<p>So educate me- the recruiting advantage goes to the college with higher standards or with lower standards? And the employment benefit goes to the kids who have straight book learnin’ or the kids who’ve been immersed in the case method?</p>
<p>I don’t know what point you are trying to prove here. Except that some companies prefer candidates from college A and other’s from college B; some pedagogues believe that case method/experiential learning is better than classroom teaching and others do not.</p>
<p>Is this your point? Or that there is a nefarious plot by Canadian companies to employ the undereducated?</p>
<p>Some companies view electrical engineering as a great, catch-all kind of major and are happy to recruit kids with those degrees for roles ranging from finance to supply chain management. Other companies only recruit EE’s for engineering roles that rely on the actual course content.</p>
<p>Doesn’t mean that there is a “disadvantage” to studying EE. Just that some companies have different experiences with their EE hires. Some companies prefer to hire kids with pysch degrees for market research roles and other companies prefer someone with a business degree with a market research concentration.</p>
<p>“are highly competitive, but the student body are clearly different. While students can get accepted in school A with no senior math credit at all, no one can be accepted in school B without two senior math credits, one of which has to be calculus.”</p>
<p>Who really cares, though, unless the job actually involves using calculus, which very few jobs do? And I say this as a math major. The fetishization of calculus is insane. Frankly a better understanding of statistics is of far more use to most people. </p>
<p>Wow, I don’t often find this to be true, but PG and I are in complete agreement. The ability to analyze data and reason about probabilities seems much more consequential to daily and business life than calculus. </p>
<p>I think people want to use calculus as a bar for judging something (ability to think mathematically) but, as taught in HS, it doesn’t work as it still pretty formulaic rather than conceptual. The first college course where you do real proofs seems to make a big difference. I have found that people who have never done proofs are likely a lot sloppier in their ability to create compelling logical arguments reasoning from premises to conclusions (this includes lawyers and especially social scientists). </p>
<p>@blossom, I will await the answer but I assume @Canuckguy is saying that that the better technically prepared but less glib folks performs better. I also don’t think there should be an either or dichotomy regarding the relative value of the case method and conventional teaching. Having taught both (including having taught linear regression, linear programming and decision analysis by the case method), both approaches have their place. Lectures are good for helping people build an edifice of thought (how does the plumbing of linear regression work). But they are not so good at helping people figure out how to apply them. The case method is better at teaching people how to formulate the problem and figure out what approach (including linear regression) to apply. What are we trying to learn and how do we best get at that given the complexity of the world. Case method teaching without the fundamental intellectual constructs promotes glibness over intellectual soundness (I’ve definitely seen this effect). Solely studying the intellectual constructs may make people less adept at actual application – or in explaining to others what is needed to solve the underlying business problem and why.</p>
<p>I have certainly seen managers elsewhere about whom we wondered “how did he/she get in to that position”.
Generally, it’s because of one of a few reasons:
The person hiring had little expertise in the field he was hiring for (executive with an accounting background hiring a risk manager, for instance).
Friend/buddy system.
Executive hires/promotes only weak people (and got rid of those more capable). Possibly because he/she feels threatened?</p>
<p>In a highly competitive arena where there are quick feedback cycles, this is not sustainable, but quite a few companies have economic moats/monopoly power and many areas do not have quick feedback cycles (for instance, your mettle as a risk manager is tested only when a crisis comes along, and those are fairly rare events, and you could still be poor and be saved simply because another part of the company is strong).</p>
<p>And in those instances, someone who is forceful and certain in their delivery can gain shockingly high positions despite being deficient in expertise/wisdom (if you’re a man, being tall definitely helps as well; people fall prey to so many unconscious biases).</p>
<p>Follow up: according to the google employees I asked, there are some programmers who are hired without college degrees, after passing several programming tasks and demonstrating their self taught skills, but the number is likely small and of course they have to be competent in the job. </p>
<p>It was also mentioned they they might need a connection or internal employee referral to be considered. </p>
<p>Aren’t there more people who work for Google than just computer programmers, though? I mean, they have to have accounting, and payroll, and benefits, and compensation, and marketing, and market research, and facilities management, and all the rest. </p>
<p>@blossom Both programs require high academic standing and strong EC for admission. The non case program left no stone unturned. Students must present English, calculus, a second math (statistics or algebra), and three additional courses for consideration. While they are willing to look at students with averages as low as 88% or so, the average student admitted has an average of around 93% and strong EC. The university used to mention in the literature that the program has the most “competitive” admission requirements in the nation. According to the recruiter, students from this program perform better on the job. The school uses a mixture of lectures and cases for four years.</p>
<p>The case school admit students after two years of college. I am certain students admitted also have high grades and strong EC. In order to maintain high grades, students generally select courses like a pre-law or pre-med student- avoiding anything (course or instructor) that is hard. Students from this program apparently interview better. This program is all cases, two years straight.</p>
