The Left Does not Reason

[SuburbanFarmer]

I've got an Associates as well, and I'm always stunned at how hard HR departments cling to Bachelor Degree requirements.

It's laziness, more than anything. It's easier to use arbitrary requirements than it is to make difficult judgments about character and what-not.

I also think the regulations/laws that make it so difficult to fire people play a role. Taking risks on potentially unqualified people can be expensive. I don't think that a degree is the same as being qualified, but that's the consensus reality I suppose.

True story.

[clubgop]

I've got an Associates as well, and I'm always stunned at how hard HR departments cling to Bachelor Degree requirements.

It's laziness, more than anything. It's easier to use arbitrary requirements than it is to make difficult judgments about character and what-not.

I also think the regulations/laws that make it so difficult to fire people play a role. Taking risks on potentially unqualified people can be expensive. I don't think that a degree is the same as being qualified, but that's the consensus reality I suppose.

Also companies cant gauge their employees on anything else. Unless they want to get sued and have feds breath down their necks. I have older pharmaxist waxing poetic about the good old days about administering aptitude test pick out the best people to send to pharmacy school or business classes. Used to be cheaper too, could take an 18 year old stock boy and put him on a path now, nope.

[Speaker to Animals]

The biggest reason is that the people making the hiring decisions all have college degrees and simply don't want their investment of time and money to be devalued.

Reform has to happen from the top. Corporate boards have to decide that it would be worthwhile to train people from the bottom, which I think would actually be a benefit longterm to corporations who do it, but in the current climate where professionals are interchangeable and expendable, simply won't happen. You'd have to go back to the culture of a worker staying with a company for decades.

[SuburbanFarmer]

The biggest reason is that the people making the hiring decisions all have college degrees and simply don't want their investment of time and money to be devalued.

Reform has to happen from the top. Corporate boards have to decide that it would be worthwhile to train people from the bottom, which I think would actually be a benefit longterm to corporations who do it, but in the current climate where professionals are interchangeable and expendable, simply won't happen. You'd have to go back to the culture of a worker staying with a company for decades.

Not going to happen. It's a gig economy now, thanks to asshat executives finding ways to screw employees. There's simply no way to advance yourself with a single company anymore. You just work 2 years, find somebody willing to pay more, and move on.

[Speaker to Animals]

The biggest reason is that the people making the hiring decisions all have college degrees and simply don't want their investment of time and money to be devalued.

Reform has to happen from the top. Corporate boards have to decide that it would be worthwhile to train people from the bottom, which I think would actually be a benefit longterm to corporations who do it, but in the current climate where professionals are interchangeable and expendable, simply won't happen. You'd have to go back to the culture of a worker staying with a company for decades.

Not going to happen. It's a gig economy now, thanks to asshat executives finding ways to screw employees. There's simply no way to advance yourself with a single company anymore. You just work 2 years, find somebody willing to pay more, and move on.

But that's your problem. A bachelor's of science degree from a difficult university program says a lot about you and shows that you probably can do the work.

Maybe for all the little IT programming and database development jobs, you don't really need it, since almost none of that is really something you learn in a university setting (a good one, anyway). That might be open for people without the degree in the near future, since college no longer really provides much benefit to most people.

But for the high-paying software engineering jobs, you kind of need that degree. If you want to get in there without the degree, then I suggest you get the textbooks from a university library, watch a lot of lectures online, and get involved in one or two open source projects so people can see your work. Just going through the open source community can get you connected to a job. But a lack of degree is going to really hurt you.

The other option is to go into business for yourself. Innovate. Invent something. Break out as a independent contractor or freelancer.

[SuburbanFarmer]

The biggest reason is that the people making the hiring decisions all have college degrees and simply don't want their investment of time and money to be devalued.

