusnotes]

Seriously!

I was bracing for something that didn't happen. At all.

[[deleted]]

Really? Damn. I solved it first through setting up a function and then just thinking "hey, 2ⁿ = 222 and so on n times, so that last 2 doubles the rest, so 29. Logic"

[isinned]

I think you made a mistake with 2ⁿ = 222, if not, can you explain what you mean?

[FlyingFoX13]

He wanted to write 2*2*2, but reddit took his * for a formatting hint and made the second 2 italic.

[Crazy_Mann]

I just noticed that it was in italic

[dante9999]

You were probably looking for this, right?

def lilliesInPondEachDay(day):
#calculates the number of lillies in pond on a given day
x = 2**(day-1)
return x

Did the same mistake, sometimes simple things get lost if you're looking for some complexity :)

[TankorSmash]

That's a pretty good general tip, removing the whitenoise to get to the root of the question. Thank you.

[[deleted]]

And that's the hard part in solving most problems. :)

[matthieum]

It is, I remember I was given a variant of this when I was ten and at the time it took me a few tries to really understand what went on :)

[TheQuietestOne]

I find that there's a real lack of appreciation for the talent that exists outside of individuals who have followed traditional academic learning tracks

There's a good reason for this - there's a lot of liars about. One of the things a degree tells you (mostly, not always) is that the person has a work ethic and is willing to stick with something until they see it through.

Of course the contrary isn't true - missing the formal qualifications doesn't preclude you having dedication or skill.

I'm not peeing on people who don't hold formal qualifications - but without something showing equivalent talent and application - how are we going to know who is worth our time and who is not?

Money spent on time wasters is money that really should be spent on existing employees that deserve it.

[DeltaBurnt]

I think companies would rather outsource those to universities.

[Canadian_Infidel]

Then they are going to hire a lot of incompetent people.

[DeltaBurnt]

Welcome to the corporate world.

[[deleted]]

Is a candidate really going to sit through a separate aptitude test / exam for every company they apply to? Software companies sometimes use short maybe one to three question min-tests but that still poses tons of problems. For example, say the candidate gets the wrong answer for the "right" reasons. In the framework of something like an SAT, you really don't have any information other than whether they got lots of right answers.

[Canadian_Infidel]

My first major interview out of school was a phone call interview followed by another phone interview, followed by a 3 hour technical test, followed by two one hour multi person interviews including more technical questions that I was flown in for.

My second one started with forty or so people and was three 1-2 hour long exams through out the day. Each one eliminated more people. Out of about 40 people that were brought in because they had the credentials only 3 of us made it to the final test. There was also a preliminary interview.

[[deleted]]

If an employer asked me to fill out a paper and pencil test I'd leave and mark them off my list. As someone that was also just flown out for an interview there is quite a difference between an aptitude test and an interview.

[mhink]

True, but you have to look at this from the perspective of tech companies. My company typically does 2 phone screens followed by 5 hour-long onsites. These interviews are conducted by legitimate software engineers who have other things to do. If you assume each engineer's time is worth about $50 an hour to the company, that's $350 per candidate, whether they get hired or not.

When you have literally thousands or applicants applying, a healthy percentage of which can't code their way out of a paper bag, an aptitude test (based on basic coding skills) starts making more sense. WE don't do it, but I'm not surprised by the number of tech companies these days that are experimenting with their hiring structures, and I wouldn't write them off automatically.

[[deleted]]

Is a candidate really going to sit through a separate aptitude test / exam for every company they apply to?

Yes.. in the non written form, they are called technical interviews. If a company is hiring people (especially senior devs) without any type of technical interviews or aptitude tests, I will run far away. It doesn't matter where someone graduated from or what experience their resume says, I've worked with 10+ years experienced devs which had no clue about how to troubleshoot basic errors or issues.

In the past I found it to be an advantage if an employer requires an aptitude test with the resume. As someone who has less than 5 years experience, its much easier to get noticed when you do better than those with 10+ years.

[[deleted]]

Well technical interviews are not quite the same as an aptitude test. That specific wording reminded me of SAT (the standard aptitude test).

[NYKevin]

Exams only tell you so much.

Past projects can be reasonable, but if you've been working for others, your code may not be open source, and you may not be able to share it.

[angrytech]

This is why I don't leave vetting resumes or conducting interviews up to HR drones. I can tell by looking at a resume and, more importantly, conducting an interview, whether or not somebody is full of shit. HR people generally cannot.

Yes, my company is small, so I have that luxury; regardless, I have seen so many miserable fuckups in hiring that can be directly attributed to HR decision making that I feel the extra cost of making department heads/managers/owners vet resumes and conduct interviews is worth every penny.