<p>@shawbridge Yes, some faculty member tells his class the senior calculus course is an “invisible sieve”. I think the case school is admitting students that are more limiting. (Not all, of course, but certainly some are). I just think the non case school do a better job of screening applicants, and provide a better all-around business education. Maybe more Canadian companies consider selling or relationship management in their executives more important than hands-on technological expertise? Maybe that plays a role in Canada’s poor private-sector spending on research and development (ranks 27th in the world), and government procurement of advanced technology (48th)?.</p>
<p>Perhaps I should explain a bit more about parenting (for an ever changing job market). I knew I could not predict the future, so there was no point trying to prepare them for specific careers. Instead my advice to them was to maintain diversity of subjects taken for as long as possible. I was always enamoured by Dr. Johnson’s “Renaissance man”. Since it is no longer possible to “”know something about everything and everything about something”, the least I could do is to ensure that they have the basics in place so they are capable of learning “everything and anything”. To me, that means language and math.</p>
<p>I also encouraged my children to get heavy exposure to physical activities. I find too many people have lost touch with their bodies, and some do not even stand or walk efficiently. I am not that big on participating in competitive sports, but activities that focus on teaching the body to move efficiently are a different story. I think I am also influenced by some ancient traditions that think “equally accomplished in military and literary arts” are to be commended. (This should be easier to accomplish than being a Renaissance man, imho).</p>
<p>As long as they were making long term commitments to language, math and physical activities and doing well in the process, the rest of the time was theirs. I believe it is important to have time to ponder and contemplate for children as well as adults. I suspect the reason sociology, math, or business students etc. show greater critical skill development after 4 years than students in nursing, engineering and economics has something to do with time for self contemplation (the CLA study); you can be so busy you don’t have time to think.</p>
<p>That was all I did. I am, after all, a minimalist at heart. Seems to work reasonably well. Any question, comment or criticism is welcome. </p>
<p>I have no idea what happened to this thread or the direction it took, but back to google for a minute, its seems the # of applicants actually hired is somewhere between 0.5 - 2% so trying to get a job without a degree may not be smart. Sure some people can demonstrate a specific proficiency in programming or coding or such, and may find a spot at Google, but it is only in certain groups, and not a widespread opportunity at Google. So, IMO, get that degree. Stay in school.</p>
<p>That is not Google-specific. Those who get a job ordinarily asking for a degree without one (or a short term job while in progress to one), or who start a successful company despite less formal education than one would expect, are extreme outliers in many respects (including high ability and motivation to self-educate as needed). Because most people do not fit that description, most people would be best served by completing whatever education that is ordinarily needed for their professional goals.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is much more to say about Google. Bock, like the consulting firms Manzi was talking about, recruits only the best and the brightest. I don’t think most students would be hired at places like that. As I said before, we are not living in Lake “Woebegone”.</p>
<p>My self-analysis would not be complete without mentioning my failings. I was quite successful parenting them when they were small, but was less successful dealing with their transition to independence. They were “floundering” a little for a few years from grade 12 to college graduation, learning to manage their own future while we were gradually withdrawing ourselves from their lives. Among @blossom’s suggestions, their only “error” was not going out there and volunteer as much as they should, be seen and be heard. I failed to impress upon them the importance of doing so. They have done some, of course, but not as much as needed to distance themselves from their cohort.</p>
<p>The only wave that I could see was the ageing of the population. I thought my children were well positioned to step in as the boomers are retiring en mass. That did not happen because of the great recession and it looks like we may have a whole lost generation on our hands.</p>
<p>@shawbridge you mentioned too many parents are looking at the rear mirror while “driving” and failing to see the boulder in front of them. I think that is quite true. I would like to hear your rational for not doing an undergrad business degree, as I came to an entirely different conclusion.</p>
<p>re: post 230- Yes, its not specific to google, but (a) many companies have the college degree requirement for most jobs, including programming, and are less likely to talk to a potential candidate without this basic job requirement, and (b) this is a thread about google, so… well, the comment was addressed to/in reference to google. And, I’d just asked several Google employees about this. Also asked about other ancillary staff, like the folks who staff their many cafeterias, etc. They are not fulltime google employees and have a different badge color.</p>
<p>They are probably provided by outside contracting firms, who provide their employment and benefits. Just a guess. Lots of companies use outside contractors for lots of jobs. For example, security at some companies is provided by an outside security company, etc.</p>
<p>“They are probably provided by outside contracting firms, who provide their employment and benefits. Just a guess. Lots of companies use outside contractors for lots of jobs. For example, security at some companies is provided by an outside security company, etc.”</p>
<p>Mailrooms can be contracted out to places like Pitney Bowes.
Corporate fitness centers can be contracted out to companies who specifically manage health clubs.
Corporate cafeterias can be run by places like Sodexho.<br>
Security can be contracted out.
Etc …</p>
<p>The progression in STEM is vertical. It’s often the case you build up level by level. If one is missing, hard to progress. It’s depressing to hear intelligent people say Calculus is useless in real life but learning real proofs is useful. Besides, usefulness isn’t just measured by practical application. There’s also a general comfort factor, being comfortable with numbers or any number related topics, thinking in terms of numbers, etc.</p>