Did you ever suggest your kids should seek degrees that would offer better paying jobs?

Nope. But if he did have a son, I’m quite certain there would have been some sort of restriction, but not for the same reason. I’m sure the MBA or anything associated with high pay would be acceptable.

It is relatively common for software engineer interviews to include some Leetcode style questions within the many technical interviews. While there is a cognitive ability component to solving/coding technical interview questions, this is by no means a simply a substitute for an IQ test. Unlike an IQ test, there is an emphasis on previous learned knowledge – testing technical skill set, which may involve things like knowledge of linked lists, hash tables, data structures, coding in specific languages, etc. Questions are often targeted to the specific skill set required for the job position and/or specific skills listed on resume, particularly at smaller companies. In addition to multiple technical interviews, successful applicants usually also have non-technical interview(s), focusing on things like team/cultural fit.

For example, thousands of persons on Glassdoor lists interview experiences at Google. The first response describes his 5 technical interviews as follows. He was interviewing for an entry level SW engineer at the Mountain View location, received an offer, and accepted it.

Interview 1:
Graph related question and super recursion

Interview 2:
Design discussion involving a distributed system with writes/reads going on at different sites in parallel.

Interview 3:
Array and Tree related questions

Interview 4:
Designing a simple class to do something. Not hard, but not easy either. You need to know basic data structures very well to consider different designs and trade-offs.

Interview 5:
Dynamic programming,
Computer architecture and low level perf. enhancement question which requires knowledge of Trees, binary search, etc.

I’d expect many applicants could be successful in the this type of entry level technical interview stage with having only taken small handful of CS classes, rather than a full 4-year college degree with CS major. While information learned in higher level classes may not frequently come up in entry level technical interviews, it can still be relevant for getting job offers/interview or generally being successful on the job. For example, an employee may have more potential for advancement, if they understand more of the technical theory discussed in meetings and can be more involved in design and problem solving, rather than just being good at basic coding. There is a lot of variation depending on how relevant the specific specialized classes relate to the specific job position. This often becomes more relevant when hiring students with grad degrees or students with significant work experience for more specialized roles, rather than entry level positions.

I have been in banking most of my career and D1 has been responsible for her firm’s analyst and associate programs. I am not aware that anyone could be hired as a number cruncher without an UG degree. To be more specific, most of them are from top tier schools. Some firms used to be very strict about not promoting anyone to be an associate without a MBA degree, but they have relaxed that requirement quite a bit.

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When I said quant finance, I didn’t mean a bank. I meant specifically quant firms. And I have heard of a few isolated cases. Most of the time kids go back from an internship to finish the UG. But at some firms they let you in right away if you want to, but they discourage it for your own sake …

What are quant firms? Can you be more specific. I work with a lot of data scientists and data engineers across different industries. A lot of them have PhD.

I heard about this in the context of Jane Street, a market making firm. The reason they can probably do this is because (most of) the employees are not client facing. No need for the credentialing. I would not be surprised if there are a few other firms in that industry that are the same way. This is not to say that they don’t hire PhDs. Seemingly the credential is not important to them.

Jane Street is known for this. I can’t be more specific but I know someone (young) who did not finish high school there and joined in last 5 years.

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Is it a PhD or a DPT?

They can work part time with kids (sexist, yes) which is likely the better option for their career than staying home for 15 -18 years. They can work as little as 5 hours a week if they want in order to keep their skills up to date (yes, again this is sexist).

It might be hard to step back into the workforce if they are not part of it for so many years. Companies/employers change, and they want to also keep their skills current. They would need to continue with their licensing requirements.

One person’s sexist is another’s pragmatic.

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This is true! And for the record, I am in one of those fields and did work part time when my kids were little.

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Very true.

Maybe subject of another thread - “Have you pushed your child towards a part-time/flexible schedule profession?”

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I believe they paid for my daughter for a 3 day weekend in NYC, something after high school, my daughter applied because she wanted to be in NYC. At another time, they did interview her. She didn’t graduate from a top tier anything. She said the interview questions were hard.