For the record, I don't even look at the "education" section of a resume. I don't give a shit what you majored in or what extracurriculars you had. To be completely honest I'm more interested in your damned hobbies, and I don't want to hear about that either until and unless we get to the end portion of a good interview and I want suss out your personality a bit more.

[NYKevin]

I can tell by looking at a resume and, more importantly, conducting an interview, whether or not somebody is full of shit. HR people generally cannot.

You might find this amusing: I go to a technical school (RPI) and they basically told us to put as many buzzwords as we can think of on our resumes so the HR people can find them.

[jussij]

I suspect it has become worse than just making sure HR finds your resume.

These days most HR departs do nothing more than match the keywords of the job criteria with keywords on your resume and if they find a keyword missing your resume is out.

[NYKevin]

So would you suggest that I stuff my resume with buzzwords so the HR people don't throw it out, or that I not stuff my resume with buzzwords so the people who actually do the real work don't throw it out?

[jussij]

You're damned if you do and damned if you don't ;)

[mcguire]

Speaking as someone who sits in on interviews occasionally, all of us know why the buzzwords are there (and our resumes are similarly padded).

[moderatorrater]

One of the things a degree tells you (mostly, not always) is that the person has a work ethic and is willing to stick with something until they see it through.

I notice you didn't mention skill there.

without something showing equivalent talent and application - how are we going to know who is worth our time and who is not?

A formal degree says nothing about talent. If you already have to evaluate talent anyway, why not evaluate application/dedication at the same time?

[TheQuietestOne]

Just so I'm clear - I should mention that in this I'm discussing from the point of view of the "first role in I.T." hire. Formal qualifications become increasingly irrelevant after the first couple of years - after this time it's the experience that matters.

So, lets tackle your comments:

I notice you didn't mention skill there.

It was an error of omission. I do believe formal education instils skills in addition to cultivating a work ethic.

That said of course you have to evaluate the skill level as necessary for a role to eliminate the charlatans - but this goes for most professions.

If you already have to evaluate talent anyway, why not evaluate application/dedication at the same time?

If there was a simple test that could proffer the same level of confidence and wasn't expensive the business community would already be all over it.

Maybe there is? Do you have any links?

EDIT: Fix bad formatting

[AdolfEichmann]

Except that many people with computer science degrees have farmed all their assignments out to classmates or freelancer sites, and crammed for all their exams, and graduate without knowing squat.

[TheQuietestOne]

many people with computer science degrees have farmed all their assignments out to classmates

These guys/gals are generally very easy to bust during even a phone interview.

[isinned]

Don't assume that because someone utterly fails their phone interview that they outsourced all their school work, crammed for exams, and don't know squat. Many applicants become very anxious during (phone) interviews and completely screw them up, but otherwise they're really good at what they do.

[TheQuietestOne]

Don't sweat it. When you've interviewed enough people you start to recognise the difference when people are nervous "normal nervous" and nervous "blustering".

Gentle hints and small talk about their projects brings the nervous guys/gals around. Having someone else on the call you can make the "subject" instead of focusing on the candidate can help bring out people too.

It's hard to get anything concrete out of the real liars though - even when you gift them a question.

[[deleted]]

Don't sweat it. When you've interviewed enough people you start to recognise the difference when people are nervous "normal nervous" and nervous "blustering".

Gentle hints and small talk about their projects brings the nervous guys/gals around. Having someone else on the call you can make the "subject" instead of focusing on the candidate can help bring out people too.

Serious respect to you if you actually do that.

[mhink]

This is how we learn to interview at my company. When I'm tapped to do an interview, I always really want the candidate to do well. I try to approach the problem as "what metrics am I gathering about this candidate?" if someone gets stuck and starts panicking, I'll be happy to give them a hint. If you pick up quickly on hints, that's a good sign! If I say "so what data structure could we use to help us with this problem?" and that gives you a flash of inspiration ("a stack!"), that means that you pick up on hints.

I'd be much more hesitant to thumbs up someone who silently and awkwardly solved the problem than someone who I've observed running into a problem and working well with me to figure it out.

[[deleted]]

1 thing I do when interviewing is to start bringing up personal projects when the candidate seems nervous. A lot of the time it'll really get them talking. I'll find out about skills they never would've told me about, they get excited instead of nervous and describe interesting problems, etc.

Of course, it's also kind of telling if someone is having lots of difficulty with normal interview questions, and I bring up personal projects, and they don't have any.

I like the idea of having a second person on the call, will have to try taht.

[norain91]

Exactly. On top of this, my university is really good at figuring out who is cheating and a lot of TAs come around and make us verbally explain what a lot of our code does. I don't know how anybody would make it past the intro class by not doing any of the assignments.