Reform has to happen from the top. Corporate boards have to decide that it would be worthwhile to train people from the bottom, which I think would actually be a benefit longterm to corporations who do it, but in the current climate where professionals are interchangeable and expendable, simply won't happen. You'd have to go back to the culture of a worker staying with a company for decades.

Not going to happen. It's a gig economy now, thanks to asshat executives finding ways to screw employees. There's simply no way to advance yourself with a single company anymore. You just work 2 years, find somebody willing to pay more, and move on.

But that's your problem. A bachelor's of science degree from a difficult university program says a lot about you and shows that you probably can do the work.

Maybe for all the little IT programming and database development jobs, you don't really need it, since almost none of that is really something you learn in a university setting (a good one, anyway). That might be open for people without the degree in the near future, since college no longer really provides much benefit to most people.

But for the high-paying software engineering jobs, you kind of need that degree. If you want to get in there without the degree, then I suggest you get the textbooks from a university library, watch a lot of lectures online, and get involved in one or two open source projects so people can see your work. Just going through the open source community can get you connected to a job. But a lack of degree is going to really hurt you.

The other option is to go into business for yourself. Innovate. Invent something. Break out as a independent contractor or freelancer.

Meh. It would just say that I took the time away from my family for 5 more networking classes. A lot of people in IT have degrees in unrelated stuff, like interior decorating, engineering, or history.

It used to say something about personality, I suppose, but not any more. You're either good at learning, or not.

[Speaker to Animals]

Nah. I specifically said I don't think things like IT should require a degree, and I doubt they will generally require a four year degree in the near future anyway.

I was talking about the higher-paying engineering jobs. Few major corporations will hire you for a software engineering job without that bachelor's degree. Even then, after I was hired as a software engineer, it was expected that I continue to get my master's degree, since most of what they needed is taught there.

Most major corporations pay for graduate school as well.

I am trying to imagine what I would have to do if I were tasked with training new hires that lacked the college education, and honestly, I would have to duplicate most of what you get in the computer science curriculum at a university.

Doesn't your employer pay for one or two classes per semester anyway? Just go take the undergraduate classes after work if you have to.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Nah. I specifically said I don't think things like IT should require a degree, and I doubt they will generally require a four year degree in the near future anyway.

I was talking about the higher-paying engineering jobs. Few major corporations will hire you for a software engineering job without that bachelor's degree. Even then, after I was hired as a software engineer, it was expected that I continue to get my master's degree, since most of what they needed is taught there.

Most major corporations pay for graduate school as well.

I am trying to imagine what I would have to do if I were tasked with training new hires that lacked the college education, and honestly, I would have to duplicate most of what you get in the computer science curriculum at a university.

Doesn't your employer pay for one or two classes per semester anyway? Just go take the undergraduate classes after work if you have to.

Nope. $Billion+ insurance corporation can't be bothered. Nor can they afford to give raises.
Employers have almost universally decided to fuck their employees right out the door. It only makes sense to respond as incentives dictate.

Computer science classes mainly revolved around programming C++ and Java, with some hardware and server stuff thrown in. Useful to be familiar with, but not going to make you a top programmer anytime soon. My networking degree was pretty in-depth, but again, not anything that I could actually use, and mostly forgotten within 6 months. Job experience is what matters, and what employers need. Nothing learned in a classroom is really retained, other than general concepts. It has to be done.

And, if nobody is willing to pay and train up from the bottom, that means that new grads get shift work doing whatever-they-can-find, and work their way up through the gigs to doing something interesting. It's the same model as before, but with changing companies, rather than the same one.

[Speaker to Animals]

I don't think you realize what goes into a computer science degree. The programming language is mostly irrelevant. You conceive of it like an IT programmer.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I don't think you realize what goes into a computer science degree. The programming language is mostly irrelevant. You conceive of it like an IT programmer.

That's all it was. Programming classes, with a sprinkling of hardware just to be familiar with it.

That's why I did networking - it looked much more like a useful skill set. I figured that whatever programming language I learned would probably be obsolete.