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I absolutely have told my girls not to feel bad if they stay at home or work part time with kids. It’s important work to raise kids and it is not a waste of their education if they don’t work always. I did 3 days a week when they were little and for me it was the best balance. The girls didn’t chose majors with this in mind, but one has work that can be done remotely. The other’s line of work could be pretty well suited to part time.

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I assume you mean both daughters and sons?

I have one of each and my short answer is “no”. I have never assumed that : 1. My child would have a partner/spouse who could financially support him/her not working full time. 2. My child would want to/be able to have a child/ren and have a spouse/partner to make that possible 3. My child would not be impacted by one of the “Four d’s” - death/divorce/downsizing/disability.

Ironically my D is married to a man with a great job and is as I type this 6 plus months pregnant. But she also has a great job. It’s in the business world (MBA role in Fortune 500 company) but so much has changed in the last several decades. Her department has several parents (moms) of young children in lead roles, it was NBD when she announced her pregnancy, Schedules for everyone are more flexible, work from home is common, company has on site childcare and parental leave/benefits are great. In addition, we live near and can help out. All advantages which I did not have when she was born 30 plus years ago.

YMMV

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Without a doubt, things have improved for some, but there’s a long way to go for the many. I definitely appreciate the progress, but realize that with certain professions, there are privileges that others can’t imagine.

In a circular way this goes back to the original topic. I had said in an earlier post that we’ve talked about “life” with our kids (son and daughter), their whole lives. We didn’t start conversations only when it became college application time. We hoped (guided) our kids would make thoughtful choices, taking as many things into consideration as possible.

There are different variables/demands to consider at every stage of life…some we may be able to control, some we can’t. We left it up to them to figure out what they want to prioritize and where they see “things” going.

Sharing our experiences and viewpoints was not to inflict our will, it was to facilitate thought. I know some who feel parents should leave kids alone and let them learn things for themselves. Right or wrong, that’s not my viewpoint. I lean toward the “we don’t have to reinvent the wheel” camp…in other words we can learn from the experience of others.

Edited to add: I also see how our relationship with our kids is evolving…we don’t talk about life decisions as much. They’re self-supporting young adults now (27&25), who don’t live under our roof or eat meals with us on a regular basis. We wait for them to initiate certain topics.

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Completely agree with this. I would hate for my kids to have to learn the sorts of things I did the hard way. Not when there’s someone around who can point out ways to avoid “reinventing the wheel”.

Now, whether or not they will take advantage of that guidance is indeed their choice. :wink:

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I have only 1 kind of kid, but yes, absolutely equal opportunity.

The girls in my immediate family are very career oriented. Something they’ve inherited from their great grandmother. My grandmother worked full time in a respectable job and retired with a nice pension, she also had 6 kids. Because of this my father had a healthy respect for women in general, even though my mom never worked because of health issues.
I worked all my life while my kids were growing up. Between my husband and I, my kids always had dinner around 6pm, I knew other family didn’t cook and eat dinner until 8-9pm, the kids must be snacking all day.

I find this idea and the idea of limiting your kids career based on your own assumptions to be really narrow and not in the interest of the kid. Let people/kids do what they want and point out the pluses. Help them navigate between possible paths and stop trying to put out crazy assumptions based on what happened 20-30 years ago or what is happening based on 2-3 people you know in your own town.

Some of the posts on this thread make me angry and I’m a pragmatic person who basically thinks you can make a great living in almost any field. IF I told you what our richest friends did, you might be surprised. But I’m not. Most people who are financially successful often do something off the beaten path. For every doctor, banker, etc there are 5 entrepreneurs or researchers or even people in education making much more and forging their own path.
Pushing your kids into a narrow silo of, telling them they need a 4.0 or else or whatever additional factor isn’t going to make for happy careers ( or happy kids for that matter) . Some people will find things which are high paying and high profile on their own ( and that’s fine).

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My S was ranked #2 in his graduating class and he has no interest in studying STEM. He is very interested in the classics, philosophy, ethics, languages, international relations and sustainability. The top 10 kids in his class are all studying humanities or business at the moment.

I think some kids are interested in things they know or are exposed to. We don’t really know any engineers.

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