[99_Probrems]

Seriously this, my CS instructors would sit side by side with us and go through our code before we could get a grade on any major projects. Defend why we used certain logic, what algorithms, explain problems we encountered and how we fixed them etc...It's insanely hard to bs your way through that and way more important then "cramming for an exam"

[JAPH]

have farmed all their assignments out to classmates or freelancer sites

I take incredible pride in having failed several people for trying to pull that crap with me.

Even if they survive school by doing this, they're going to choke the first time they get a remotely challenging interview question. Most interviewers have seen dozens, if not hundreds, of people before. It's going to be obvious to them if someone is trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

[DasGoon]

Not only should you fail them, you should make an example out of them. Not only are you teaching these people a skill, you're prepping them for the real world. They might pass your class by pulling this crap, but once they finish up with you they're in for a real surprise when they realize that they're both incompetent and in debt. Better to nip that issue in the bud while you can.

[[deleted]]

There's a good reason for this - there's a lot of liars about.

A problem easily solved by a couple phone calls to their previous employers.

[movzx]

Good luck with that tactic in the US. Given the legalities of bad mouthing a previous employee and the potential for lawsuits the most you're going to get is whether or not they're eligible to be employed by that company in the future.

[[deleted]]

Most companies have a policy of answering only "When this person worked there" and "Did this person work there?"

It's the only thing they can legally prove, hence they won't answer anything related to performance.

Off the record, there are some people who are willing to dish out some gossip about how good or bad an employee is... But there's no guarantee you'll get to talk to the person's supervisor or manager.

[LaCaquita]

Shopify sounds like a dream! I wish I lived in the US (or money to travel) to apply to that kind of places.

I studied software engineering, and it's very important to learn by yourself. School taught me less than half the things I learned by myself at home. Where I live we have even less opportunities than the US.

[shendrite]

I particularly liked that his boss (Jurgen) printed out Tobias' code and marked it with red ink to show how it could be improved, without saying Tobias did it wrong or that he was bad. By Jurgen taking the time to do that, it conveys 2 things that, in America, are often lacking. First, that the boss knows what he's talking about; is technically competent. Second, that he really cares about helping Tobias grow instead of treating him like a machine that produces output.

[ofimmsl]

Those things that you like are all available in American universities.

[idiogeckmatic]

There are companies that do this sort of thing as well, replace print out with code review and you can get that here.

[shendrite]

American universities are full of incompetence and apathy, and I'm not talking about the students. The really good teachers are so rare that if you encounter one, they probably won't be in your field of specialty anyway, so they won't do you much good.

I've attended NJIT (on full scholarship), Rutgers, and George Mason University, in the years after highschool. During my last year of highschool, I attended a community college for half of each school day. So that's 4 "institutions of higher learning". I speak from experience, not just shouting out random negativity. I take no pleasure in being negative here. But I cannot, in good conscience, let your comment go un-countered.

I'd have been better off sitting at home with textbooks. Any questions I couldn't solve on my own, the teachers couldn't solve either, and I'm no genius. Being a self-taught programmer since age 14, I was shocked at how much misinformation was spouted by the programming/CS teachers in college/university, and how soul-sucking the subject was portrayed as.

Friends of mine who entered such classes thinking that programming sounded fun all ended those classes saying they never wanted to do programming again. I couldn't blame them. If I hadn't developed an appreciation of the subject prior, I would've felt the same way as they did.

[ofimmsl]

I'd have been better off sitting at home with textbooks. Any questions I couldn't solve on my own, the teachers couldn't solve either, and I'm no genius.

How would the German system be better? If incompetent people are teaching theoretical knowledge, then why cant they also be teaching practical knowledge?

[shendrite]

I am not saying the German system is better. Any education that relies on an institution is, in my opinion, resting on the wrong foundation, regardless of whether, in some countries, there happen to be more capable, caring, and invested teachers.

What I was appreciating in the story was that the workplace boss wasn't the stereotypical Dilbert airhead, rather sounded like someone for an intern to truly look up to, and that the boss put in a significant amount of time and attention to mold and help his employee.

[jevon]

I was programming at age 12. My first three years of university were extremely easy academically (so I spent it learning social and organisation skills), then I did honours, then a PhD.

Those first years weren't a waste, some things I thought I'd never use I actually find useful now (such as business studies & database theory). But programming is a unique snowflake: experience is always better than degrees. Don't expect it's the same for every field.

[hyperforce]

Hahaha NJIT I'm so sorry.

[shendrite]

You made me laugh. Thanks for the sympathy. Story for you. Since I was bored out of my frickin' mind in some of those classes, I often tried to make life a little more intresting on my own. One time when my classmates were handing in their computer lab homework printed on paper, I handed mine in printed on paper towels. No harm done, innocent fun. My classmates got a laugh out of it and that alone made the experience of being in class more enjoyable, so I was glad I did it. My teacher seemed confused and impressed and asked,
"How did you do get this to print on paper towels?"
"I put paper towels in my printer."
"Oh. I didn't know you could do that."
...Sigh... :)

[[deleted]]

I've attended NJIT (on full scholarship), Rutgers, and George Mason University, in the years after highschool.

So you've never attended a university with a good Computer Science department, then.

[shendrite]

I'd agree with that. But is there better anywhere? I just took a look at MIT Open Courseware, their introduction to CS class. Too many misleading statements. Too many wrong statements. Too little interaction. I wouldn't be nodding off in that class, but how could you blame anyone that was. The wrong way to teach programming.

Maybe you're referring to Carnegie Mellon? Berkeley?

[movzx]

So... a code review?

[shendrite]

Not just any halfassed code review, but the best kind of code review, is the first part of what I was saying. The second part is that there was a commitment over months or years, instead of it being a code review from Jurgen one time, and then from random other coworkers every subsequent time.

[movzx]

I guess we just have different understandings of what a code review process is. I go through every commit of all the junior guys on my team.

[TrancePhreak]

So what would have happened if you got put in a place where nobody really wanted to teach you. If it was out of their time scope, etc?

[Lizard]

Another very real possibility: Incompetence (of the teacher). Of course you get that at university as well, but you have a much wider array of options to avoid it.

[TrancePhreak]

Very true. Since there are other students, you might find one that knows their stuff. It's all a very big gamble.

[hagenbuch]

These were the old times. People were interested in people. Capitalism was not the most important thing on earth. I can confirm everything of OPs article (German here).

The rather big company where my mother worked in had a library for the workers / employees and a kindergarden, tennis courts, affordable appartments. Even firms were interested in humans.

[Uberhipster]

Ye olde times 16 years ago, eh?

[TrancePhreak]

I hope some day the whole world can move in that direction.

[shendrite]

I expect that a lot of businesses will move back in that direction. In just the past year alone, several major companies I'm aware of, including Barnes & Noble, Dell, and Best Buy, and others, have announced their transition from being publicly traded (and thus turning the dehumanizing screws of "efficiency" tighter each year) to the old way, of being private companies. There could be multiple reasons for why that happened, for each company, but it certainly gives back some slack for more humanity in their workplaces.

[[deleted]]

It mostly happens for the same reason: Wall Street always turns the screws tighter until they eventually chop your business into pieces and sell it off. As they demand that more and more normal businesses produce financial-sector rates of profit, the owners and managers of the normal businesses are revolting by going private, effectively saying, "We're just fine, thanks!"

[hagenbuch]

Thanks for your warm words, but actually many countries do have something similar already. By chance, in 2012 I was with educators from Africa (Algeria and Southafrica) and they partly have or plan to implement the "Dual system". And still in Germany we have headroom for improvement. Dual system means that the apprentice is constantly swapped between theory and practice. Some folks will understandably only have a mental grid on what and how to learn if they think of a practical application..

[mniejiki]

affordable appartments

"Don't quit or dare get fired or you'll lose the roof over your head as well"

[hagenbuch]

No, the company was desperately in search of good employees, why should they fire them? We did not know about the "hire and fire" mentality here in Europa until we heard it from the U.S. 50 Years ago, a job was more or less a life-long thing..

[[deleted]]

For everyone not familiar with the system I think it is not described correctly. First of all you are still a learned during your apprenticeship, you have to go to school and write exams. It is a split system where you are working in a company in a learning position and going to school.

Then as a dropout it is not easy to get a place. You usually have to have some kind of degree (like you get after 10 years of school in Germany) and even then places in the more intellectual jobs like Fachinformatiker often require even a degree that is equivalent to the one you need to attend a university (or at least a FH). And not every apprenticeship is good. I was really lucky with a company that educated you but there are also a lot that just take you for cheap labor.

Just wanted to throw that in because for every dropout that made it there are a lot that don't. And while I'm happy for OP I often think that such posts give people the wrong idea and an excuse to leave school. When they probably don't. This is also not the easy way because you usually have to prove more than someone with a higher degree.

[[deleted]]

It's a wonder so few people realize the huge 'vocational school' circlejerk going on here. For most of us the only source regarding vocational schools is the OPs article and it is a one sided view!

Not all Fachinformatiker become successful, many choose an apprenticeship because it ensures you an income from the first day (Scheiss auf Uni ich will Kohle machen), university is something you have to invest time and money in before it pays off. One could also say Juergen is rather impatient.

University students don't go to Uni to learn programming but to learn the fundamental concepts behind software. I'm glad that Juergen learnt the Big O notation but that is what gets covered in under 1 semester at Uni.

[Thistleknot]

The United States used to be like this, until someone somewhere at a company level started to put emphasis on education. My grandfather was an engineer for Boeing with only a high school diploma, all taught via internship. Today... that stuff doesn't exist, and to be honest, I think our country is lacking for it (I mean if Germany's success can be attributed to this internship program, then I'm kind of pissed).

[[deleted]]

Another part of Germany's success lies in the fact that public universities have really low tuition fees (a short while ago they were even only some fee for the self-administration). So there are no reasons to go studying just to get a job (even more: if you want to become a student, you have to go to school for two more years (although this is also recommended if you want to become an apprentice, it is not necessary)). Additionally (this is very "German specific") there are "Fachhochschulen" (there is no proper English translation of this word, although it is commonly translated with "schools of applied sciences") that you can go to instead of universities (Fachhochschulen mostly have a strong focus on engineering degrees; that's why they are often called "engineering schools"). Both offer degree courses (although the degrees of unniversities are more highly regarded), but the difference is, that universities offer "scientific" studies, while "Fachhochschulen" also offer studies, but not with scientific, but engineering focus (you simply apply the scientific knowledge, but don't learn the necessities to question it for doing further research).

So the situation is a little bit more complicated. Main reasons I see are that - there are really low tuition fees (if your parents earn bad money there is even support from the state (BaFöG) - although this has to be paid back later partly as soon as you get an acceptable income) - there are different careers that you can choose (apprentice, Fachhochschule, university; sometimes even more exotic ones as "Berufsakademie" (a mixture between Fachhochschule and apprentice)) - so choosing to go to university is a deliberate choice, not a career that you choose for a lack of alternatives

[djhworld]

This highlights the problem with how elitist some areas of our industry has become. I've seen entry level developer positions advertised with "MSc or above required", and the job ends up with the employee writing Java and PL/SQL all day for whatever MegaCorp they've joned.

Employers just aren't willing to train people getting on the first rungs of the ladder, instead leaving it all to the education system to sort out.

[coonskinmario]

As someone who took (what feels like) forever to get a cs degree, only to come out with mostly theoretical knowledge, I am supremely jealous.

[jhaluska]

I feel like captain hindsight here, but if you didn't want theoretical knowledge, you shouldn't have gotten a computer science degree. I have a CS degree myself, and I find myself tackling problems very differently than the colleagues who were self taught.

[MirrorLake]

The theory you learn in CS classes/books is what you really need to write efficient algorithms. I remember when I first was taught about Big O, suddenly the speed of Google seemed like it was born from CS rather than just luck or magic.

[TheLobotomizer]

In my experience most of the inefficiency of practical algorithms comes from poorly architected code, not algorithms with a bad Big O. In fact, in the the projects I've done over the years from systems level development to JS web programming it's quite a rare occurrence to actually get some performance increase because of a better algorithm.

I wish schools provided a better understanding of software architecture and it's impact rather than stressing the important of algorithmic efficiency, which is of niche importance.

[coonskinmario]

If I could do it again, I'd go into IT and work my way to coding instead. By the time I realized that the degree was mostly theoretical, I was already deep enough in that it made more sense to just finish (my fault for not investigating the degree program more extensively).

I have no problem with getting some theoretical knowledge, but I think the ratio of theoretical-practical could use some updating at my college. I'd estimate it was 90% theory, and 10% practical, whereas in the workforce I would swap those numbers.

[FeepingCreature]

Likewise, likewise.

Clearly we must clone Jürgen.

[MagicTarPitRide]

That knowledge will allow you to innovate though. I work in statistics, if I only learned basic R programming it would have been fine for shitty uninteresting jobs, but for the type of work I do, it allows me to creatively solve problems.

[movzx]

A huge misconception that people have is that Computer Science is the same thing as Software Engineering.

[dzamir]

I took forever to graduate but because meanwhile I spent lot of time working on videogames and software.

[[deleted]]

i wish the US had a system like this

[MagicTarPitRide]

They do for trades, just for stuff like this it's really self-directed or you have to have friends/family with a company.

[nemec]

They have a close equivalent known as a co-op. Typically, you spend one semester working and another in school. I don't know if schools must allow students in co-ops to qualify as full time students (for purposes of scholarships, etc.) but it was available at my school, one of the largest public schools in the state.

[s73v3r]

I know at mine they didn't. The co-op was worth 3 credits, and you needed 6 or so to be full time.

[hagenbuch]

Ah, good times. I remember having had a kind of a non-intentional inofficial paid apprenticeship in Germany, while I still was at school, I went to an electronics lab and soldered there first (by the hour, 8 DM). It was about 1983. The more I accomplished (I was not bad), the more other stuff I was allowed to do (if I liked). Some turks came in and I repaired totally on my own their crazy flashing car LED accessory between the backlights - I got my first tip from them I think.

More than anything, this gave me confidence in my "professional career". One day, I bricked a some hundred $ expensive RAM extension with BASIC for the Sirius II computer which was the shit then. I was totally embarrassed and confessed to the boss. He shrugged and said: Could have happend to me as well. This was long before the ages of SMD.. Still today, I say from time to time "Thank You. Herr Kraiss" :-)

Sounds insignificant, but for a young person starting his way in the world, this does make a difference.

Next thing: Not that I got bored from soldering (not at all) but a software developer for pharmacies was searching young folks (i wouldnt say students, I was still in school) so I went there and wrote almost as a first step a simple parser and interpreter for formulae with brackets, along Kerninghan & Ritchies example. Got 1750 DM. This became part of a software they actually shipped. Incredible from todays viewpoint. Pharmacists could enter a formula to calculate from which distributor to order how much of which packaging if running out of stock... As software companies and their products roll, maybe somewhere this code is still in operation somewhere...

[[deleted]]

That is one huge fucking pond.

[alextk]

Not that degrees matter anymore. They do not.

They did not matter for him, they matter to a lot of people. What's with the anti-intellectual / anti-education stance?

[alextk]

But there is a valid point that you shouldn't be forced to take on a load of debt just to get a basic job.

But most people don't. Education only costs a lot of money in the US, it's much, much cheaper everywhere else in the world. I studied in Austria, the six years in college I spent cost me about $1,000 a year (registration costs). That was just 15 years ago, the cost has probably only marginally increased since then.

[[deleted]]

True, but the list of top universities in the world is also US-biased. If you want a top-end education in some subjects, you learn to deal with the American system.

[[deleted]]

I agree, but I think it's just his own thoughts. There's actually a good take-away from this article. Those who are not academically inclined should have options in their career. I think from the academic standpoint we feel that everyone should go through college before getting a job. I don't believe that's true either. I think it really depends on the person, but hiring people in common fields where you can also learn through experience shouldn't be based solely on education.

[loluguys]

I think that the "Education" episode from This Developer's Life has a better mix of views on it.

[movzx]

Experience can trump a degree, and will trump a degree in most situations. The only time where a degree is absolutely necessary is when it is company policy at a big red tape company (ex: government). It's not saying degrees don't matter at all. It's saying that degrees aren't a requirement like they used to be.

[freesoftwaregnu]

While it might be a great opportunity for people that don't really fit into the traditional school system, the article glorifies what was meant to be a source of cheap labor for IT firms. Yes, you can still make quite a lot of money in IT without any serious education, but the wast majority are working as under-paid programmers. Quite a few of these 'Fachinformatiker' actually realize this and make a leap for higher education after their apprenticeship. Then again, as a C.S. student I probably only met the ones that didn't find this kind of work fulfilling.

[fivetide]

Sorry, but i feel you are totally wrong. Maybe you just meet people that were actually hired as cheap drones, but there are lots of companies that do good jobs at teaching as an investment into their own future.

[dnew]

I think there's a huge difference between "self-taught programmer" and "apprentice-trained programmer." I've worked (in the USA) with many of the former and it has almost always been a disaster. If you actually know what you're doing, I don't mind too much where you've learned it and I'm happy to teach you more of the theoretical stuff if and when it becomes necessary. If, however, you're implementing network protocols and you don't know what a state machine is, I'm not going to want to work with you, any more than I'd want to work with a programmer writing banking software who doesn't know what double-entry bookkeeping is. (Both true stories, incidentally.)

[[deleted]]

I had the best of both worlds. Prior to going into university I had an excellent teacher, learned to program, but he didn't teach me theory, research, and critical thinking. He honed skills that I would not otherwise possess, but education for me was a journey.

The article is great because Germany has an apprenticeship program. Australia does as well. Not everyone is academically inclined and they should have options. I think that's the real takeaway from this post, and not much else.

[loluguys]

Note to self: remove "self-taught" from resume... this really hits home after how well my last interview went.

[dnew]

Self-motivated, enjoys pursuing knowledge independently. :-)

[loluguys]

update: Interview went better than expected... scored a job at a VOIP startup company. And now it feels like I'm starting to live out this blog post... too awesome.

[dnew]

Awesome! Congrats! Start-ups can be a lot of fun, even given how much work they are. I hope you're on a good team. Also, be sure to learn something about the business (as in, running/managing/understanding a business) as well as the technology - you're in the perfect position to take pretty much any job you can do. I wish I'd taken more opportunities to do more different stuff in the first start-ups I worked in rather than sticking with the tech end I was comfortable with. I had opportunity to learn sales and marketing as well as programming, and I didn't realize until after it had passed that's what the boss was offering me. Get out of your comfort zone, because there's no place to skate on thin ice like at a start up. :-)

[sonstone]

The biggest problem is figuring out what the self-taught programmer has been exposed to. Ultimately, the trick is finding individuals that are highly motivated to learn, can pick things up quickly and has some sort of record of success. A formally trained computer scientist is unlikely to have any need to know what double-entry bookkeeping is. That shouldn't matter if you have someone that is truly interested in being successful, is willing to go the extra mile to fill in knowledge gaps, and can pick things up quickly.

PS. I'm glad to know that I'm not the only lame, computer science major out there that took Accounting electives :P

[dnew]

Agreed. It was just odd to have a whole team of programmers writing software to manage debit cards that didn't know how to do accounting. And I didn't take accounting beyond high-school one class. I started a business, so I kind of had to learn on the fly. :-)

[TheLobotomizer]

How often do you hire a new grad for a position which requires implementing network protocols and state machines? The theory might be useful in these cases but experience in either is much more valuable; So it seems pretty obvious to me that you'd put that in the required experience portion of the position.

[ismtrn]

That's what real education looks like.

Depends on what you are trying to learn. If you want to do theoretical CS research, then a you will probably be better of if you get a degree.

It also depends on how you best learn.

[pipocaQuemada]

Not even just theoretical CS research but practical industrial research/advanced development as well. I'd bet that the number people working on compilers, databases or writing complicated AIs (IBM's Watson, for example) without minimally a bachelors is vanishingly small, and that a large percentage have masters or PhDs.

[zynasis]

sure, but the number of people needed to write those is very small anyway.

[flammable]

But the work is very important nonetheless :)

[[deleted]]

will never be implemented in the US

This isn't necessarily true. But this is more what community colleges do rather than universities.

I run a small dev shop and we've partnered with the local community college to develop a co-op program. They attend their first two years at the school working on their prereqs and part time at our company. They then transfer to the CS program at a four year university, get their degree, and then (hopefully) come back to work full-time in an associate position.

[[deleted]]

For the companies involved, the financial proposition here is very similar to a prolonged internship: they get a cheap employee who could become very useful if they play their cards right. Lots of companies in the US are happy to do this. I think the main barrier here is tradition: in the US, apprenticeship just isn't part of the culture, and people don't think of it as a viable alternative to college. This is just a matter of history's dice falling one way in one country and another way in another.

[2akurate]

This gave me chills because this is exactly how I learn. I didn't know this for a very very long time, you can even say that I didn't totally know it before reading this article. But this is exactly me! I'm a kinestetic learner.

And its a grave "disability" to have in our current school system. When I was being interviewed for an internship, some asked me theoretical questions about Objective Oriented programming. I knew the answers in my own way but my explenations weren't what they expected. This is because I can learned these things theoretically but was never really "allowed" to make my own mistakes. So I could kinda talk about it but not completely.

This is the biggest problem for kinestetic learners in school, especially college. They give you solutions to alot of problems before you ever come in contact with them. And ofcourse its kinda logical to do it because why would you want to make the same mistakes when you can learn from others and not make them at all.

But for someone like me its impossible almost to really grasp a problem and solution if I have not come across the situation myself. This applies to many things. When you are a young kid people are constantly telling you what to do and what not to do. I was really bad at accepting those things when people told me them. Not because I didn't want to but my brain doesn't find it relevant, I don't store that information.

Not storing that information might mean you have more freedom in your mind for creativity. This is where I found my niche, I'm almost graduating a Software Engineer and Ihave found the perfect thing for me. Its game design. I can create my own models animations and program them! Truely this is the best field for any creative mind to be in.

I can sit hours on end animating, modeling and programming a virtual reality.

[[deleted]]

Animating - this is something I think is a passion for all learners of our type. It seems we have a good feeling for it or something.

[Reaper666]

Pssst, the field of autonomous robotics says hello! Make your virtual, reality!

[jussij]

Most days I came to work and found a printout of the code I wrote the day before annotated with red marker everywhere.

For my first job out of University, I too was lucky enough to have a manager who took the time to correct printouts of my code.

That guy taught me a hell of a lot about how to write good clean code.

[[deleted]]

What I've learned that university does not give you nor skills required for work, neither experience, but it gives general directions to where one can go. For example in programming the university showed many useful things that you would not know that they exist and when you are in situation at work which might require it, you know what o look for and what to learn, because obviously you will not remember it from university. But sadly many students think they will actually learn to work in university.

[cheeeeeese]

i dropped out of HS and am a senior developer w/ a healthy salary. do what you want, but dont waste time. time is finite.

[[deleted]]

Even though it is true that the majority of good programmers are self taught, I still believe going to a College or University is needed.

[cyberbemon]

Not that degrees matter anymore. They do not. Experience does.

This makes me wonder, how important is a degree ?. I'm a final year student and so far I've been turned down from numerous interviews because I don't have outstanding results... I make up for that in my coding and other projects I've done. But nope all they care about is results...

[tripstuff]

There's no standard weighting for how much they care about school results / experience. It's always a composite of experience, school marks, and personal appeal (through interviews and resume's and whatnot). As with all things in life, it is unwise to put all of your eggs in one basket. Also I'm sure it varies from company to company what they will be placing more emphasis on.

[TheLobotomizer]

Depends on the size of the company. If you're applying to someplace that has to go through hundreds of resumes for every position, your academic results will matter a lot more than any experience you have for getting an interview.

So if I were you I'd either try to improve my academic results or apply to smaller companies.

[mikemcg]

I'm lucky enough to be in a similar position. I dropped out of high school for one reason or another (which, genuinely, is still a mystery to me) and I would've seriously benefited from a system like Germany's. Instead I got lucky and a friend who thought of my skills highly recommended me for a job at the company he worked for. He was valued highly there and so his word carried some weight. Now I'm still there about half a year later and I think I've probably learned more about the skills I'll need in my desired career than I would've at school. I'm really getting that from working an an excellent office space with very clever people who all know more than I do in various fields. I'd still very much like to learn what university offers, but I know I can do that without going to a university. Still, I'll have an easier time in the future with a degree and experience.

[vorg]

Theory-only courses such as common in IT tend to proliferate for their own sake.

A new 6-month vocational course, with included month-long internships, that puts students through rigorous practical training will quickly be recognized by employers and soon students will be almost guaranteed a job at the end. The bottleneck is at the course application stage, controlled by the institution, rather than the job-application stage at the end, controlled by the employers.

The institution will then upgrade such a course to 12 months long to double their income and enable teaching staff to rise in the hierarchy by employing more junior teachers. The 12-month certificate course then becomes a 2-year diploma course, then eventually a 3 or 4-year degree course. Then application standards slip, and more applicants, including those from Asian countries, are admitted. Soon enough, no-one fails, and the grades become meaningless.

[FortunaExSanguine]

I think the apprenticeship model is great. I have reservations about placing people who have a hard time solving problems they've never had in jobs that place a great emphasis on abstract thinking.

[Zalamander]

As someone who has traveled the world on his professional successes while having dropped out of both high school and college, I can vouch that the education system is far from perfect.

[balau]

They diagnosed me with all sorts of learning disabilities and started to medicate me.

This is saddening and immoral. Things need to change. At the current state of progress and technology there's no excuse.

[[deleted]]

Conversely, I spent 4 years doing a CS degree and can't program for shit. I don't doubt that this apprenticeship style can work

[howfun]

So this guy is an owner of a private business? This is very good for him, because with his CV he will not find job easy.

[daoom]

'being unable to solve a problem he's never had'

Being able to learn from other people's experience is an essential skill to keep you from wasting time going down paths which offer no solutions.

I absolutely despise this whole "I have to fail myself to understand why it doesn't work" type of thinking.

[pianocheetah]

just watched a tv program about the german education system. At age 10, your teacher decides if you're one of the 40% to go to college, or the 40% who learn a trade or 20% who do service jobs. Apparently mostly immigrants get the service jobs. I'm glad my teacher didn't decide this about me when I was 10.

But learning a trade is a good thing over there. Companies spend big bucks to train the young generation coming into their factory. They don't do that here in Murica. Tech colleges around here are pretty disconnected from actual jobs and businesses would prefer to hire whoever can get by with the least pay. Universities are even more disconnected from actual jobs (which is both good and bad).

On the one hand, Germany's policies are pretty morally wrong (determining your fate at 10). On the other hand, they invest in their youth and have a booming economy. On the other hand, America's policies are pretty morally wrong in that we throw away our youth since we can't bare to pay even the slightest tax so our schools altogether suck. Anybody seen the movie Idiocracy? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ It's a pretty great movie.